Apr172007

Here is a new design – version 8

Tagged: ,

It’s black, it’s green. There is big text over there. Most importantly of all: the links are back, baby. I am sure you all missed them, I know I did. I liked sharing links with people. For the first time ever, these links have comments associated so you can write a little about what you thought when you clicked through.

Victoria Harbour

Victoria Harbour

There is javascript everywhere

Yes that’s right. There’s shitloads of javascript running rampant all over the place. Javascript for dynamic headline replacement, link hover styles, relative date formatting, faux dialog boxes and probably some other things I forgot about. Whatever, javascript is fun now that something like the Prototype library exists.

If this site takes too long to load because of the javascript, I will think about cutting back a little.

What’s this big space on the right?

Yeah, I got rid of the sidebar. I’m tired of looking like a default blog template. Sidebars are for pussies who feel they need to link to everything. I have gone in a different direction and I’m going to need to dust up the searching templates to offset the loss of a sidebar.

If I get bored, I might write up some fake Google ads and put them on the right side just to fuck with people.

There’s a blogroll hiding around here

I thought it would be neat to have a blogroll entry randomly picked and displayed on each of the individual entry pages. The idea has soured on me a little because the big black bar is too prominent. But who knows? It might just work out. If not, it’s a 2-second fix to remove it.

There are photos at the bottom of the page

Yes, I have integrated with my flickr because these days I really like my photos.

Speaking of photos, there are 5 cat photos hidden on this site. It shouldn’t take too long for someone to find all 5 and win the super duper prize that is on offer for finding cat photos (hint: I just email you another cat photo).

What do you think?

I like this design. Hopefully I will write more insightful blog entries as a result of it.

I forgot to mention. Completely untested in any browser except Firefox on Mac. I am getting sloppy in my old age.

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12 comments »

Fubar

you got ants in your pants boy? You keep changing your theme more often the weather changes in Melbourne….Seriously the last theme was better, just needed a Seattle sky line on the top….integrated with the flicker photos on the bottom and it would be awesome…..err this one is ok…but yeah

Ed: Err your opinion is appreciated…but yeah
Jack

I didn’t like the last one… too square and looked too much like a default template.
Mike

Melbourne’s weather has been pretty consistent lately. I like the way this themes heading. The font looks more professional to me. Crisper I guess is the word I’m looking for. Again, and I say this every time you change themes (which isn’t that often really.), but hows about some funky pics/graphics/designs. Something to distract the eye from the monotony of letters. Well that’s my two cents. Keep up the good work jack :-)
karan

(y)
Dennis

Hey cool. You know I like gigantic text right? :)
Maybe you remember the 100pt Century Gothic ‘Library’ text for the LMS. :P

I kinda like the idea of sprinkling random links and photos around… kind of tumblelog-ish.
The stuff at the bottom is somewhat easy to miss at a glance though.

Ed: Yeah the problem with the whole “big footer” design choice is that a lot of the times it gets skipped over. Which I think is sort of a fun thing, that people can visit a site for ages and only later discover something.
Lachlan

In a strange turn of events, I agree with Fubar for once! I preferred the other design to this one, mainly because I feel naked without navigation though :P Also, I liked the presence of the photos on the old one ‘coz it added a bit more of a ‘unique experience’ vibe. Just my opinion though!

Ed: Shut up you worthless worthless man. (Nah I’m kidding! I thought the last design was dreadfully un-unique. I couldn’t look at it anymore.)
addy

Agrees with Lachie and Fubar.

It feels sterile and, yeah, like Lachie said, a little devoid of personality.

And I’m not going to apologize for my opinion, cos Addy is always right.

Love you, Jack!

Ed: You’re sterile! :P
karan

hm, I have to say it looks much better on a Mac – the difference is subtle, but there’s something there. I can understand what the other guys are saying, in that it looks a bit floaty and unconstrained – I think it’s good use of white/negative space.

the three little icons up top look a little odd tho – colour co-ordinate if you’re going to have them!
Jack

Ha! Colours my ass.

Actually yeah colours might be something to work on. Now that I’ve pushed this design out the door, I know what I want to fix. 1) Flash, 2) IE, 3) Colors. In that order.
Lachlan

Good to see you’re still keeping the design fresh Jack :)
chicky

too much scrolling!!!! can’t you make the bottom picture bit static?

but i like. green and i like big text. just too much scrolling. hurts my eyes.
Daniel

This is 9/10ths of a great design. Just need some tweaks. I’m not liking that tag cloud. Feels cluttered. Maybe you could hide it using the javascripts? Also, there’s too great a disconnect between the header and footer. If it was all on one screen, it’d be fine (I’m sorry, don’t have 30″ unlike Rands) but maybe you could do one of those funky headers/footers, 10pix of which sticks to the top of the screen. So when it loads, there’d be a black bar down the bottom, kind of a visual clue of what’s to come?

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