Relaunch: Slowly getting there

Slowly, but steadily, I’m getting to the point where my website looks acceptable again. To be fair, that’s only partly my achievement: The design is to a huge part based on on Boris Anthony‘s theme for Joi Ito. (Of course Boris and Joi are referenced in my blog’s footer, and I’ll keep trying to get a hold of Boris, but since Twitter has been very shaky all day, this hasn’t happened yet. Sorry there, and thanks in advance.)

So what had happened here? I basically killed my old blog theme WP Premium. I liked it a lot, but was still looking for something lighter, something with as little ballast and restrictions as possible. Something very, very simple. So I started coding a new template from scratch, but kept using design elements of Boris’ & Joi’s website, which hopefully they won’t mind. The design is completely CSS’ed, so as far as I can tell right now the code should be pretty clean. It certainly is well commented. Also, I’ve asked a Melbourne-based pixel artists for a logo design, so let’s see how that will turn out.

What you see right now is, hopefully, a functional site. There’s still be occasional glitches for a while, I’m sure. If there’s anything major that doesn’t look like it’s supposed to be the way it is, I’m very thankful for a hint. (Also, I’m looking forward to seeing the Twitter badge work; so far it’s commented out due to Twitter’s outages today.) However, with all the behind-the-scenes work at Twitter HQ, I’m convinced my favorite micro blogging service will be up again soon.

So what’s new? As mentioned above the code is much, much cleaner that the old theme after I had customized it. Also, now I know much better what’s actually going on behind the scenes. The top navigation has switched from horizontal to vertical, and I cut out some points. I kept the RSS and email subscription. Only the five most recent posts are displayed on the start page. Recent posts and comments are much better to read now. The Dopplr profile is new, although I stuck to the classic look instead of any of the fancier options. A new Twitter badge is in the making. Links to my other profiles etc are now much easier to read. The section with external links to cool projects and other kudos (formerly called “Bumper Stickers”) is now in a format I like much better: Full 376×60 pixel glory.

In short: The whole thing is now much easier on the eyes, or so I hope.