02/04/2007 
8 Comment(s)A Fresh, New Design
As regular visitors will know I get bored easily, and when this happens I tinker. You know how it is :)
A few weeks ago all round nice guy Stu Hall made a comment posing whether I would ever actually undertake a full redesign of this site, or simply allow it to morph gradually through persistent tweaking. At the time I felt the latter, but whilst tweaks are certainly key to good design we all need a fresh start on a clean canvas from time to time. I can think of a several recent examples. Anyway times change and, as I'm sure you'll be accustomed to, so does this site.
The whole 'one column' issue
There's been a fair bit of debate *cough*Elessar*cough* about the slim one column layout structure I had in place. I liked it. It made the page instantly clear at a first glance, made the design feel more unique, and gave me complete control as to where I directed my visitor's eyes. However I've got to face facts - multi-column layouts do work well with large quantities of information. So this is how I've played it; the most important page content - articles, etc - have remained one column. This is minimalist and suits my design tastes to a T(ucker). Further down the page however comes the secondary content; comments, navigation, whatever. This is less important and therefore is structured over three columns, each serving a different niche and clearly labelled. It's kinda-like the best of both worlds ;)
Visuals
The overall visual design has changed quite significantly, as you've no doubt have noticed. White space is now in abundance and layout imagery is far more subtle. Banished is the characteristic drop down menu. Everyone loved it for the first 2-3 visits then got sick of it later. As Rik Lomas told me; it gets a bit gimmicky, and he's right. The navigation block is being relegated to the rear of the page, so ultimately I have no need to conceal it anymore.
Where's the fancy shit?
The 'zing' in the new design is the static header. Obviously this does not work in Internet Explorer 6, which is a steaming pile of horse shite, but still doesn't look bad by any means. It just isnt static. This however came at the price of time, sweat and tears - you have no idea just how much a pain in the arse it was to get this header looking perfect across all modern browsers. Talk about a CSS nightmare! I'm pretty pleased with the result though, so I'm not going to complain any longer.
The other stuff
I've tried to inject a bit more of my character, humour and personality into version 7. A more visible 'about me' paragraph tells new visitors who I am, quirky comments appear under some various page headlines, there's the new little 100% Steve Tucker sticker (for no reason other than why not?) and I've rewritten some of the standard text to be a little more informal - as if it wasn't bad enough already.
For all you love-sick ladies out there there's also a new pic of me in the about page to feast your eyes on. Oh my.
So how does it make you feel?
As always feel free to offer feedback, good or bad. Subsequent to a glorious fortnight away from blogging I'm back in the groove again. You should try taking some blogging time off too - it'll clear your head and free up shed loads of your time :) But let me know what you think anyway - it's always constructive to get people's opinions.
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On 30th of November 2006 Rik said:
Comments less important are they? ;)
Nice redesign Steve. The text at the bottom is a bit on the small side, as I have to lean forward to read it properly. What font are the headers?
On 30th of November 2006 Steve Tucker said:
Thanks Rik. You're right, the text is very small, but I felt it added extra emphasis to the main content.
Comments arnt less important - they just fitted the space down here on the left well ;)
Cant remember what font the headers are off the top of my head - ill get back to you on that one...
On 30th of November 2006 Owen said:
'Tis a nice straight forward (aesthetically that is) redesign Steve. Quite a pleasant surprise from the previously dark and moody incarnation.
I'll have a good look around later. The text is very small, but hey, I can still read it can't I :)
Good stuff.
On 30th of November 2006 J Phill said:
Now, I could have sworn that the last comment I made was saying "nice redesign".....so here we are again! Nice redesign!
This has been the best one yet in my opinion. You nail the one column for content, and it helps focus on the content alot.
I also really like the header being static. Good work, I love the simplicity! :)
On 30th of November 2006 Steve Tucker said:
@Owen: Yes, this version is definitely much lighter than the last version. The text is small but hey, its readable and looks nice. When I get some free time I plan to put some visual cusomisation options in, which should help do the trick ;)
@John: Cheers mate, im glad you like it :D
Simplicity is definitely the way forward...
On 30th of November 2006 Andrew said:
I liked the old design a lot, but this is nice and clean, especially on larger monitors.
I totally agree that the single content column is well and truly nailed.
On 30th of November 2006 Elessar said:
Great look! I love orange, but i really like the layout with all the information :)
Any chance there is a 'skip to content' or something similar?
On 30th of November 2006 kitsimons said:
White space rulez! Nice job Steve. I like it. I'm really into 100% width headers at the moment as well.
I tend to agree with Rik on the comments though - they don't necessarily need to be any bigger, but perhaps they would be better off with the article itself, above the dividing line? At the moment they blend into footer realm and seem a little disconnected from the article they relate to.
Still, a very minor point that is not to detract from a very nice re-design.
On 30th of November 2006 Steve Tucker said:
Great responses all round guyz :)
Bar some minor teething points it might just be there.
@Andrew: you're definitely right there - the higher the resolution the better this design looks.
@Elessar: I seriously considered a skip to navigation, and I still am. My only drawback is that I love how clean the header section currently is...
@Kit: The comments are going to take some real thought I think. I like the cleanliness of the page with them down here, but ideally they should be with the content, or made to stand out more.
On 30th of November 2006 Spencer said:
Great redesign steve
love the fading gradient on the static header. Overall feels much cleaner design :-)
On 1st of December 2006 P.J. Onori said:
Great job man - you've been busy! Seriously though, there is just so many new features to take in.
Once again, major kudos.
On 2nd of December 2006 Phil said:
Nice website redesign! very stylish. I love it!!