Time for a redesign
It’s that time of the week again where I figure this site needs a new design update. But this time I am looking to steal of your good ideas that you never decided to implement on your own site. Are there some things you thought would be cool to do on your blog, but you just never got around to doing it or maybe you look at this site and say:
Damn kid, you should put X here and then I might actually care about your site.
Okay, hopefully you don’t go that far, but you get the picture. Overall though do you have any redesign tips for this site? I am looking for something that will get me ladies like my buddy Jeff Croft (sorry we didn’t hangout at SXSW this year my man). Hell, I can’t recall any blog designs jumping out at me lately since I don’t hang around the gallery scene anymore so if you could throw me some favorite links as well that would be awesome.
And I know the irony of asking for redesign tips on the minimalist of minimalistic sites is killing some of you now.
By Scrivs on March 26, 2007 1:44 pm
Damn kid, you should put naked ladies here and then I might actually care about your site.
By Jeff Croft on March 26, 2007 1:49 pm
I think you need more whitespace.
By Kyle on March 26, 2007 1:50 pm
I’m thinking take the naked ladies, add some more whitespace, and you’ll be good to go.
By Josh Blount on March 26, 2007 1:51 pm
Well if none of my readers are women I will keep the thoughts and considerations of the male audience in mind when redesigning.
By Scrivs on March 26, 2007 1:57 pm
Obviously you are trying to push other projects and services in an effort to generate click through traffic, however I think your 9rules and advert graphics are far to emphasized/bright and make focusing on your posts rather difficult.
Just my two cents. Take care.
By Kyle Johnson on March 26, 2007 2:55 pm
Makes sense.
By Scrivs on March 26, 2007 2:56 pm
When I first saw Wisdump, I loved the design. Looking at it now, it has lost a lot of its identity due to ads. I don’t mind, but a new reader might be put off by them.
Regarding redesign, whatever you do, stay minimal.
By Stan Schroeder on March 26, 2007 3:40 pm
Re: Kyle Johnson’s comment… I’ve never found that the ads make it difficult to focus on the content. Rather I’ve always been pleased that the ads are so beautiful and targeted to the 9rules audience. This is one of the few places on the web where I know I will not be offended by the ads.
Re: Redesign… Wolfgang Bartelme just redesigned again and it’s the most readable, pleasing, makes-me-smile on the inside aesthetic I’ve seen in a while. Also, Tumblr.com starts looking really nice once you’re logged in.
By jason carlin on March 26, 2007 4:40 pm
I agree with the adverts issue raised. i also think play up the white space but focus on the small elements and details, some nice repeating small design element that is used could do this. Maybe add a single colour to the scheme, adding one colour to the tones would level up the adverts a bit.
By karmatosed on March 26, 2007 6:09 pm
Make it all black and save some power. :)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/black_google_wo.php
By Mick on March 26, 2007 6:36 pm
haha
make the women simply outlines to maximize the amount of whitespace
otherwise
i say the sites good where it is man
By broc on March 26, 2007 7:32 pm
I’m all hands up for the naked ladies! :P No doubts about it!
By Paul on March 27, 2007 1:28 am
Maybe it’s not a redesign that you need, but a realignment (lotsa talk about this going round lately…check Derek Punsulans site, the aforementioned Bartleme and Echo Faith…see I get around). The way that I see it, the colors and minimalism are already cool. Maybe you just need to reorganize the layout and maybe make a font change. And definitely come up with new positioning for the adverts….anywho, a realignment is all you need IMHO.
By Frank 'viperteq' Young on March 27, 2007 1:29 am
Can’t you just do what everyone else on the web does and steal a design from Dan Cederholm?
By Jack on March 27, 2007 2:43 am
One thing I’ve always wanted to do, but never seen implemented this way, is to have a scrolling sidebar with video thumbnails and short text descriptions above them.
When the user clicks on the vid thumbnail or description, the page fades to gray and the video expands to the center of the screen and starts playing. When finished running, or when the user closes it, the video shrinks back to it’s position in the sidebar and the page returns to normal.
I see that effect on sites like sitepoint and a few others, but not used with vids on a blog.
That would be a cool effect and non-intrusive, since when a vid is playing people are watching it and not reading the page anyway.
If you decide to do it, I got dibs on a copy of the code that makes it work ;-)
By Paul Short on March 27, 2007 4:47 am
Paul Short - Have a look at Lightbox - http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
I’m sure it could be modified to work with video.
By Mick on March 27, 2007 6:52 pm
I had a well thought out possibly even insightful comment but then I closed the tab. Bummer.
To summarize:
I would like to see you push the use of space a bit more, while there is a lot of space in this layout it is mostly outside of the content. Marginal? in the margins? yea.
I would love for your body font to have more letter spacing. It’s very clustered right now and it has always been difficult for me to focus on.
By Sunshine on March 28, 2007 12:50 pm
how about something similar to the DontClick.it project and when you point your mouse to the bottom of the screen it scrolls automatically .. for days when there are lots of comments?
or, you could put the sponsors and categories on the right side and move the content and comments to the left side :)
By HART (1-800-HART) on March 28, 2007 10:53 pm
All this site needs is a hover effect on the links and yer set. Write more, design less!
By Mike Papageorge on March 29, 2007 11:34 am
Yeah, I agree with Mike P. Although I’m aware you’re going ultra minimal, I think some sort of hover (even if it’s just a dotted underline) would be better.
You’re huge 9rules ad is, to be quite frank, daft and ruins an otherwise nifty design. Lose the red around it and it’ll be more appealing.
All just my opinion of course, and I’m no expert either.
By Armen on March 30, 2007 2:58 am
Errr…woops!
1. Edit bad grammar ‘Your’ instead of ‘You’re’
2. I just realised that you do dot underline some of your hyperlinks. The names of the commenters are not however, that’s what put me off.
Also - maybe lift your logo a little with either shadowing or a curved effect.
Maybe I’ll just go away and shutup now…
By Armen on March 30, 2007 3:16 am
So long as you don’t use the AJAX shelving soon to be implemented in my refresh and new domain coming in a few week’s time.
I think something very fast loading and simple. A kind of 5thirtyone type thing.
By CK on April 3, 2007 5:07 am