I’ve just upgraded my WordPress installation, and am fishing around for a new visual “theme” for this site. (I’ve gotten very tired of the old one.)
So the look of this place may vary for the next few days or weeks until I settle on something. Feel free to comment.
8 Comments
Who are you, and what have you done with Malcolm?
Jeffery Hodges
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Well, what do you think? I kind of like this one. It’s clean.
Jeffery, this new chap has a better eye for aesthetic form than Malcolm. I think we should let him stay.
There you are (and thank you, D). I think this one is rather spare and elegant, and certainly more grown-up-looking than the old one.
Overall, I like the new design. It is certainly cleaner. There are a couple of things that don’t quite tickle my fancy, though. For one, I preferred the narrow(er) columns of text in the previous design. I read somewhere that the ideal length of a line of text is somewhere around twelve to thirteen words, and I’ve found in my own experience that longer lines of text are more tiring to read. Some of your posts are on the long side, and the longer lines do make them more intimidating (I went back and looked at some of your older posts to check). I don’t know how long the lines were in the old design, but I do know they were shorter.
The second thing is more minor: the header (and I guess the design in general) looks a little bland to me. I’m not saying that you need to have the huge sunrise photo with “waka waka waka” over it, but as it stands, this design has no personality–nothing to make it yours. I wonder if there is any way you could add a little originality or color to it.
So, I guess that would be it for me: cleaner, more stylish, but a little less reader-friendly and lacking in personality. These are, of course, just the opinions of someone who hasn’t updated his site’s look in God knows how long.
(After reading this over and thinking a little bit more about it, I had this thought: I think an elegant design such as this would work better in black and white than in various shades of a single color, especially very light shades. Perhaps black and white supplemented with a bold (i.e., not pastel) “emphasis color.” Of course, your mileage may vary.)
(Yet another addendum! I just tried to submit this comment, but got an alert box that said “Invalid Code.” I assume I typed the spam-foiling characters improperly. My bad. Not my bad, however, is getting kicked back to the page with all of my comment wiped out. I suspect that this is a fault in the WP design, but it is a pretty severe one. Fortunately, I copied the contents of my comment to the clipboard before submitting. Let’s try this again…)
Charles, why are you advising this stranger calling himself “Malcolm”?
Deogolwulf sees the truth — though he is willing to accept the substitute, a bit like that French family at the return of ‘Martin Guerre,’ if you ask me.
Measure his foot, I say. The foot is the proper standard by which to judge a man!
Jeffery Hodges
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I like the new graphic at the top but I like the old format better.
Your readers come for the naked girl pictures, not the design.
Jeffery: Sorry, can’t help myself.
Chris: Naked girl pictures? I must be reading the wrong posts…