Aug.09.2007
Version 7 Design Update
- Filed under: Wpdesigner.com
After reading all the suggestions and opinions, I’ve made a few changes to the this new version of Wpdesigner.
Here are the changes:
- added a favicon
- darker background color
- simple horizontal navigation, that looked like an Adsense Ad, converted into a tab-like navigation with a pop up effect on hover
- added RSS feed links to the top navigation
- borders around several elements that didn’t have borders
- alternating background colors for comments
- less cluttered entry meta area
- two Fam Fam Fam icons added to entry meta
- a softer red for link color
Now, I am aware that the old design is much better looking than this design, but uglying up my blog for a more simple and easy to use design was why I re-designed it. Maybe another web designer could improve usability without giving up all the graphics, but I don’t have the skills and time to do that, at this moment.
I’ll continue to tweak this new design to make it perform and maybe look better too.
Below are several items on my to-do list:
add a logo- added my photo to the sidebarcreate a page dedicated to the best content of this blogadd excerpts of most popular content to the sidebar or the footer- customize the red blog description area to output different messages based on the area of the blog you are using
add a color switcher for users that don’t like red
Layout bug(s):
- Horizontal negative margin - While implementing the pop up effect for the horizontal menu at the top, I came across an Internet Explorer negative margin bug. As far as I know, there’s no work-around or hack for this bug. Fortunately, the menu is visible and still works in IE.
I feel your pain. I get compliments on my blog design now and then but there’s so much non-writing stuff I have to think about when I’m writing because of the design I really want to move to something even simpler.
Hey SP,
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think your new blog design looks great!! I’ve always preferred the professional, clean, uncluttered look.
Maybe your blog is just maturing. Going from the cartoonish, look and feel to an adult design that is easy on the eyes and doesn’t distract the viewer from the most important part….the content.
SP, I think the small mods you’ve made are good ones and believe the ones you’ve indicated you plan to make will be as well
Much more readable SP. Think carefully when creating you logo. Make one that will stick and you can continue to modify next time you do a design update. Also, make sure it matches your favicon. That unification is always a good thing.
The slight modifications make everything a lot more readable. Especially in regards to the links being less harsh of a color. Maybe add a slight border to the wrapper div on the left and right side for aesthetics. Maybe even darken the body a bit more. Just purely personal opinions here of course.
I like the improvements.
minimal theme. i liked this one. important here your blog lot of great tips for beginner like me. i need more tips from you
I want to know where i can download your this theme. I want to use it in my blog fourp.org
Very good theme, is very cool!
i like this a lot better..like Brian said its more read friendly:)
nice touch on adding the bullet on the sidebar.
will check out your new book when it release:)
@waterbird - I’m sorry. This is a private theme. It is not available for download.
actully I love this theme more.
I don’t know how I feel about this theme Potato. I do like the improvements you made with the navigation and color tweaks but in the end this design still feels very empty when compared to your other themes.
Almost like it doesn’t have a soul. I think if people are going to visit a theme designer’s website they should be wowed with the presentation and think, “I hope this guy has free themes that look like this!”. Not to have your best foot forward appears really strange to me.
The modifications have definitely made the site look even better. Great job!
The usage of whitespace (which my site badly needs!) is a refreshing change, what happened to the gallery?
One thing I noticed as I was posting this comment, when I entered my name and hit the tab key, the cursor jumped to the search form, then I scrolled back to enter the email and hit tab and it took me to the find button (next to the search form)!
Thanks for spotting that. I fixed it. It was a tabindex problem.
hi, I saw some js error in my IE7.
line: 345,289 and 271
char:333
error: didnot come true or no result (I translated it from Chinese)
address: your address.
as bssn said, I also meet this error in my ie7, but not error in FF.
Bssn and yinshang - The new design isn’t using any new javascript. If there’s any error, it’s old. I don’t see it because I don’t use IE7.
If you put your mouse in the right place the navigation bounces around. It’s somewhat entertaining.
The nav is so much better! Looks really good man.
I donot like that alarm under this beautiful theme
why not give your post a more tag? the index page is so long!
This theme is trendy. I really like it. I was waiting a theme like this from you. I use your flickred theme for a long time on my sites. For my new project how can I download this theme ?
Mali - This theme is not for download. Check out the Wrath theme. It’s similar to this one.
>
Are you kidding !! This design looks GREAT
thanks for advice, I will be waiting for this theme
this is really perfect.
Looks better then before. Top navigation bar is no more like text-ads as some other commenter noted previously. The major issue now is the “Welcome to Wpdesigner … ” part , I think. It must be there for SEO purposes or something idk but the font choice and centered look does not suit well. The rest is fine, this is one of the most professional-looking themes around.
Your new theme just keeps getting better and better.
Not too long ago you had a discussion going on your blog about how hard it its for theme designers to make money off their themes, how people weren’t willing to pay much for a theme and the sponsored links debate. Well, I can tell you, if you ever decide to sell this type of quality theme, you would likely be able to sell it for $100 - $200 per license. I have business clients that would easily pay $150 for this because I charge them by the hour and the less tweaking and customizing I have to do to create a blog site for them, the less it costs them overall. If you wanted to limit the distribution of the theme, you could do it in a way that most benefits you…charge a much higher price for the theme (maybe $500.)
to using summary in the index make this theme looks better!
“This is a private theme. It is not available for download.” here is the bad new.
i like this theme more.
Good improvements all the way around. I particularly like the favicon
I love the changes. Very nice.
Perde - I’ll try to fix the description area.
Gail - Thanks for the compliments and tip on targeting business bloggers!
SP, also keep in mind that static web sites are “dead.” I don’t build any new static web sites for clients, every new site is on a Wordpress platform. In addition to the benefits it provides the visitors, it’s also an instant content management system for the business who no longer needs to rely on a webmaster for basic updates and changes. If the client needs a web application in addition to a web site, I build that and then link to it from the blog site. Yes, it’s the reversal of the way things were even just a year ago but it’s where we are now.
I learned last Fall from some very clued-in internet marketers that given the demands of web users these days, the blog should be the CORE of a business’ web site.
Rock on! Your skill set is badly needed in this arena and you have a huge world of opportunity waiting for you.
Love the changes - subtle but really nice. Icons in the meta info are really nice.
Pop-up menu works really well as well - you could use a conditional comments stylesheet to fix the menu in IE. Worked a treat for me.
I posted a comment, but it’s not showed.
I met js error in ie6.
hi, SP, can U tell how you use top commenter code? thanks
Proxy - It’s a plugin. Search for it on Google.
Your pop-up links don’t work so well in IE7. Dunno if you’ve noticed this so I thought I’d point it out to you. They flicker quite a lot - maybe you could use an IE specific stylesheet to give a different effect that works better in IE?
Thanks Mike. I’m still tweaking this theme.
Hej sp!
you have always the coolest design on net