Back To Step 1
Believe it or not, I didn’t always use to be a kickass designer. Before all the fancy graphics hit this site I use to be a minimalist. There was so much beauty and functionality in just getting down to the root of a site and that was the draw. I am an aesthetic fiend, but the beauty of design for me lies in the architecture.
So with this in mind Wisdump goes back to my minimalist roots of almost nothing on a page. No matter what I do or try to accomplish with a given design I am always drawn back to this aesthetic. Oreo CEO has the longest running design of almost any site I have ever designed simply because it accomplishes its goals without adding anything unnecessarily.
Understandably this re-redesign took all of 10 minutes to do up after realizing all that I cared about on this site was:
- The latest entry.
- Sponsors.
- Logo identity.
Of course that leaves out search, about page, contact page, advertising page and archives so in some way those will have to be integrated. Maybe I will just add a super thin sidebar or put in one of those cool new footers that all the design kiddies seem to be using. This entry wasn’t meant to say look at me, look at me because in many cases this design falls apart (browsing, SEO, etc.) It was to remind that whenever I want something a bit fancier to try and trick Rundle into doing it.
And yeah this will change again in about 10 more seconds. The life of a kickass designer like myself is a tough one. So many great ideas to sift through…
By Scrivs on July 30, 2006 8:59 pm
Heh, someone should plot the half life of a Scriv’s whitespace/wisdump design :)
By Luke S. on July 30, 2006 9:28 pm
I love minimalist designs. This one is kick ass enough, I don’t think you need Mike to step in just yet. Since your posts here are largely text-based, it makes sense to highlight the latest entry. Digging the new design and logo. And I was strangely drawn to click the sponsors link, no idea why…
By weisheng on July 30, 2006 9:50 pm
By the way, Text Link Ads link is broken ;)
By weisheng on July 30, 2006 9:52 pm
This is very well done.. course, I liked the last one too.. but hey, it’s what *you* want.. many read via a feed anyways..
M
By Matt Craven on July 30, 2006 10:33 pm
Oh, great. Another one-post blog which forces me to click over and over again to read anything.
It might boost your page impressions, but I wouldn’t count on it - it’ll likely be cancelled out by the loss caused by this sudden bout of extremely reader-hostile attitude.
By Ugh. on July 30, 2006 10:34 pm
Hm, wonder what you would have to read over and over again if you aren’t a new reader? And I’ve done this type of design before so I know it really has no effect on pageviews. Trust me.
Yeah, in hindsight I definitely wish I screenshotted all my previous designs so I could do a timeline. And yes, eventually the previous design will become a WordPress theme as I advised a couple weeks ago.
By Scrivs on July 30, 2006 10:39 pm
I miss the “Prussian Blue” design. Imagine my surprise when I went to the WayBackMachine and found the HTML was the same but the CSS had your new design!
By Sean Fraser on July 31, 2006 12:17 am
Yeah the site doesn’t really change that much so doing new XHTML over and over again would be pointless. God bless CSS.
By Scrivs on July 31, 2006 12:47 am
Funny, the only thing I will have clicked so far while on this site is the “submit comment” button, and I read the whole darn thing. What clicking are you talking about?
BTW, I love how the “reader hostile attitude” phrase is coming from a hostile, anonymous poster. Come on, be a man, leave a name or something.
By Richard Medek on July 31, 2006 2:07 am
I’m with you on this one. Love the minimal designs too (well, http://www.maluke.com/ )
Everything serves a purpose — that is design.
By Sergey on July 31, 2006 7:36 am
Hey dude,
Like the direction you’re going here with the design. It’s very simpl(e)y done of you, which over the years I’ve come to associate with your signature style.
A couple of things though,
The longer post titles are borking your “previous” and “next” navigation down here by the submit box, and having the logo floated left borks some of the ads with longer text, by forcing a line break.
Anyway, looking much better overall.
By Mark on July 31, 2006 8:04 am
Thanks Mark, I’ll have to look into that stuff when I wakeup from my morning nap.
By Scrivs on July 31, 2006 8:23 am
This is so (un)Web 2.0 Scrivs… no gradients or drop-shadows at all??? Tsk Tsk
By Joshua Lane on July 31, 2006 9:44 am
I would kern properly the copy in the pixel font…”being a bastard..”
minimalsm uncovers details -p
By pabs on July 31, 2006 10:15 am
Personally thank any gods that it’s not web 2.0 unicorn droppings. I rejoice in anything that makes content king and functions in a way that is easy to use. Lack of gradients and drop shadows is a big tick. I like it but then I am a simple girlie at heart ;)
By karmatosed on July 31, 2006 12:11 pm
Funny you should mention the kerning as on the bastard as I was going to bed last night I realized it was still set to -5 for the Silkscreen and thought “man maybe I should change that now”.
By Scrivs on July 31, 2006 12:25 pm
[...] Hot on the heels of the recent Wisdump redesign I figured I would take the design momentum over to ScrivsTyme (ST) and finally give it the much needed facelift that it has been crying for. The previous version, aka DooDooBrown, was just horrendous to look at both aesthetically and from a structural standpoint. It was setup as a basic two-column blog, but the site has outgrown that structure so a change was needed. [...]
By ScrivsTyme 2.0 » Wisdump on August 1, 2006 5:49 am