Metaplanar Babel

As you have most likely noticed, I’ve changed the design around here again. I’ve been poking around with various layouts and color schemes for quite a while, but I couldn’t ever settle on something that felt right. Oddly enough, I started this one yesterday and liked it so much that I actually got it mostly finished. I think I’ve marked out the things that still aren’t working, so you can’t get to those (searching, for example), but if you happen upon something that looks a little off, please feel free to let me know. As per usual, the design looks pretty hideous in IE (though it does seem to be functional, at least), but I’ll be ironing out the wrinkles there before too long, hopefully.

I really wanted something different. I like my old design well enough, I guess, but it’s been up for so long that it was really starting to wear thin for me. I’m starting to clean that one up to make available, on the odd chance anyone else likes it enough to use it. I’ve seen a number of neato themes out there (Brenden is using one in his redesign), but I just couldn’t seem to get into anything. I’m not sure why, but something in me rebels at the thought of using someone else’s theme. It’s unfortunate, but I guess it’s ultimately good for the learning process. I’m hardly an expert designer/coder/whatever, but I think I have learned a lot.

The new design (which I’m calling Vespers) lacks the swanky plastic finish and pretty drop shadows that are so trendy right now (largely because I lack the graphic design capabilities to create those), and there are no rounded corners to be found here. However, it comes very close to validating (the errors all seem to relate to the Feed Digest script that I’m using to display my latest del.icio.us links), and I hope it’s easily readable. Please tell me what you like/hate/don’t get about the design, so I can improve.

The layout is somewhat similar to what I’ve been using here, so that shouldn’t be too confusing. The navigation is actually down at the bottom - inspired by an article about utilizing the space “below the fold” a little more. Since I’m only displaying a single long post on the front page, hopefully the navigation won’t be too hard to find. I’m curious to see what people think about the less-bloglike layout, so let me know!

One of the things I’ve been somewhat struggling with is that I really wanted to give my short posts enough screen space, because I tend to post those more often than long ones. However, when I do that, I almost inevitably have to shift the navigation down to the bottom, or go for a wider, three-column layout. Now, I’m not overly fond of super-wide layouts, because I usually have my browser sized a little bigger than 800×600, so I elected to go for the extra stuff at the bottom approach. Anyway, it’s hardly anything innovative, but I think I like it pretty well.

Best of all, it’s purple, and how can you go wrong with that?