satisfying the 6 month itch
For those of you who read me from your rss come and take a look, I’ve changed the website’ looks again. This might be a little bit weird but I’ve succumbed to the itchy fingers and gave the site its 6 monthly change. I got .net issue 194 yesterday and the intro on Eliot J’s piece on design, rang very true to me. I always am more motivated to post when I’ve changed the site. So I change the site nearly as frequently as I change desktop backgrounds.
The background image is based on a picture I saw of ISOStock and which I’ve been using as my desktop at home for the last few days. Every time I look at it it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, so I decided I wanted to get the same feeling from this site. Hence the new look.
Overall I am very happy with the previous theme and didn’t want to completely loose the rest of the feeling of the site, as I’m quite pleased with the way it works. However the combination of pink, white and blue that I found very pleasing in the spring/summer, had been hurting my eyes lately.
The following are my notes from different parts throughout today.
Part one (playing around with photoshop)
This is quite possibly the fastest reskin ever. I got .net in the morning at work, read the article at 6pm and at 8.58 the visual was finished. The css / js took another chunk of time. Taking out last nights sleep and today’s 2.5h siesta (I am after all on holiday)
Part two (9ish pm)
I spent the evening setting up a development dupe of the site and making some changes/ improvements to the underlying html/css/scripting. I swapped nyroModal with Fancybox throughout, including changing the gallery pages using it instead of galleria, a huge usability improvement, as well as much less banwidth demanding.
I tweaked the nav bar so it is now all in cufon and slightly more balanced methinks.
Part three (morning)
I set up the style switcher so it now works properly and doesn’t redirect you to the homepage if you want to change the current theme. I really hate it when sites do that. (also hate when after login sites redirect you back to the homepage instead of the page you logged in from, but that’s another post)
Cleared up my html/css a bit more. Shortened my CSS by about 500 lines, yay! (The horrors of 6 month old CSS. I always snigger at my past CSS, can always see space for improvement. I don’t wanna talk about the tag soups of 6 years ago though :P )
Part four (11ish pm)
Have finished! Sent a link to @sugarenia for an opinion but I’m on the verge of releasing it …
Part four and a half
Got the @sugarenia stamp of approval will import the theme…
Comments
Luvz it. I’d take this over the spring theme anytime.
But you know that you’re now in for another redesign around December, don’t you? I wanna see you in winter mode, lady.
P.S. I envy your redesign skills, please oh please can you be my outsource and finish my semi-finished theme? :P