Rearranging the virtual furniture
I like my blog’s design. I really do. I’ve put a lot of man hours into it, and I can say that the result is close to what I had originally envisioned in Photoshop. Like many web designers, however, I have often been plagued by the never ending desire to completely remake the entire site from scratch. Lately, I have been having that desire, and I have even made a few mock ups of a new design, but I’ve put so much work into this site, I really hate to just throw it away. Plus, I like having extra time to do other things when I get home from work, like play World of Warcraft, or just hang out with my wife. So this morning, I decided that I would start the process of changing the things that I don’t like about my site, and rearranging things as needed/wanted.
One of the main things I wanted to change almost as soon as this design was up was the width. I tend to design fast, and go immediately into coding, because, basically my workflow is poorly organized chaos. The total width of the site fits snugly into a 1024 x 768 screen resolution, but much of that is used up by the swirly lines on the left and right sides of the main content. As much as I like the swirlies, which help break up the squared off boxiness of the site, I am probably going to get rid of them in favor of expanding the main content column. I don’t really produce a ton of content, and the current width definitely satisfies the amount of content it contains, but I like blogs that have a newspaper-ish layout to them. Content is king, so I want to showcase that a little more than I’m currently doing. Give my content a little more screen time, you know? Plus I just like the look of a wider main content section, so it’s still a design decision, in a way.
Another idea that I’m fiddling with is importing external data from the many social networks I am a part of. The only reason I haven’t committed to this yet has been because of the huge lag that can occur when loading a page that is pulling data from flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, and many others. I’ve tried many different WordPress plugins, but they all suffer from the same lag issue. So far, I have just put up links on the ‘About‘ page for the social networks I use.
The footer is nicely rounded off, but that makes a lot of unused space at the bottom of the site. I think I am going to square it off. I know, boring, but maybe I will make a more interesting footer with more info at the bottom, We’ll see. I don’t currently have a clear idea of what I will do with it.
The page navigation on this site is a little weird, in my opinion. On the single post pages, it’s at the top where you’d expect it, but on two column pages, it’s just a few text links in the sidebar, minus the link for the home page, which is accessed by clicking my name in the upper left hand corner. I think I’d like to centralize the navigation in one spot. Probably underneath the name and tagline to this blog. I think that is more intuitive and just makes more sense.
I also may or may not add a side menu to the single posts pages. The jury’s still out on that one.
All of these changes will definitely take some time, but not as much as coding a brand new site from scratch. I still consider this the beta version of the site, so changes are inevitable. I’m very proud of myself for not throwing away this design, because as I stated above, I really do like it a lot. In the meantime, when you see graphics that are out of place and the site seems to generally be in chaos, just remember, that’s me, rearranging the virtual furniture.
Aug 27th, 2008 @ 10:58 pm
hey,
i like how your design is fairly plain and the navigation looks great. The site is broken in ff3 osx though. the footer image is out of line buy about 200px and individual posts are floating to the right instead of being centered.
check out my blog, i redesigned it about 2weeks ago after not using WP for over a year. tell me what you think.
odin
Aug 27th, 2008 @ 11:07 pm
Thanks for the nice words. This design should be completely broken in all browsers currently, because I’m in the middle of working on it live. It should remain broken for the next few days, possibly longer, until I’m finished.
Aug 27th, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
figured it may have been somthing like that, im still getting my site to work with IE6 :( i hate ie. did u check out my design?
http://twe4ked.com/index.php/2008/07/back-to-wordpress
Aug 27th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
Not yet, I’m about to go to bed, but I promise I will tomorrow. Some people just ditch IE6 altogether, like this guy: http://avalonstar.com/bsod/
Aug 28th, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
As someone who is currently tweaking six seperate themes including a brand new and shiny for my own site (following an IE breakage - BTW, I love the BSOD at Avalonstar) I can completely empathise with what you are going through. I just wish I had your eye for perfection.
Aug 29th, 2008 @ 3:41 am
All working in FF3 now, well done. :)
Aug 29th, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
@ Bec - Holy crap! I couldn’t imagine working on six separate themes at the same time, I’d lose my mind! This very simple looking design that you are looking at right now is even a bit difficult for me. The CSS is getting funky on some of the pages, with spacing issues between paragraphs and little things like that. I really appreciate your kind compliments though!
@ Tweaked: I checked out your site, and I really liked it! I looked at it yesterday like I said I would but didn’t get around to letting you know. I left a comment just a few minutes ago on your above link! Good work.
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
OOooh, I like this site! Just don’t tell OJ about it, or he’ll come to your house and kill you! If the glove does not fit, you must acquit. Speaking of acquiting, that’s what my agent did. He a-quit! I hope OJ doesn’t get him! Oh no!
Yeah, so have you heard about this new sushi craze in LA? Apparently it’s really popular. Hey, who — oh who am I kidding. This joke is going nowhere. I have a prop that would allow it to slightly make sense, but it wouldn’t really be funny. My life is SO miserable. I think I’m going to acquit at life. Where’s OJ when I need him?
Sincerely,
Carrot Top
Las Vegas, NV
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
Um, thanks Carrot Top, that was nice. I like the way the story had a central theme and it resolved itself by coming full circle. I would have awarded you extra points for linking to your web site: http://www.carrottop.com/
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
Don’t you dare link to my website without my permission. That’s it, you asked for it. Now I’m going to cry.
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
Good.
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
This makes me pine for the days when I hosted Carrot Top’s A.M. Mayhem on the Cartoon Network. Things were different. It was about the jokes. It was about the smiles on people’s faces. It wasn’t about websites, or money, or my plastic surgeried face, or… oh screw it.
*loading gun with 1 bullet*
-To Be Continued-
Sincerely,
C.T.
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 10:50 pm
Oh, please don’t continue. Just shoot yourself. Thanks!
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 11:01 pm
Good evening, this is the Las Vegas County Coroner. We’re cleaning up a deceased male who sawed off the front of his face and then jumped butt first into a room full of barbed wire. Apparently his gun jammed, so he had to improvise, and apparently he wasn’t too good at that. But then again, I already knew that, as I had seen his stand-up act.
Sincerely,
The Coroner
Sep 6th, 2008 @ 11:09 pm
That’s really funny. I actually laughed. Now I’m going to sleep. Goodnight Carrot Top’s computer.
Sep 7th, 2008 @ 9:58 am
I also enjoy the new design. Good times I tell you. Now, if only I can learn your template skills like Neo from the Matrix learned Kung-Fu
Sep 7th, 2008 @ 10:46 am
@ Dave: Thanks for the nice compliments! I’m still tweaking it here and there, but it’s pretty much done as far as I’m concerned.
Sep 7th, 2008 @ 12:33 pm
@ LA Coroner: I laughed like a mental patient when I saw your comment. Thanks for the good times.