A live redesign in stages
My current site design has been chugging along since 2004. I decided then to go with a minimalist layout with bright colors: skinny navigation, tiny type, and lots of text.
I think now, however, it’s showing its age. Maybe that’s because I look at it every day. But it’s wearing on me, so I plan to start anew.
The first step: Define what’s working and what isn’t.
There are quite a few things from both a content and a maintenance standpoint that just aren’t working for me anymore (feel free to offer suggestions in the comments, by the way).
- Color scheme. I’m tired of white. It’s too easy. It’s too stark. It’s not as comfortable to read on screen. I’d like to jump whole-hog on to the dark color scheme trend.
- The right rail. I’m tired of seeing the two-column thing on other people’s web logs. So I aim to be the change which I seek. I’m thinking three or four columns. Two still works for individual post pages. But not for home pages.
- Too many posts on the home page. I’m suspect most people read this blog with an RSS reader, or they come upon single posts. In either case, having 8 full posts on the homepage is overkill. Plus it doesn’t encourage users to explore the site. Veerle and Powazek are my inspirations here.
- Tiny type. It’s starting to get on my own damn nerves. Too hard to read. Plus, bigger type looks fresh now. Or maybe I’m just getting old and need bifocals.
- It doesn’t looked designed. Granted, I will freely admit that I’m much better at code than design. But I want to show that I got some pixel skills. My creative side demands it.
There’s more, but those are the big issues that I will address with the redesign.
I will also document the process in a series of posts here on the blog. That said, please keep in mind:
- I have no timeline.
- This could take forever.
- You could show up at any time and see something something funky, or completely out of whack.
By documenting the journey, I hope to force myself think about design as both an artistic and a problem-solving process.
You caught me at a good time. I’m uploading some of my website pages in .PHP Since 2004? Damn, I can’t even keep a page design for 3 months. I’m already tired of seeing my green color scheme.
I find that three column layouts confine me to use smaller photos. I usually don’t have anything to fill a third column with.
I’ve seen 2 years worth of posts on a single deadjournal page. It hurt my 56k modem then. Tiny-type makes entries look smaller. Less scrollwheel action. To be honest, your page design looked original and homemade the first time I came across it.
look at my page design evolve! http://www.badsimon.com/layouts.html
[?¢‚Ǩ¬¶] A very accosting layout and a interesting discussion topic, do you provide any Web-based services to universities or students. [?¢‚Ǩ¬¶]
Greetings Milos
I’ve thought about the > 2 column thing but I just don’t have the heart. Ever since I went live with my own domain I’ve tried to keep it simple, and adding another rail just seems to go against that for me. I am also committed to no navigation on the left side and I’m not a big fan of double stacking.
With that said, on many blogs the rails seem to be out of control lengthwise. As I see it, the biggest problem with them is that they aren’t gracefully scalable. It’s not really the rail per se, it’s certain components, mainly the external links (blogrolls, etc.) and the archives.
I’ve jerry-rigged the archives enough for my current satisfaction, but the external links require a bit of creativity to compress. I have a plan, table schema, and class diagram already designed, now I just need time.
I look forward to seeing your innovations.
Link dump on Tiffany:
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200605/levels_of_html_knowledge/
http://friendlybit.com/css/levels-of-css-knowledge/
I apologize if you’ve seen these two before, but they’re a good read.
Thanks Simon!
Hi,
I agree with your “The first step: Define what?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s working and what isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t” article. Verry interesting points!!!
Greeting from Germany
Sven