doodlemonger.com 2.0
The redesign will move to a more sexy, sleek and svelt style of markup that strives to separate content from formatting.
For a while now I have been contemplating a redesign of this website to move toward a more accessible design using standards-compliant markup and CSS for layout. The tables I am currently using to format the site are functional, but entirely too bloated for their own good and overly complex in terms of markup. The redesign will move to a more sexy, sleek and svelt style of markup that strives to separate content from formatting. Of course, I've never done this sort of website before, so this shall be a bit of a learning experience.
Today being the first day I've been in Chico for the weekend sitting at my computer in my apartment without a great deal to do in a little more than 10 weeks, I actually got a chance to sit down and hammer through some potential designs. I went through many iterations before I settled on one that didn't make me wince or yawn.
Aside from the underlying markup design, this new design will also make a number of deviations from the previous design in terms of structure:
- I've done away with the calendar. It's done nothing but mock me since I've had so little time to update the site over the past few months.
- I've shifted the navigation to a tabbed structure, establishing the primary navigation as categorical (which isn't a huge deviation, but a shift in emphasis, nonetheless). Chronological navigation will still be available via the archive, but I'm sure so few people use this that I'm not worried about the calendar going away. I'm going to try to model the tabs after the nifty CSS and Javascript tabs on the blogosphere.us website. I may have to abandon the idea of having rounded top corners as I'm not really sure how I'm going to pull that off in CSS, but we'll see what I can figure out.
- I've axed the rotating quotes on the homepage. While nifty, they were beginning to chafe.
- I've axed the "Ramblings" category. I'm considering creating a system of subcategories to acommodate for some further categorization within my broad main categories (example: "Stories: Invitation", "Stories: Henry", "Thoughts: Vapid" etc.)
- I'm going to implement Movable Type's trackback feature with this design. I didn't understand it very well when I created the first design, and omitted it for that reason. Now that I've had a chance to play around with it a bit, it will find its place next to the "comments" counter.
- At the bottom of each entry (on the home page) will be a date and an icon indicating that entry's permanent link. The "Google It" feature will also be moved to the bottom of the entry, and the Google Eyes (
) are going away. They were kind of funky, anyway. - The logo has shrunk and lost its rather forced dropshadow, and I've moved the "doodlemonger.com" text much closer to it, to reinforce the "brand." I'm still not sure if I like how I've handled it in the redesign, but for now it's solid. I've also reinforced the logo where the calendar used to be - and I'm still trying to decide whether it's just a waste of space or if it looks cool enough to justify that waste.
Below are some tentative screenshots of the up and coming redesign. Any and all feedback and/or suggestions are not only welcomed, they are expected.
