39 hours later it’s time to pull back the curtain
It’s here. The new look that I hope will take Upstart Blogger to the next level. The plan was to switch to a serif font, standardize the link styles and make the typography more prominent whilst still retaining a minimalist feel. One of the biggest problems with the old design was it’s reliance on Helvetica. This was great if, like me, you were on a Mac, but Windows users were stuck with Arial, a very cheap and nasty substitute. Hopefully the new font stack, which for those who are interested is Hoefler Text, Miller Text, Georgia, Times New Roman, Serif, will create the desired effect across all platforms.
There are still a few little items which need clearing up such as the removal of the underlining of image based links and, since I want everything to fit perfectly, some of the images used in certain blog posts need resizing to fill out the column. But the design is basically stable and everything is working.
Let me know what you think, and if you see any glitches please point them out.
Thanks to everyone who helped with this design, I’ll make a more formal thank you post tomorrow giving proper credit to all those of you who joined the bug hunt.
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Ashley Morgan is a UK jazz trumpet player and owner of independent record label 447 Records.
Ashley Morgan is the trumpet player with Enormous.
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Ashley,
I love the re-design. I’ve been waiting for it to go live for some time. The typography is smooth, the elements clear and crisp, and it just flows and feels good. There’s a nice balance with white space that makes it feel like I’m immersed in the content, but the environment still remains minimalist. Nice work.
Ian
I’ve been lurking here since just after you took this joint over. Congrats on finally putting your mark on the decor. It’s been a long time coming but worth the wait.
Hi Ashley, as I said you by email, you made a great job ! I love the Hoefler Text type (win users…time to switch), and practically all you implemented. To eliminate the border on images you can try to create a img class in CSS with border: none ?
Best,
Roger
Just wanted to let you know that UpstartBlogger was featured as the latest Blogger Profile.
http://www.monfx.com/blogger-profile/blogger-profile-upstartbloggercom/
Love it! it still has the feel of the original theme with some nicely added navigational aspects that increase the overall experience. Minimalist theme design at it’s best! Great job Ashley!
I think Ian stole all the words right out of my comment form :-) This new look really is amazing! It’s so typographically sound and the date formatting is especially sweet. The screen shot from a few weeks ago did not do it justice. I think the greatest feat about this design is that it doesn’t stray too far away from the original design so there’s no confusion. Once again, Great work Ashley!
Hate the font, it might work well for title emphasis, but not for the entire content.
Wow I love it. Very smart and clean and pleasing to the eye. Great job Ashley.
yes it is nice, motivate to put full screen………..peacefull
Fresh!
I suggest adding margins to the sides. I keep my browser window relatively narrow. When I first saw the new design last night, I thought there was a formatting issue, as the text was bumped up right against the edge of the window.
You might want to change the body text to Georgia or Times New Roman.
Also, I haven’t tried it in IE, but according to IE Renderer, the dates are cut off in Internet Explorer, including v7.
Having said all that, I like it. I really do. You seem to be improving as a designer.
The little arrow to take you back to the top of the page, under the comments box doesn’t work.
You need to tighten the line height up in the article section. It looks like you are at 1.8em or 2em. A line height of 1.5em would look better and be easier to read. The double spacing effect is too jarring to the eye.
Congratz on your redesign. Cool.
Ashley,
This is a great design. The typography is excellent [at least in a Mac] and the style clean and easy to read.
Only caveat is to see still the titles below the posts .. I will always find it confusing … but original.
By the way, the color palette of your blog looks now quite similar to mine, I do like it :-)
Miguel
exposurecompensation.com
Just wanted to let you know that UpstartBlogger was featured as the latest Blogger Profile.
http://mirretro.ru
i really like the new redesign. easy on the eyes and a clean layout. you can’t go wrong.