Well, I started redesiging my blog today. It’s actually less of a redesign and more of a ‘throw it at the wall and see what sticks.’ I added a new plug-in to show Flickr photos in the header (yes, we say goodbye to the fun, randomally loading pictures. It was too much work to add new ones) and tested that a bit to make sure it worked, but this morning I just went nuts and threw a few things together to mess with the layout.
It’s not a drastic change, but the header is vastly different and you can say goodbye to the left sidebar (I added it primarly for ad space, but I don’t need it and that location wasn’t that effective, so it went). I’m still toying with some ideas, but for the moment I’m finished. So if you see anything goofy, please speak up. I’m not exactly doing error-checking or taking a look on multiple browsers. This is my personal blog and I’m just too busy to care about that stuff.
We’ll see if the name ‘thoughts’ still sticks, or if gravity and the churn of time slowly peel it from the wall. I was thinking of maybe calling it Frank.
Much cleanier, and therefore easier to navigate. Nicely done.
Simpler is usually better, and this looks a lot simpler! I like the bigger font at the top. Consider pumping up the font size in the entries, too.
I like the name Frank for the blog. It works on so many levels.
One other thing after staring at it awhile longer. The banner really dominates the design. I mean, that 5 x 4 grid of Flickr squares really pulls my eye off the entry and up to the top of the page, even when I don’t want it to. It’s interesting, which can be good, but it’s not your primary content here (or is it?), so it’s probably not what you want.
Ah, cleanier. I’ve had a bit too much of that in my life lately, but I’ll take it.
I like that the header is huge. Separates it a bit from all the blogs with the exact same size header. It is large though. I’ll think about cutting one row of pics–hopefully there will still be room for all my text and menus. But I think it will still be an eye magnet, Josh. Probably just the fallout of putting lots of shiny pics up there. Oh well.
I’d love to muck with the picture layout and do some blank squares, but the plugin I’m using and Flickr’s API aren’t that powerful. I suppose I could upload some blank pictures to Flickr, but that seems like quite the goofball hack.
And we’ll see about the name. I actually have to admit I didn’t get the multiple levels that “Frank” works on until Abby said something. I just thought naming my blog a person’s name would be funny. You know, Frank or George or Bill. But the various levels of Frank is pretty good. We’ll see. You know how I am about names.
I thought you were purposefully going for the multi-level Frank. That’s pretty funny.
Perhaps if you rename your blog Frank, I’ll rename my blog Joy.
Maybe I could go with a ‘hello my name is’ badge header to emphasize the name level of ‘Frank’.
There’s just something funny about ‘Welcome to Frank, written by Kevin’.
Or maybe I could follow the grand tradition of boats and trucks and guns and give it a girl’s name.