I figured it was about time this place got a bit of a tidy up. Like most such chores, I’d been putting it off for months, but then I found myself with something particularly boring to do at work, so learning a little CSS and mucking about with hexadecimals suddenly took on much greater appeal.
I had two primary aims:
1) To make the navigation easier - everything in the sidebar used to run together horribly, and people couldn’t find such important parts of the site like the “contact me” button. Of course, now people will use it, and they’ll want to engage in some sort of dialogue with me, and I’ll get sociophobic and wished I had removed the button altogether.
2) To free up more room for photos - before they were quite squashed into a 400 pixel space, now they can relax comfortably in the first class leg room afforded by this design’s, um, 500 pixels.
And in truth, I was becoming a bit fatigued by the little Hungarian houses and their tangle of ex-Communist cabling.
I’m still tinkering with it a little, and I know it isn’t perfect (for example, I’m damned if I can put that comments link at the bottom of each post on the front page), but feel free to let me know what you think - either in the comments, or by using the now (too) easy-to-find “contact me” gadget.


13 comments
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September 19, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Colin
Very nice bit of decorating - I like the banner image: squiggles that could be lights or seagulls. Only thing for me is I don’t like white body text on black as it makes my eyes tired. Then again I mostly read you via RSS anyway.
September 19, 2007 at 10:08 pm
mapsadaisical
Thanks Colin, I knew I could rely on you for a critique! I actually started off with black on white, but it was looking really bland. I suppose prevention of eye-fatigue is even more reason for me to keep it brief then…
September 19, 2007 at 10:48 pm
peter
Very nice update indeed. My only suggestion is tone down the red. That’s the part that feels a bit too intense to me. Still, great update!
September 19, 2007 at 11:25 pm
seanh
like the layout changes very much as well. I’m not a fan of the color scheme either, but I often read via RSS as well, so it’s not a huge issue.
It’s my humble and mostly useless suggestion that you check out http://www.colourlovers.com if you’re ever interested in spicing things up.
September 19, 2007 at 11:28 pm
mapsadaisical
Thanks Peter. It was even brighter at one stage! I just tried toning it down but it became unreadably dark - although that may be due to my crappy old monitor. I’ll try it again tomorrow at work and see how it looks there.
September 19, 2007 at 11:37 pm
mapsadaisical
Seanh - again, thanks for the feedback. I think that website would call this colour scheme “blood drop”. Or maybe “lady fever” (I don’t know quite what to make of that!). I suppose I wanted to keep the red/grey/black/white basic scheme to keep some sort of continuity from the previous layout. Goes with the avatar too. But I’m not that precious about it, and there are some lovely colour schemes there. Hmmm…..
September 20, 2007 at 11:22 am
themilkman
Apparently. black websites are more energy efficient… Whether this is true or not, fuck knows, but I am sure polar bears will appreciate…
I would suggest to go for a different colour for your Last.fm box as the red clashes with the red used for links. Maybe…
Nice job though. I am a bit with Colin on the white over black thing, but it is very much a matter of taste I think. And eye compatibility. Mostly.
September 20, 2007 at 5:07 pm
neil kleiner
i see everything in negative any so the site looks white and blue to me
September 21, 2007 at 4:02 pm
themilkman
Hence the light captain when it is dark and vice versa…
September 22, 2007 at 12:46 am
maeda
nice work, i second milkmans last.fm suggestion thou
September 24, 2007 at 11:57 am
mandrew
I like the picture of Roxy Music. I don’t care about the rest.
September 24, 2007 at 12:00 pm
mandrew
Oh, and I like the way your name changes to orange when I hover near it but not actually over it.
September 24, 2007 at 1:46 pm
mapsadaisical
Thanks mandrew. What do you reckon to a weekly Roxy picture feature?
Maeda/milkman - merci beaucoup, I’ll definitely work on that Last FM chart thing. Should be fixed soon.