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 7:39 pm
I like it. The colors are soothing.
Then again, the Blurbodoocery could scrawl its collective thoughts on the back of a napkin, in crayon, then scan it as a .jpg file - and I’d still devour every word.
April 21st, 2006 at 8:01 pm
The text is cleaner and easier to read. I’m not sold on not having the text in the middle column , but it’s not a big deal and and I’ll probably like it in the end.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:13 pm
patatomic: I’d like to add my vote for the “shitballs” typeface. After Horsepuke (Misprinted Type) I think the world could use a “shitballs.”
Perhaps I just like saying it. I won’t, don’t worry.
Regarding “geriatric…” Fellow Utahn Cameron Moll approaches this from a different direction, saying something to the effect of “nothing says children’s book like huge type.” I couldn’t agree more. Of course I say that as I, too, am working toward increasing the type size on my blog.
Whatevuh. We fogeys — young and old — could all use some lasik.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:15 pm
i like it. who cares? no one. but i still like it.
the burnt orange and green play nicely off each other. the logo flower/star/thing/shape is still very much cool. and i like seeing the info right under the title. sweet.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:38 pm
I love it. The only thing is- and this could be my sleep deprivation talking- the little flower thing above Blurbomat makes me think it says Biurbomat.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:50 pm
It’s actually pronounced “beyurbomat” as in “bjorn”.
Erat, beyurbomat is not for children. Just old farts with bad eyes.
April 21st, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Looking hot, Johnny Handsome!
April 22nd, 2006 at 7:14 am
I agree the logo looks like ‘Biurbomat’…and why does the ‘t’ drop down? I’m just trying to nose into your rationale here, as a fellow designer. Anyway it doesn’t detract from the super-duper-fantasticness of the site. I know, I made up words, cos that’s how great it is.
New skin is great, new layout is great - as always the Flickr photos are great. Nicely done Heather (& Jon)
April 22nd, 2006 at 2:17 pm
American political commentary now with a Scandinavian edge. Cool.
I’m going to go put on some ABBA.
Sebastian
April 22nd, 2006 at 3:55 pm
the L in blurbomat looks like a big ol’ dotted i or j. other than that it’s clean, crisp and easy on the eye.
April 23rd, 2006 at 3:22 pm
i’m diggin’ it. nice and clean.
April 24th, 2006 at 10:40 am
This is a lesson to wannabe designers like myself. If I’m not mistaken, that blurbomat logo was there before, it was just smaller (and with slightly different colors, maybe?). Make it bigger, then it gets noticed.
Either that or people were waiting for a redesign to mention it.
Anyway, rock on, Armstrongs. When I win the lotto, perhaps I could interest you in some freelance work to redesign a couple of my sites…
April 25th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
I like the new skin very much. Congrats to Heather! I wish I could get new skin…ah, no such luck.
April 27th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
i like the redesign, for the most part. except the font face. i think the font type in the comments is much easier to read than the one on the main blog. JMHO. the rest is cool.