New Skin
April 20th, 2006I’ve made some changes to the layout of the site. If it looks screwy, click your refresh button a lot.
Heather asked me a couple of weeks ago if she could take a crack at redesigning blurbomat. She did some awesome work to make the site three columns. I didn’t want to move too far away from the last iteration so this isn’t as much a redesign as it is an incremental design. Yes. I know. Very Web 2.0. Still, the fonts are larger and hopefully more readable. She’s an awesome designer and a blast to work with. Yes, I’m saying that to get in her pants, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Thank you, Heather!
I’m still working on some of the colors and spacing, so over the next few days you’ll probably see some minor tweaks here and there. The site is designed for at least a 1024×768 monitor resolution. Apologies if your screen size is below that.
I also took the opportunity to make some of the code a little more semantic. I’ve still got some work to do, so code nerds beware. I haven’t yet tried to validate, following a long tradition of seat of the pants live recoding. I’ll get to the archive pages after I publish this, so hopefully most of you won’t have to live through the pain of shite static pages.
As always, the site looks best in FIrefox and Safari, with IE 6 lagging in some of the CSS support.
This quick project was a welcome respite from awaiting news from plumbing contractors and wondering how in the hell we’re going to pay for a new sewer line without going into debt. More on the Sewer Nightmare™ later. o
April 21st, 2006 at 10:10 am
I like the new look. It feels a bit off-center, which is cool.
Love the picture of you and Chuck snugglin’.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:10 am
Long time reader, first time commenter… Great update of the look. It looks similar enough to the old style that it’s not jarring, but it’s a fresh and really spiffy upgrade. Yes, I said spiffy.
I like the color palette a lot. Spiffy, as well.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:12 am
Duh, you have the 2:1:1 ratio… I’m a tool. I was really meaning a 2/3:1/6:1/6 ratio… kinda- like… know what I mean? Or maybe 3/5:1/5:1/5… something to that aspect… Hokey- Dokey (I really don’t talk like that, but…) I’ll shut up now…
April 21st, 2006 at 10:38 am
I like it.
My only complaint? I can’t see the ADS! I only come here (and to dooce.com) for the ADS!
Well, I come for the ads and to make goofy comments, of course.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:43 am
I really like the new skin. Very airy, very inviting.
One thing though (and I don’t mean to be une bitche), is that Blurbomat looks like “Bjurbomat” now.
Or maybe I’m weird.
April 21st, 2006 at 11:13 am
Site looks great. Don’t listen to the dropped-l baggers—your mark looks good now and always has.
April 21st, 2006 at 11:37 am
Jon, I think links might be broken in the comments. I tried to link to Silktide’s SiteScore in my earlier post and it got omitted for both the preview and the actual post.
(Link was: http://tinyurl.com/pnkwu)
April 21st, 2006 at 11:38 am
my 2ยข: I like it…the fonts are larger than I’m used to, but certainly not annoyingly large. I like that the ads are all on one side, instead of encroaching from all corners. And I like that it’s coded for Safari…but that’s the Apple Lover in me speaking. You guys are a great team
April 21st, 2006 at 11:38 am
OK, it’s there now, sorry for that. Earlier I tried using actual tags with A HREF etc…
April 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
I agree, your “L” is fine. Very nice redesign!
April 21st, 2006 at 11:52 am
Geriatric typeface? What in the holy shitballs does that even mean?
Serif = Geriatric?
If patatomic hadn’t asked for more white space I’d have guessed he/she might just be one of my clients. But, generally speaking, clients don’t like white space.
Baffled.
April 21st, 2006 at 12:34 pm
It looks great and the font is BIG, HUGE, MASSIVE (i.e. GERIATRIC, YES!!) and now I want to start buying big-print books.
[no biting, please]
April 21st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Jon, let me join the masses who say that they like it. Kudos to the two of you for making me laugh and think most every day.
April 21st, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Slick. I’m jealous.
April 21st, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I was just wondering why you hadn’t changed your template in a while and here you go.
Nice work … both of you.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:04 pm
mihow:
Geriatric meaning larger…as in old people don’t see so good and Jon isn’t really gettin’ any younger and you know, well, I just thought that it’d be fun to just, you know goof around and stuff. Jon calls me “young fogey” and I call him “old fogey” and this is how a couple of man friends show their affection…you know, by masking it in cutting humor.
But now you apparently think that I’m a complete moron so I’ll just go ahead and lay claim to the name “Geriatric” for a new typeface that I’ll be developing where the smallest size will be a robust 72 pt…or maybe I’ll call it “Shitballs” in honor of you…I dunno…either way.
So, stay cool and have a good weekend.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I don’t comment much, but thought I would let you know that I love the new look. Seeing the improvements makes me want to redo my own site. (Sadly, I have no Dooce to design for me…)
Anyway, nice jorb!
April 21st, 2006 at 2:39 pm
I dig the redesign. Well done.
April 21st, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Again, completely unsolicited feedback, but I agree with patatomic for the most part. Nice and clean and spacious everywhere except up top - a little tight according to my general rule, WWTD? (what would Tufte do?), and it’s because of the larger font size on the sidebar. If the larger size is what you’re going for and you still feel serify, maybe try a lighter serif typeface like Bembo that gives the impression of more space without sacrificing size. For some reason serif fonts move weirdly on MacBook Pro’s Safari, and your site is no different. But you’re in good company, I guess, since Tufte uses them.
Good luck getting your plumbing woes fixed.
April 21st, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Patatomic, my mistake. This is what happens on the Internet when you can’t see that two people actually know one another and are “taking the piss”.
I retract my earlier statement and walk away feeling a little shameful. My apologies.
Also, I don’t think you’re a moron. I was just a little confused. I am often confused by feedback received from clients. But you were just teasin and that, my friend, is funny.
April 21st, 2006 at 3:40 pm
mihow:
Thanks…you’re cool.
Blogging is weird.
I need some sleep.
April 21st, 2006 at 3:44 pm
blurb & heather,
I need some web advice. How do you know if your site is readable for everyone out there who are using all different kinds of computers, monitors, browsers, etc, etc, etc????
It looks good on my old iMac and my new Mac Mini with a flat screen in Firefox, Safari, IE, and Netscape, but who knows how it appears on a PC or on smaller screens? Is there any way to gauge that type of thing?
April 21st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Very Nice! When I last updated mine, I unthinkingly formatted everything to look perfect at 1600 X 1200.
Of course, no one else enjoys putting a magnifying glass in front of their screen so I had to change it all around so it would look normal for everyone else in the free world. Then there is always the issue of are they viewing it full screen, or like sane people do, with an appropriate sized window?
From viewing my visitor stats it seems that over 50% of my readers use 1024 x 768 and the majority use that or above…
Once again, love the new format, now get the wifey working on a new banner for you!
April 21st, 2006 at 5:21 pm
It looks amazing, in my opinion.
April 21st, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Nice.