Upstart Blogger has a fresh coat of paint. Hold down shift and click refresh to load the latest style sheet. Reading this in a RSS reader? Here’s a quick rundown of the changes.
- The yellow links that caused so much annoyance are gone, replaced by a more pro-usability muted shade of blue.
- Helvetica is replaced by the slightly more contemporary Helvetica Neue along with a few minor changes to text size
- A header image, a first for Upstart Blogger, now graces the top of the page complete with text set in Archer by Hoefler & Frere-Jones
- Top line navigation menu is replaced by contextual navigation in the opening paragraph of each page, giving the user a less confusing choice and guiding them to the most relevant pages at any given time. Other links will be added to the sidebar in a similar contextual fashion in the next couple of days.
- Finally, a subtle, perhaps too subtle, fade to white gradient background is added to help solidify the header image.
It’s still a work in progress and is fresh out of the box today. Individual pages still need work and, as ever, there are a few Internet Explorer bugs to iron out. One in particular that seems to join up the underline between the author and category link for each post is particularly confusing.
Hopefully this design will be the one that is able to stand up to the cloning process. With Podcast Selector launching later this week time will tell.
As always, your opinions and comments are welcomed and valued.
I’m Digging it! Helvetica Neue: Either you love it or you hate it — I LOVE IT. The yellow links from the old version never bothered me much, but this blue does seem a little more professional. I love the header and Archer really gives it some personality. My one nit picky comment is Robert’s original ‘Feed Me’ cartoon. It’s cool but it no longer seems relevant. (SUPER NIT PICKY I know). Great Work!
I’m jealous of the fact that you have Archer. I adore that font.
The blue is lovely. I didn’t even notice the faded white but it’s nice. Great work.
ashley. i definitely like the blue better than the yellow. and the header image is cool. good work.
Good move! :)
You had me going for a sec there when your blog had reverted to Wordpress Default….I was like erm…. emperor’s new clothes anyone?
Looking good
Very nice. The blue is a great change, much easier on the “eye” and still has the feeling of a highlighter marker;)
Ashley,
It looks really smart. The use of the gradient is a nice touch giving the page some depth.
I agree with Allan about the ‘Feed Me’ illustration. It doesn’t quite fit the overall feel with the new header.
Archer is a wonderful typeface and I’m wondering if the transparency of the black strip could be a bit darker? The keyboard symbols behind the shapes of the characters are a bit distracting.
Nice work!
Awesome change. The subtle fade is great, and so is the image header (nice choice of keyboard by the way). Really great stuff.
I think you’re moving in the right direction. I was a fan of Robert’s original theme, but I felt there was a disconnect between the design and the topic of the writing. It seemed better suited to a more design-centric blog as opposed to a “blog on blogging”.
Your first redesign had that same problem, though removing the underscores was an improvement to that end. With this redesign (of a redesign), the design better serves the topic. That said, I’d like to offer some constructive criticism:
- The contextual navigation is a clever idea. Though I’d try some makeshift usability testing. Just ask family, colleagues, ect to check the site out and see if they have trouble finding and using the navigation.
- The hosting advertisement in the header should go. Or if not removed from the header, then everywhere else. I understand you want to get it to as many people as possible, but I think having it in the header, sidebar, under the comment form, in the footer, and constantly mentioned in any relevant post is a little overkill.
- I actually like the graphic header (I wouldn’t have expected to). Though I’d try to keep the typeface consistent between headings and the text in the header (which could be considered a pseudo-h1 heading).
- I know this has nothing to do with the layout, but I’d recommend tweaking the comment moderating settings. After someone has had a comment approved, I’d allow them to bypass the moderation queue. You still avoid all the automated spam, but it’s more convenient (and less confusing) for legitimate commentary.
- This isn’t a pressing issue, but you might want to work on better incorporating the “Digg” and “StumbleUpon” buttons under posts. As they are, they seem entirely out of place.
Oh, and just out of curiosity; did you take the photo in the header or is that a stock image? It fits quite nicely with the topic.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m pleased that so may experianced pairs of eyes consider this a move in the right direction. In answer to some of the points…
The cartoon RSS icon. I totally agree, he’s on my delete list.
Strip transparency. I’ve changed the image levels to make to give the strip more contrast. It’s still at 70% opacity but I think it works a little better this time around. Also, the strip is now one third the size of the full image. Before it seemed slightly too big and overpowered the photograph.
Highlighter marker. Great! That’s the feeling I was trying to retain.
Design and topic. Thanks. I know exactly what you mean and I’m glad that I wasn’t alone in feeling that way.
Contextual navigation. I’ve already asked a handful of family and friends to take a look. It seems to work. With the old design the menu was being overlooked. Hopefully this way it will be easier to give people access to the things they want to find.
Hosting ad. Sorry if it comes across as intrusive. I’ll take this on board. I can’t promise any changes since it currently works very well!
Graphic header and typeface. Again, I take it on board, but I’m currently such a big fan of Archer that I’m pretty sure it will stay.
Comment moderation. Agreed.
Digg and Stumbleupon buttons. Agreed. They’ll almost certainly be replaced with text versions. The whole comment section needs some work as well.
Photo. It’s a stock image. I’ve recently taken a lot of photos myself for use in headers across the other sites I have planned but this one worked a little better than the keyboard shot I tried. When I have the time I’ll take some more shots and replace the current image if I’m lucky enough to capture something better. I’m going to feature my own shots, the more successful ones, in a forthcoming post about creating header images.
I like almost all of it! The only thing I would suggest is making the header image smaller. Why? Again back to small screens which a lot of people still have. The headers takes up over 2/3 of a small screen. That may seem like a small annoyance to many, but I feel that it might turn away some readers. :)
I have to agree with Tracy’s comment. Combined with the “welcome” message that appears when Google Reader users click through from the RSS feed — confused for web searchers — it makes for too much scrolling.
That sounds a bit lazy, doesn’t it? Scrolling isn’t that energy-consuming. But still…