that’s better
05.09.08 • comment (2) • trackback
I knew that other design didn’t feel right. Superfluous, trendy paint splatters and anemic text aren’t my style, apparently. It destroyed my desire to look at my writing, and looking is usually (though not always) a prerequisite for reading. So we’re back to something a little plainer, a lot brighter, and noticeably greener. Those of you who have been reading my site for a long time (hello, the two of you) might be getting a strange sense of familiarity. The current design is a retrofit and update of the first one I ever developed for this domain, almost three years ago to the day. Kick the tires, refresh the caches, and let me know if anything looks weird.
The dearth of posts over the past couple of months was purely a product of my ridiculous workload. After eight or more hours searching the literature, writing papers, and programming in Matlab, the last thing you’d want to do is continue to sit in front of your computer, right? Especially when there’s Mario Kart, like right there. Anyway, the semester is done and the storm has abated. Writing shall resume, because it must.
05.09.08 #
If there’s anything I’ve learned from my own redesigns, it’s that the simple ones last much longer. They help you find what you’re looking for, then they get out of your way.
Good:
- Very elegant. Very formal. Very official. It also say–er, sorry.
- The simple color palette is just enough to make things exciting.
- Did I mention simplicity is good?
- I like the green accents, particularly the line at the top.
Bad:
- The benefits of the green line are lost once you scroll, and the page looks kinda monochrome thereafter. Put it on the side, perhaps?
- The ‘possibly related’ and ‘elsewhere’ headers don’t match the rest of the page. They’re not quite large enough to seem like a header without the color, but the color seems like a much lighter green than the rest. Also, all your post headers are a shade of dark gray.
- The decorative swirls at the bottom of an individual post’s text are a little too obscure for people to immediately know what they are, or what to do with them.
- Inconsistent hover styles (compare site nav with comment/trackback links.)
Ugly:
- The background is beautiful and intricate. Unfortunately, this means that those delicate whorls and swirls are distracting, because it’s just dark enough to interfere with antialiasing. I’m finding it very difficult to scan the text.
- Fully justified paragraphs are teh suck with automatic kerning. If you ignore everything else, please fix this.
–SF
05.11.08 #
Green is my favorite color, and you have chosen some excellent shades.