New Blog Design, First Draft.
Okay, I've had a thrash about in Blogger and finished a rough draft of a new blog template for this site. I've popped it on a test blog rather than risk screwing up this one, for obvious reasons, which can be found here:
My Testbed Blog
Screenshot of the layout:
Obviously it's a work in progress, a few of my own conclusions so far are:
1) The banner is at least too tall, probably too big all around.
2) The predominantly grey-scale colour scheme is a little flat, I could do with adding some more colour just to liven things up.
3) Widgets, widgets, widgets. I not sure there's anything I need to add, but there may be a few things I want to. Maybe couple of mini armory links or the like.
4) The Linkbar really isn't working well with this design. Perhaps drop it?
So, what do you think at this stage. Any and all comments and suggestions are welcome :).
Posts
10 comments:
There seems to be a ton of white space on the edges, so it gets shoved to the right side of my screen and I can't see some of the left.
I'd narrow the right panel, maybe making the entire page narrower rather than expanding the left to compensate.
And what you said as well.
Hrm, that's wierd. The template should adapt itself to be in the center of the screen, just like this one.
What screen resolution are you running, and which browser? And, because I'll hate myself if I don't ask, you are clicking the link through to the actual test blog, aren't you?
Oh... right, click the actual link. Important note: when taking feedback, make sure the feedback giver isn't doing it wrong. No centering problems now. I guess that screenshot was taken with a wider screen.
Phew.
I'll make things more clear in the post.
I was expecting to see a Zebra in the banner :)
Oh, that's not my final banner. It's just there to give you some idea of the dimensions and general layout.
The usual excuse applies though: my art skills suck, so even if it does have a Zebra in it I can't promise it'll be any good ;)
Zebra:
I think it looks nice! The grey/white/black is a fresh new look on the old black/red (or orange) text layout that likes to eat my corneas.
The blogroll on the right is nice too. I would love to add that to my blog if I can ever figure out how to do it in the wordpress format....
I like it, much easier to read, even though I kinda miss the wallpaper. A little more contrast might help prevent it looking too washed out, but you use plenty of screengrabs and illustrations so that might never be an issue.
The obsessive-compulsive in me would like to see the banner span the whole site, if you can achieve that please :)
Love the new design, very clear.
One comment though: could you make the comments better readable? The light grey is hard to read on an lcd-screen.
Is that better?
Thanks for your comments everyone :)
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