This paper examines the digital scholarly journal article in light of best practices as described in the design literature. It seeks to answer whether there is a dominant form for the scholarly article, and whether this form is a model of good design. To explore this question, a sample of 80 articles selected from the disciplines of history, design, communication, physics, and biology was collected with broad representation from a variety of publishers including independents, university presses, and open access publishers. The articles were analyzed in terms of design principles with a focus on layout and typography. The extent to which the article remains pre-digital in its appearance, as well as design variability across a number of disciplines was examined. Sample profiles for articles will be presented for each discipline, along with overall recommendations for scholarly journal article layout and design.