[posted by Alice]
Having a web-based magazine means doing a certain amount of web design, but we’ve always tried to keep the design of The Cafe Irreal simple so the focus is on the stories. When the first issue of Cafe Irreal went online in February of 1999, it had a somewhat stark black-and-white design, and for the first few years the “cover” of each issue featured an animated gif collage. Those were the days of font tags and the other messy building blocks of early html.
With the February 2014 issue we’re rolling out a new design for which we’re using html 5 and a CSS framework, Pure, to make a responsive site. Pure is available at http://purecss.io/. We used a couple of their common layouts and customized them. The resulting site reminds us a little of the original, black-and-white Cafe Irreal design, and it’s nearly as light-weight. Let us know what you think.
The Irreal Cafe 
I love the design.
Thanks for your feedback. Also, just FYI, I have written a short review of Curtains and published it on The Irreal Cafe. I enjoyed the book.
Best,
Alice