Hey look, new Sillyness
That's right, the old place has a new coat of paint. Although I really liked the previous design, it just didn't give me enough flexibility.
I had planned on starting a new series about WordPress MU, but the site design as it was just didn't lend itself to that sort of thing. So I decided to back off the series until I had a design that fit more with what I wanted to accomplish with Sillyness. So out came some new colors, a revamped logo, and the most striking change, a grid.
I had been hearing a lot of noise about Blueprint, so I thought I would give it a shot. I cobbled this design together in 4 hours, 2 yesterday and 2 today. This includes creating the new logo, and researching the colors I wanted to use this time around. Not too shabby.
The non-semantic div names really bother me (which has everything to do with me personally, and very little to do with the framework), and it is frustratingly hard to do pixel perfect fine tuning, but I have to say this is a nice bit o'code. And it is young.
There are still a great many things to do, like adding a search in (I still haven't decided where I would like that to be), and adding some meta information to the Narrative & Commentary listing, but all in all, I am digging this design.
What do you think?
Pingbacks & Trackbacks
- MacManX.com | Blogroll Dive: 9/21/07 » ...217;s briefly commented on the successful premiere of another one of her original compositions. Chris re-designed his blog with “some new colors, a revamped logo, and the most striking change, a ...
Leave a Reply
Speaking
-
ApacheCon US
November 3-7, 2008
New Orleans, Louisiana
Register for ApacheCon!
Buy my book!
Featured Information
If your loan installments have been pending for over a year, you should consider debt help. The debt relief will completely erase any unsecured debt. Since buy to let mortgages are secured, these do not qualify. When we talk about any type of insurance, like life insurance, we are asking you to take yourself out of risk. The insurance quotes with high premiums are usually due to your health. If you're healthy and want to travel, you can get cheap travel insurance.
Stroll on over and visit SEO Carly
September 20, 2007
Wow, looks... ahh different.
Can't say i love it or hate it yet but it certainly is different.
The font size i can't say is the easiest to read, mainly the size, font type and contrast between the background makes it "slightly" difficult to read. A simple few paragraph entry isn't too bad but i think reading something more substansial would start to get a bit difficult.
Also on IE7 (yeah i know) you've got a horizontal scroller on your entry pages but it's not present on home page.
P.S I also sent you an Email about a week or so ago Chris, maybe it got canned.
Carly,
Stroll on over and visit Chris J. Davis
September 20, 2007
Hey Carly.
Yes, much different isn't it! I hear you on the contrast/font size issue. I am one to prefer larger font sizes, so I will definitely be looking into that as things settle.
IE 7 and 6 have some oddities, but not as many as I had anticipated, I should be able to have them worked out shortly.
I didn't see you email, I will check my junk folders and see if it was sent to purgatory.
Stroll on over and visit clint
September 20, 2007
excellent man. I'm glad you got gridded up. And I think you will definitely dig multi-classing. I've been doing that on a recent project of mine and it has proven absolutely invaluable.
Stroll on over and visit Erik Sagen
September 20, 2007
It's kartooner approved, if there was such a thing. Loving the crest and the color scheme, not to mention the scribbled hr's.
Best CJD redesign ever.
Stroll on over and visit J. Bradford
September 20, 2007
Looking good Chris... Maybe a separator between comments would be in order? They kind of butt up against eachother a little closely. Other than that I'm digging it.
Tell you a secret... My site was built with Blueprint as well. Took a little longer than you (due mostly to my indecisiveness), but it was a relatively decent experience. I went back and made the code a little more semantic when I was through.
Anyway, great design, good times. Keep it comin' P) (pirate emoticon... keep it alive)
Stroll on over and visit Dean Robinson
September 20, 2007
Nice. Big change from the last design, and I like it. I have always found that one column is just too restricting, and finding the right grid can be a difficult exercise.
However I really like the grid you've got happening on the home page. Only comment would be to make the single posts stand out a bit more, seems like they could get lost with the comment directly next to it.
Other than that top stuff as always, and further demonstrating the flexibility of Habari.
Stroll on over and visit Anton
September 20, 2007
I'm not a fan of HUGE type but you know that already, otherwise, I'm digging the clean-ness of it all.
Stroll on over and visit Chris J. Davis
September 20, 2007
Thanks for all the comments guys I appreciate it.
Stroll on over and visit Marko
September 20, 2007
I like it, its very "vanilla" GG mate!
Stroll on over and visit Adam C.
September 20, 2007
Hey, wow! It looks really great. I guess my only beef would be with the main font. Maybe a little bigger... maybe some serif love... but overall, it's fantastic!
Stroll on over and visit Klein Maetschke
September 20, 2007
Is your favicon Silent Bob from Clerks?
Stroll on over and visit tinyau
September 21, 2007
It's very refreshing Chris but I like your previous design more. :P There's a minor issue that horizontal scroll bar is shown when using Firefox maximized under 1024x768 resolution. Seems like a little overflowed.
Stroll on over and visit Chrstopher Ware
September 21, 2007
I love the new look. I gotta agree with Erik - best CJD redesign ever.
Stroll on over and visit Patrick Haney
September 22, 2007
I dig the new look. Very simple and elegant, focusing on the content and not some snazzy graphic here and there. I see some room for improvement on the homepage, where the content sort of all runs together, but otherwise it looks great.
Now you've got me wanting to look into Blueprint CSS. It might be useful for work projects.
Stroll on over and visit SEO Carly
September 22, 2007
"I didn't see you email, I will check my junk folders and see if it was sent to purgatory."
Thanks Chris, i resent it using my ISP email.
Also the design is definately growing on me, i think it was more the fact you didn't mention a re-design.. just whamo got us by surprise. :)
Stroll on over and visit Shawn Grimes
September 22, 2007
Whoa, how did I miss this! D'oh!
Well better late than never they say. I love the new look and colors Chris. I agree with Patrick about the content sort of running together though I'm not totally thrown off by it. The only other thing that sticks out at me is the "Add your Comment" button as it doesn't seem to fit the feel of the rest of the site.
I really dig the cleanliness and readability of it all though, great work as per usual my friend.
Stroll on over and visit Bobby
September 23, 2007
I like this new look. It's easier on the eyes and less depressing looking :)
Stroll on over and visit Dwayne
September 24, 2007
Nice look, I like the simple design, makes it easy to read your blog. I'm not a big fan of the large print for the header though.
Stroll on over and visit Scott Lenger
September 26, 2007
I think this is a big improvement over the previous design. In particular, the content is much easier to parse. I also like how you did the headings.
I'm working on a blueprint based design as well, sort of. I screen-captured the grid for use in photoshop, but I'm writing the CSS on my own to make the site fluid. I guess that completely defeats the purpose of blueprint, but props to the grid! (Needless to say, it's taking me longer than 4 hours)
Stroll on over and visit valerie
September 26, 2007
I like it a lot! (Aside from the errors you've got going on at the top, of course, heh.) The header is like a smack in the face, in a good way, really woke me up. And the comments the side, love that :)
Stroll on over and visit morydd
September 27, 2007
I like the design. It sort of reminds me of my High School newspaper during the two years that the Art department stole it from the English department. We were frequently spent more time on layout than content on that. It looked great. Not always the most well-written, but that's not a risk here.