Hey ya’ll,
Unless you’re really not paying attention, you’ll notice a few changes to the look and feel of the blog. There’s a big new logo at the top, for example, where before there was only plain text.
I’m not married to the logo — just whipped it up in a couple of hours based on the placeholder I’d been using on Facebook and Twitter — but I don’t hate it either. Ditto with the yellow-green colour that was a random “hey, that ain’t too bad” accident. I hope to tweak everything further over the next little while.
So I’m interested in hearing your comments about the new look — like it, hate it, don’t care — but I’m just starting a little bit of an experiment, so if there’s anything you’d like me to try, I’ll try it.
The biggest change, from a personal satisfaction standpoint, is that the main column is substantially wider. I think this will give prominence to pictures and to videos that we post — and it will enable me to post video clips that are a standard 640 pixels wide, rather than manually sizing them down all the time. Grrrr.
But if it’s so wide that it’s screwing up your screen — or if I’ve broken anything else for you — please let me know.
The impetus for these changes, by the way, is because Absurd Intellectual just had its biggest month ever. After starting the year with a bang in January and March, we tailed off quite a bit through the spring. But I’ve tried to up the posting a little bit, lately, and it seems to be working. For example, we had more hits just last week than we had in all of August last year.
It’s not enough to get us ranked on Alexa, of course (oh wait, we are — we’re ranked 1,091,993rd in the world!) but it’s more than enough to make me happy — and it’s far more than I anticipated ever attracting.
It’s flattering, it’s humbling — and if you’re reading this, thanks!
Just figured with so many of you around, it was time to neaten the place up.
Grant Hamilton
14 Responses to “So we made a few changes around here”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Looks kinda cool…very nice.
Thanks Juel
One of the things I’m currently weighing is whether to add graphic links to other sites and blogs. I’m proud to have kept this site free from advertising so far (though I’m not ruling it out, I also don’t want to just sell out). However, I’ve been approached to do some commentary for this year’s Indie Literary Deathmatch, and one of the things we’re talking about is a banner exchange. Is that advertising? What if my friend puts up a site selling T-shirts … is a friendly link to his site an ad?
Feedback welcome.
Like.
That’s another thing. Is there any appetite for a Facebook “like” button, more prominently than just as part of the sharing tools at the bottom of each post? Or allowing people to log in, comment with their Facebook logins? Personally, I’m holding out for Diaspora, but I’m interested in comments.
“You fire half the management… and nothing changes!”
Gordon Gekko,
Wall Street
I like it. Maybe move the top right box down so the big gray bits that first caught my eye when I came here eons ago are up top. The fact that you have a cheese of the week archive automatically set the tone better than any “RSS Feed / Subscribe” blather ever could.
Thanks for the comments! I’m thinking of dumping the “about” box completely, and redesigning the promo boxes so they stand out more and fit in better. Oh, and I should really get on the cheese of the week thing, eh?
First thing I noticed other than how things are a lot cleaner, is that putting comments after a post doesn’t flip to a whole new screen. It’s really handy to not have to surf back to the site after making a comment – lots quicker. So, something small but handier for commenters.
That was as per Amy’s request, but I agree — it’s so much easier that always back and forthing. Pleased you noticed
Grant, Amy and T. Keith,
The logo, colour and format change are solid in my opinion. With tongue firmly in cheek…. Is it a coincidence that you have retooled in Wheat King colours on the day that rookie camp opened?
Eep! That will have to be fixed!
It looks lime green, grey and black on my screen, did the wheaties change their colors
You lost the mobile device layout somewhere though.
I only know this because my net shit the bed again… And I only have my phone
There’s a major update of the framework that I use currently on its way. Bear with me for a week or two, and it should be back up.
I say dump the green in the theme of the blog, but I think I already told you that :p