Work continues on reworking the design of this place. I think I’ve finally come up with something that I like, too — miracles never cease!
This time, I took some time to bounce around some of the sites that have caught my eye the most. Generally, they tend to be the exact opposite of what I’ve had here for a long time. Where I’ve had some sort of compulsion to present everything possible at once, all on the front page, I’m far more drawn to very sparse, open, clean designs. Yet, for absolutely no reason that I can come up with, I’d never made an attempt at that style.
So, this is where I think I’m heading at the moment. The navigation bar at the top will take care of all the extraneous crap. ‘About’ will lead to my about page, which will absorb things like my music and reading lists. ‘Past’ takes care of my archives. ‘Comments’ will catch the last n comments made (I’m waffling on this one, actually — it seems a little silly to have a page just for that, but it’s also really nice to have a quick reference of when someone’s said hello). ‘Elsewhere’ will handle both the blogroll and the Destinations feed (just how, I’m not sure yet, but that will come). And lastly, ‘Feeds’ will hold my RSS feeds (which I plan on expanding to include an excerpts feed, a full post feed, and a comment feed).
At least, that’s the basic concept to start with. As always, questions, comments and words of wisdom are greatly appreciated!
Update: A quick list of inspirations, code examples, and other ideas as I work on this. Links may be added here as I go.
I like the new design. I think you were headed in the right direction (a couple posts ago) when you were trying to highlight the content area by making the sidebars grey, but I like the newer design better though.
I did the same thing redesiging my weblog. I’m on the Plus plan so my hands are a little tied as far as how much I can push the templates, but for a while I was constantly changing it. What I found, and I think your instincts are right, is to make the content area the most important thing visually. Although I understand about wanting to keep all the information within view, I think people are more prone to read your posts if that’s all they have to look at. Once they’re interested they are more likely to click around the rest of the site. (Well at least that’s how I respond to weblogs.) The new design works well promoting that idea. And it looks cool too. Nice move with the global navigation at the top.
hey here’s a page on how you can do up your navigation using unordered lists: Listmatic
I wasn’t going to say anything but since you asked. Your blog tends to get cluttered. The sidebars are too tightly packed and the font is too small. Yes…I’m old, have bad eyes and need glasses but I can’t be the only person that need glasses while using the computer. I would also vote for some color, right now it almost looks like a newspaper, but then again maybe that’s what you’re looking for. I would say don’t design your site by committee, or votes. Trust your instincts; make it a reflection of who you are… And I do like the direction you’re heading.
i like it better. first – it’s nice that the image at the top of the page actually goes all the way across the screen – at least the one i’m using at this coffeehouse. :) like the centered title (and the blue in the title). I’ll look at this tomorrow on my usual computer and see if I can come up with anything. :) I’m hoping that the text will be a little smaller there than on the one I’m using now. I have a feeling it will be. nice to see you experimenting a little.