New Design: Retro-fitted

Well. It’s done.

Retro-fitted theme design.

It took me a few days and several complete redos of the entire design, but I think I’m finally content with this new theme. I call it Retro-fitted because the colors are a kind of throwback to some past that I certainly didn’t live in.

Giving credit where credit is due

My original design for this was largely based off WordPress with its new design and the Movable Type Blog (Yes, I realize we’re at constant war with the other blogging system). I got my blue colors from the Movable type design and the reddish color from the WordPress design.

I had originally planned to go very open with the theme because I’m a big fan of Theme Shaper’s current theme. I like Ian’s my-design-won’t-get-in-your-way layout. I ultimately decided against the open layout and enclosed the content area. However, I still kept the front page’s fairly big post title font size, which puts a lot more focus on content.

Last — not anywhere near least — Smashing Magazine. Their recent article on the celebration of vintage and retro design made me completely rethink what I wanted to do with the theme. And to think I almost missed this article because I was working on the redesign. Luckily, I took a break and read through some posts from my feed reader and happened to catch the article.

More thoughts about the design

Gravatars
I don’t know how I ever lived without them. After a day or so of using them, then looking at my own blog, I just didn’t want to comment. It wasn’t any fun.

Author highlighting
You’ll also notice that I’ve added author highlighting to the comment section, so you’ll always be able to pick out my comments quickly because they’ll look a little different.

Sidebar
I’m not sure whether I’m happy with the sidebar just yet. I could probably work on it a few more days and get something more suitable. But, I might work on it a few more days and get nowhere.

Internet Explorer still sucks
Especially IE6. Really, the only problem I had with IE6 was PNG transparency issues. If only everybody would get off that browser, I wouldn’t have to support it with my designs.

Let me know what you think

Do you like it? Hate it?

Overall, I’m happy with it because I needed something fresh. Blogging can sometimes get boring, so we need to spruce up our sites once in a while. I wanted to go with something lighter and a bit more fun. I think I at least accomplished that.

I haven’t ported the theme over to the forums yet. Look for that in the next few days. Once that’s done, you all can look for some more of your regularly scheduled WordPress stuff.