In my spare time I’ve been working on a redesign for this site, and I think it’s finally complete enough that I’m comfortable writing about it.
The first thing that should be immediately noticeable is that top to bottom the site’s been simplified. Largely it’s been pared down to a single column. Navigation is tucked away out of site, and there’s no real “sidebar” any more (a few blocks of things follow internal pages, but that’s it).
When I last redesigned the site, I was looking to use the site as a way to play with some of the new (at the time) features of HTML5 and CSS3. As those things have largely become standard across browsers now, and I’ve had plenty of chances to “play” with them, my goal this time ’round was to edit myself.
Self-editing is one of the first lessons we learned way back in my Journalism 101 class, and is a cornerstone of good writing. It is, however, a difficult lesson to practice — both in writing and design. With an infinite canvas, it can be a challenge to pull yourself back and take a hard look at what is really needed and what is just there out of convention, creative construction or just plain laziness.
So, gone is the clutter. Instead of finding fun ways to create bells and whistles, I’ve spent extra time on readability — improving the site’s typography, use of space, and overall usability. Additionally, the site is responsive now, which was a long-time coming really. This means that it should look great on whatever device you happen to be viewing it on; whether desktop, tablet or mobile.
I’m sure more will be chiseled away, and perhaps hastily plastered back on, as I get more comfortable with the new design. And please, if you have any feedback, or notice anything working in a counter-intuitive way (or just plain broken), let me know in the comments.
