It’s here. The new Upstart Blogger design / realign. If you are still seeing some bold red text then force a page refresh until the new look appears. You’ll know when it loads. See the yellow lines? Good, you’re looking at the realign.
I’m sure there will be a few teething problems, and probably some rogue underscores hanging around, so please let me know if you see anything odd. Apart from a few empty pages, eagerly awaiting content, everything should be holding together nicely in most browsers. Of course, Internet Explorer 6 will probably explode, but apart from that I think everything is ok.
A quick thank you to a couple of people who have helped me smash some CSS bugs. Designer, theme creator and blogger Will Wilkins, and web developer, blogger and eagle eyed coder Josh Sharp. Once you’ve finished inspecting my new paint job give them both a visit and say hello. They are the kind of people who make the internet a great place to work.
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looks good. I wouldn’t have thought to go to yellow, but I like it.
I was kind of skeptical about the yellow, but it looks good.
Nice work!
Definitely looks great, and it’s JUST the right shade of yellow to work well. Oh, still have some underscores chillin’ in your sidebar for your headers.
Those underlines do look a bit like pee stains. Kinda tricky to spot them
on a bright iMac display, aren’t they? Sure you want to keep it like that?
And the top level links, followed by the description line, then yellow box,
then main text, it all looks a bit confusing to me.
But i kinda like it, very curious how the finished theme will look like.
Hmmm… overall the type structure feels good. I’m not lovin’ the yellow and I like the idea of it… Going to think on this more.
Glad I was able to help out Ashley! I really like the layout.
The only critique I have, maybe make the yellow a couple of shades darker. They are a little harder to notice on a bright screen with tired eyes…
imac? thats why you need to devolve and use a dell like an adult. lol.
Thanks for all the comments. I’m glad that the realign has attracted such a diverse range of opinions. From “the the yellow looks like pee stains” to “just the right shade”!
I can see the yellow clearly on my Mac but I agree that it could go a shade or two darker. I might change it for a more golden tone, nothing too orange though. It’s not set in stone. I just want to make sure that only one color is used and that it is only associated with links, making them absolutely obvious.
As for the layout, the highlight strip at the top will be used for important announcements and special offers. Other highlight blocks will appear in the sidebar and in the main content window as the design spreads out. Hopefully that will add more color interest.
One of the most common complaints received by email was that the archives were only available on the index page. So, to aid navigation the monthly and category archives are going to be dropped to the footer and displayed inline.
Finally, I haven’t ruled out the idea of a header graphic. I’ve already ported the theme in another color, with a dark background, light text with a very subtle drop shadow, and a header graphic to another blog I’m redesigning (part of a wider project - more information soon). The header graphic sits under the second line of text and before the highlight bar. It works and got me thinking - does Upstart Blogger need a graphic header after all?
It looks like you have a nice “logo” going with the favicon so I guess it depends on how “graphic header” translated. Given the overall simplicity of the site, you may not.
What if the yellows were set to a background color for links rather than underlines; like highlights with a marker. A repetition/reflection of the “highlight bar”… ?
I think the yellow is a pain in the a…eyes! :)
However, it is nice and subtle, could be the next big thing.
Keep it up!
I get this error on this page fyi:
unterminated string literal
http://www.upstartblogger.com/?live-comment-preview.js
Line 101
@Ashley: “…does Upstart Blogger need a graphic header after all?”
I was thinking about the same when i was setting up my new site, because i saw a few very simple designs without any logo. So i just added that “square-speech-bubble” to the name and there it was, simple but kinda not so easy to forget since you can associate that site to something, it is not just a name to remember.
Maybe do something like that with your top navigational link? Like giving “Upstart Blogger” a yellow box so it stands out a lil’?
Regards,
Manuel
Heh, good that you didn’t take the pee-pun the wrong way :)
But one thing is really bothering me here: When i came back today to see if you have replied, i had a hard time to find the actual link to the topic. I was hovering above the correct one, but then i did not click, simply because it was below the excerpt. I like the look of it, but it is confusing.
I would put the “Welcome to Upstart Blogger” in the yellow “in your face”-bar and let the four (!?) girls do the advertising work for that hosting thing.