deliciously simple web design & creatively technical writing

Random notes: my redesign, asoboo, some cool sites….

This is a bit different from the normal posts that I write, as I prefer creating original feature-length articles that try and say something interesting, but I had to share a few quick thoughts.

Website Redesign

It is still not 100% finished as I’ve been popping in and out of working all day due to various issues, but I hope to get it done sometime soon.

My previous website and the very minor adjustment I made a few weeks ago was a temporary thing I created just to have a site up. Having learned a few things and having some free time the past day or two, I made a large modification while still keeping some things in place.

* It is 750 pixels wide - I learned over the course of the last few months how many small businesses rely on old equipment, so I wanted to make sure that my site worked without horizontal scrolling even on an 800 x 600 monitor. It makes things difficult, but I dislike horizontal scrolling on the internet so this was something I had to do.

* Because I limited the width, I got rid of the black surrounding background and went with all white. Otherwise things would be far too close to the sides for comfort or I’d have to shrink content areas, which wasn’t something I wanted to do. Also, while I’m emo as hell, the site was feeling too dark even for me. I needed a change and I think these colors will work for me.

* Instead of a black background, to maintain the color scheme idea I put a 15 pixel wide black bar along the top and bottom of the screen. I think that is classier and just as distinctive.

* I also dumped the logo I used to have and went with text. Maybe it was a little too metaphorical or whatever, but nobody guessed what it was. I feel like just the plain text I have is a lot bolder and makes my brand a little louder.

* I used Futura typeface for the logo and titles and headings and Helvetica as the defaults text fonts in place of Lucida Grande. It feels a lot sharper and louder to me. And because over 50% of my traffic consists of Mac users (who have Futura and Helvetica installed by default) and many of the rest also likely have that font, I think that I shouldn’t be afraid to use those fonts. While eminently readable, I think I’m done with the idea of just using something like Verdana as the default.

* I maintained the 450-pixel wide content areas and increased the width of the article side-notes because I wanted to maintain and even increase the legibility of the site. Without the black background there, everything feels more wide-open.

* I added a few other features here and there I’m forgetting about at the moment. I have a few other feature ideas as well, but those will wait for now.

All in all though, I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. There’s a few minor errors I need to fix due to my abject stupidity, but nothing too horrible that I noticed.

Reaction to my Asoboo Article

On Asoboo, user Jrim from Tokyo wrote…

Good review, that - I think you articulated a lot of the warm, fuzzy feelings Asoboo has given me over the last year or so.

There were a few other comments like that. Thanks guys.

Also, thePlant, the people who actually coded Asoboo, apparently linked to my Asoboo review. Asoboo passed 10000 members, which is still relatively small compared to Japan’s main social networking site Mixi, but also hopefully indicates a healthy growing community. And that would be great, because the quality of discussion on Asoboo and the friendliness of the community is very high. Great work on that and other sites thePlant.

I just think its nifty that my article managed to get back to the creators.

A few other cool sites I’ve been reading lately…

* There’s a great, new, and apparently pretty active typography blog called I love typography that is definitely worth a look. As some of you know, I come from more of a programming background than a graphic design one, so anything that provides more knowledge about fonts and layout is always welcome and helpful and hopefully this spurs more of an emphasis on quality typography in all industries. It is inspiration to see how fast their traffic has grown.

* I like to think that I’m thorough in the quality of my research and knowledge of the tech-industry, but this guy Daniel Eran Dilger of Roughly Drafted Magazine is out of the charts in terms of overall knowledge and ability to research detailed information about almost every single aspect of the technology industry. Sure he sometimes gets stuff wrong, and I disagree with his conclusions sometimes, but he’s always an entertaining read who spends a lot of time creating very high quality articles and speculation.

* He’s a beautiful flower, overflowing with childlike wonder and giving the world great joy. Life would be less beautiful without Fake Steve Jobs. Sometimes a little offensive, sometimes just being a caricature of himself, he semi-frequently emerges out of nowhere with some of the funniest stuff ever.

* I’ve gotten more and more into studying and reading about the steampunk subgenre lately. And there’s the fine Brass Goggles site for seeing some cool “artifacts”. But I recently discovered Many Dead Things run by Alex that is pretty interesting. Some of his creative works are incredibly detailed and very well thought-out and thats worth a look. I especially liked his Vampire Research kit as I am a large fan of Buffy and Angel and that stuff really interests me.

Conclusion

I have a couple of project ideas I’m working on as I mentioned in my last article on lessons I’ve learned designing for small businesses and I hope to have something to announce within the next few weeks. Thanks.

Posted on August 30th, 2007 by Chris Papadopoulos.

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Comments

  1. johno (7 comments.) @ Aug 31

    Chris, thanks for the mention. Your site is looking good. I’m happy to see some white space for a change, and I love your Futura header. I also like the idea of that 15px black border at the top–really holds things together.

  2. johno (7 comments.) @ Aug 31

    Apologies for double-posting, but where’s your subscribe link?
    Thanks.

  3. Chris Papadopoulos @ Aug 31

    Thanks johno. I appreciate the kind remarks.

    There’s still a few usability enhancements to come with comments and a few other fixes and features but this is the basic layout I liked and I think it is distinctive and works nicely. I hope to fix a few things and add some features over time in between my other work.

    Anyway, my RSS Feed Link is this.

    http://feeds.feedburner.com/InformationRain

    PS: I look forward to reading and learning more about typography at your wonderful site. You’ve somehow managed to capture a spark with your site and have got a fantastic amount of discussion and great articles there.

  4. inspirationbit (3 comments.) @ Sep 8

    It’s nice to see that some people still design with 800×600 resolution in mind. Though it’s not as common now as it was a few years ago, but there are still people out there who browse with smaller screen resolutions, or just don’t like keeping their browsers maximized (me, included) :-)

    Why don’t you keep the RSS link on the Single page template as well?

  5. Chris Papadopoulos (5 comments.) @ Sep 8

    Thanks Vivien.

    As I mentioned previously, a lot of small businesses that I talk to have older monitors, so designing for 800-pixels wide is both a practical consideration as well as my own preference. It is harder to design thinner than usual without sacrificing some white-space or font-size, but I think it is helpful in some situations.

    Good idea about the RSS Feed. I need to fix a few more things on my site and thats something else I want to do.

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