It’s just an experiment, but so far I really like this new look.
For a variety of reasons, some obscure, soft blue and white have always felt like my signature colors. At least online. And while the look we took on right after the conversion to WordPress was okay, it never really felt like “home” to me.
This kinda does. I’m not sure about the green leafy look on the upper right corner, but maybe that could be fixed. Other than that, what do you guys think? Comments solicited.
{ 24 comments }
Hmm, the comments form may need a LITTLE work…
Also not a fan of the green thing, though I think it’s a good color. You’re right though, the old thing never did feel right. You also don’t have the whole defending…. quote, which I always liked. I think the DeanEsmay part should be all one color, too, and maybe centered. The balance doesn’t look quite right. Maybe Dean’s World as the header, with the search on the right and the RSS button on the left. Anyway, my two cents.
Ryan
RyanR’s last blog post..Faces of Math
Talk about weird changes of format.
But if it pleases you, Dean, then that’s fine. Because you are our host.
All your old-timers with DW will get used to this in time.
But at first glance, it sort of like what I might say if I were invited into a house with the walls painted dark purple.
Also, couldn’t you do something to blacken the text in the screen posts and comments? Dark gray text on top of a light gray screen background is not exactly useful either for street signs or active blogsites.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Looks to me like a site where dairy farmers would come to learn about the latest fertilizer formulations.Â
Not that there is anything wrong with that….Â
Seriously, the colors are OK.  I’d like a little bit bolder text, though. And a bit wider middle column too.
Apart from the green thing, I like it.
It’ll take getting used to, but that’s achievable.
I would vote for kicking the fonts up a size, though. Easier on old eyes, or at least those that are in the old part of the day, i.e. night.
The ID of the person writing the post seems to have disappeared!!
John_B’s last blog post..Child Marriage Case in the US
no no no change it back
For one thing, the articles don’t carry the author’s name. So, at least, please fix that.
Sexy!
/like
Much better than old format.
Not bad, but it isn’t a fluid blog skin (expand/contract with readers screen resolution). It would take some tinkering in the CSS. And when reading comments on lower resolution of 1024, the sidebar drops out of site below the comments.
I agree the author should be displayed, and a quick check shows it present, but commented out in the "Main Index Template."
For a variety of reasons, some obscure, soft blue and white have always felt like my signature colors.
Oh, don’t stop there Dean - go whole hog and share with us your spirit animal in the drum circle of trust.
When designing a web page, always think "contrast". Whatever colors you choose are okay by me – it’s your blog. But as others have pointed out, it is easier on old eyes if there is plenty of contrast between the text and background. Black text on light blue works pretty good, but in my opinion the text could be a little bigger.
I like the Blue and Green logo in the upper left.
Roy
I like it. It’s sleek and sexy. Like a Mac… wait… I hate Macs…
I think it’s a fairly clean design. As others have commented, a better banner logo would be nice and the default font could be a bit larger.
The structure of the site is efficient and smooth, but the leafy stuff with the white/blue does say "dairy farmer".
A website needs to give a visitor information about its content, and it needs to give that info in seconds. If you replaced the leafy stuff with a cool blue globe, or if you put up the old header, it would work.
I think any of these could work, but the problem with any of these custom themes is that modifying te theme takes work. What would be better is a theme that lets you directly tweak layout, aesthetics, etc without having to get messy under the hood. I personally prefer K2 and Thesis – with Thesis being superior (but not free). To be honest you could probably get 99% of the functionality using the wordpress default theme over the one you have now or the one you had yesterday.Â
I’m not a major commenter just a reader, mostly, but I like it a lot. It’s clean and easy to read.
One question though: who is Rosemary the Queen? I’ve never seen any posts by her – is she a real contributor?
Font bigger? Please? Middle-aged. Blind. Squinty.
There’s a ratio of words per line to readability that’s being offended in the template for posts. But it’s about right in the template for comments.
The lines of type in the posts are too long for easy reading. The scanning eye loses its place in trying to track the lengthy lines.
This can be fixed by either shortening the middle column or increasing the size of the body font. I recommend the latter.
John_B’s last blog post..?We?re Not As Special As We Think?
On second thought, definitely reinstate the author’s name under the title — I didn’t notice that at first, and was commenting on the overall asthetic. I like knowing who wrote what, and I like getting credit for what I write.
Very hard for me to read. Like some of the others, old eyes find the font hard to read. I also am not liking the contrast. I need more contrast in the font. A good crisp look would be nice and easy to read.
Thanks for caring.
A little trick some readers may find useful:
On PC’s ‘control +’ will increase the font size for everything on the page
True, it increases the font otherwise I would not have been able to read this at all, but contrast is good.
Thanks, agmartin, for font tip.
I have used various browsers multiple "zoom" features with moderate success, this is better. Now to configure a hot-key…Â
Â
Why do page builders use 4 or 6 point fonts for default, rather than 8 (standard for books) or 10? Note on this page at least one-third of the page-image is actually just the background color, so a small increase of font would not even lessen amount available for side-bars.
You are improving but I’m still getting the sense that I’m reading sawdust through a blue filter.
So why are you afraid of a picture of the Whitehouse now that Bush is leaving ?
Comments on this entry are closed.