Reboot in Progress
// September 8th, 2005 // 7 Comments » // tagged: Site News
I'm "rebooting" this site this week - implementing a new design, condensing my stylesheets and reworking some of the code - so some things might be a little wonky (yes that's a technical term). It's been a while since my last redesign -- and this one is definitely the darkest I've ever gone. I've been having fun with Photoshop CS2. If you haven't upgraded ... it is SO worth it. GREAT upgrade. :thumbsup: (And the Illustrator upgrade is worth it's weight in gold. It's FANTASTIC. Just go for the whole suite. Great investment.) So back to the reboot - it's dark and grungy - but I like it. It's my first departure from an 800x600 friendly design. I am so tired of the huge expanse of wasted space. If you have your screen set at that resolution, you're going to horizontal scroll. While I would never design a site for a client that isn't 800x600 friendly (because the average computer user uses the resolution their computers came out of the box set at, and until recently everything shipped with 800x600 native) - my stats for THIS site show that 99.9% of my traffic views this site on at least 1024x768 (and then there are people like me - my screen resolution is 1280x960!) If you're still at 800x600 ... what is wrong with you? Don't you know how many pixels you're missing??? :tongue: So - it's Silverberry Rebooted, Bigger and Darker (with a little more cowbell).
I've had tons of comments about different layouts I've had on this site (Jeff still loves the swing one the best ... maybe because it was my whimsical side?) - I think the Windows Madness theme that I had up in 2002 was the most commented 
layout ever though. That was a fun one!
I've had some version of this layout up for over a year now -- the colors and gaphics have changed a bit, but the backbone remains the same. I've kept this design for so long because I haven't come up with anything I would like more that would display my content how I want. I like a few things about this design -- (1) the floating menu - although I wonder how many people actually browse anything other than the bloggy part of the site? (2) it expands and contracts depending on your screen resolution. I like that - and I've usually tried to do that with all of my designs. I work at a high screen resolution - and don't like it when I go to a website and it only takes up 1/4 of my screen. This site works because I've set it so that it looks good at 800x600 right on up to my wide screen laptop resolution - 1920 x 1200 (granted - I'm squinting to see that one - but it stretches!). (3) I like having the two side columns - so I can pull info from all the secondary blogs I have set up. Most sites have at least one side column - so this isn't something new. Whenever I do get around to redesigning, I'll definitely have 2 side columns - I can't give up my side content :)
What do you like about this type of design? What don't you like? What type of connection do you have - and how long does it take to load? Have you ever tried to view Silverberry on your PDA (it's a slow download because of the images - but it's viewable)? Do you prefer pure CSS layouts or tables - or you don't really care? Whose website out there do you consider the 'mecca' of design and usability? Do you prefer simplicity over complexity? What's your opinion?
When you create a new look for your websites -- what are your 'requirements'? Columns? Colors? Graphics? Content available on the main page?
