Here is the first of what will be a series of reflections on my recent blog redesign process. Today I’m reviewing the look and feel of the site.
Let me get one thing out of the way upfront — I am not a graphic designer. I know graphic designers, have worked with graphic designers, and count many of them as friends. I have a great deal of respect for graphic designers. And I, sir, am no graphic designer. But as most things I kind of hack my way through it. I am very comfortable with the structural elements of page design — it is just little things, like colors, fonts, and graphic enhancements that I stumble on. So expect little tweaks to continue here over the next couple of weeks (as I solicit advice from my graphic designer friends!).
And so I find great value in gaining inspirations from the works of others. In this case it is Upstart Blogger Modicus, designed by Robert Ellis of Upstart Blogger at www.upstartblogger.com. One of my problem with the old two column design is that I always had a lot of important sidebar content, and much of it ended up “below the fold.” With three columns the page can still leave plenty of room for the all important content, and have space for a better arrangement of the extras. I think designs need to be usable in an 800 pixel window, but with most monitors today displaying in widths much wider than that, the more horizontal layout should work. I also dislike most fixed-width designs, preferring a fluid content window. In this case I want the left-side, main content column to resize with the window, while the sidebars stay basically fixed. Modicus is a fixed width design, so I needed to seek other inspiration for the structural elements.
Matthew James Taylor offers a selection of “The Perfect 3 Column Liquid Layouts” and his blogger style had almost everything I wanted. My one objection was the lack of white space around the layout. I added a 10% margin and have the layout centered in the window. The end result is a slightly messy mash-up of the two structures and css. If you are using the Firefox Web Developer toolbar or something similar, you should be able to view how this all comes together. In my work I try to strip out the stuff that I’m not using, and to keep the naming consistent. But with these mashups I always end up with something more like a mixed marriage — a little confusing at times, but richer for the diverse backgrounds. On the screen I am very pleased with how it all came out.
For the content layout, again I gathered inspiration from Modicus, but went my own way. For the posts I am using the EVERMORE plug-in. I like the increased control it offers over the standard WordPress excerpts function. More thoughts on the sidebar and other supporting elements to come — stay tuned!
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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