Laughing Squid has had some form of an all black website over 13 years, so it’s finally time for a change. We’ve just launched a new design for the blog with a much cleaner look, that loads faster.
I’ll be tweaking and modifying the theme over time, this is just a new starting point.
If you are reading this via RSS, head on over to the blog and check it out.
We are now using the wonderful Thesis WordPress theme developed by Chris Pearson (version 1.5 should be out any day). It’s one of the best WordPress themes I’ve ever used and is going to allow us to have much more design flexibility and added features.
Of course white is not new to Laughing Squid, we’ve been using it on The Squid List the last few years and it’s also part of the design of my personal website and our new cloud hosting website.
As I rolled out the new theme, I asked people on Twitter what they thought and as expected the reactions ranged from loving it hating it and everything in between.
Now it’s your turn, let us know what you think in the comments.
{ 66 comments… read them below or add one }
Love the layout, but miss the black… it’s fun to try a new look isn’t it!
I went to LS this morning via RSS and was like, “holy crap!” I opened LS on 3 different browsers to make sure I hadn’t gone insane.
After the shock wore off, I’d say that the links at the top are very useful and the organization is nice but the white just doesn’t do it for me. Plus your Twitter and hosting pages are black and the black logo really stands out. layout is great. but bring back the black.
I’m not too concerned about our Twitter background, but our new cloud hosting site that we quietly launched a couple months back is white and The Squid List has been white for a couple of years now.
It looks good, but the white *is* a shock. Black was part of the LS brand for me. I’ll get over it. Just keep posting the good shit!
Black is still part of our “brand” which is consistently represented by our logo.
Looks good, though I’d consider giving the left column (and even right, too) a black background to both continue the color history and give the columns some distinction. Keep up the great work :)
That’s a possibility, I’m only just getting started with it.
Much agreed with that. It’s too messy… distinction is clearly needed. There’s just too much information for our eyes to focus. Leaving the central part white, will force us to focus on the meat!
I like the white and some aspects of the new interface but there’s just way too much crap going on. There’s so much text on every page that it’s completely overwhelming. I’d say tone it down some and don’t throw the kitchen sink at every single page. Focus on the content and not so much the ancillary content. It all kind of runs together visually.
Jason, there was a lot more crap on it before. I took a bunch of stuff out with the new design.
That’s interesting. Maybe the color change makes it more noticeable. Still too much IMO ;-) But I still think it’s progress and I like this one more than the old one so cheers.
I think it’s a lot less distinctive than the old black theme. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but feels rather generic at the moment.
I love the white design/layout. While I appreciated the black, “classic” look/feel, I think I’ll be able to read Laughing Squid now without that jarring adjustment when I switch tabs to something else.
Keep up the good work and thank for the sticker!
Excellent. Much easier to read. Easier to navigate.
At first I wasn’t so sure about the white, but I think it compliments that trademark green better. and it looks good! The white makes me wonder what the LS logo would look like with a white background (but keeping the black within the green), and black type Laughing Squid at the bottom.
I’ve been doing the RSS thing for a while once I decided that I didn’t want to miss anything from the blog. That makes my comment pretty hypocritical: Isn’t a white background more harmful to the environment than black? example from way back
Now, google reader (where I catch up on laughing squid) is “white bread”, so I haven’t got room to complain. Otherwise, great look!
Hey Scott,
I like the ‘direction’ of the new design, though I’d like to see something less generic. The design makes it look like every nearly other website on the internet. How about some variation of colors to create focus and depth of field?
Comment visuals are great, logo and primary navigation can take less space at the top abutted to the perimeter–and thank you for no fly-outs, laughing squid info on the left with “what is LS”, move search up top right, recent comments and posts on right top, photos in between, archives and categories up top near search.
Keep it happening, change is good!
Love the white background – much easier on the eye. I’d just add some colors to the side bars to accentuate the main section (middle). Current division by thin grey line is not enough to distinguish different section so it somewhat creates a bit of ‘cluttered’ look. :)
Claire (@clairesays)
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about making those green. I’ve been working on it quite a bit since Saturday. A bunch of little changes. There’s an awesome community build around the Thesis theme which makes it really easy to find info on how to better customize it.
Groovy. Would like to see more black. (Like Courtenay suggested.) I think the black helped make the page stand out as Laughing Squid.
I had to leave my comfy news reader to come see this :)
* Does this mean you’re going big corporate now? They always have white sites.
* No one ever respects the tangerine site. Always black or white.. never tangerine.
* Some colour distinction between columns would help. I would do grey/white, but that’s just me.
* The black box logo on white freaks me out a little bit. It’s like you had the worst photoshop transparency tutorial evar.
Love the white, it’s crisp and clean. The black was rad too, but this is a nice theme for LS!
I find this to be way easier on my eyes. Whenever I visited before, one of the first things I always did was click on a bookmarklet I use that converts web pages to black-on-white. But even though it’s easier on my eyes now, I feel like it somehow has lost some of its branding (although the green text helps in that regard). In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. Your content is consistent, and I usually read through an RSS reader anyway.
Looks good. Maybe some pink and purple? I’d also consider adjusting the body width by a few pixels.
/totally random design advice
I have mixed feelings about the new look. Layout is great and always has been. I can understand not wanting to go with solid black, I myself run on a white theme. I also enjoy clean and simple and have that running look in all of my own work. And mixing things up can bring about a sense of wanting to stay fresh and current. So I like that. But the green signature color of Laughing Squid now seems to loose some of it’s vibrancy and the links feel somewhat harder to read. One of the things I have loved about the Laughing Squid site is it’s energy. The sharp contrast of green on black gave off a certain “pop” appeal. The new off white/soft gray combo brings about a calmer more relaxed feel to the site and IMO, that just doesn’t match up with the Squid persona.
On a 1024×768 screen I get a horizontal scroll, which I don’t much care for. Otherwise it’s a fairly clean layout. Very nice tabs at the top.
Odd, based on the settings in Thesis, the total width is 910. I need to do more browser and screen resolution testing.
Scott, the widths you specify in the Design Options are the actionable widths of each column (meaning, this is how much space you have to actually do stuff with, like embed images). In addition to the widths you specify, Thesis inserts padding around each column (and also around the entire layout by default), and that’s why your total layout width is greater than 910 px, which is simply the sum of sidebar + content + sidebar.
Based on your current settings, you’ve got roughly 120px of padding (20 on either side of the layout, 80 total around the 3 columns), and in addition to that 120px, you’ve got about 10px coming from the green border around the layout (2px for an unnecessary black border and 3px of padding to produce the green border effect).
If you can take about 40px out of the total width, you should be just fine. I’d recommend removing 36 px from the sidebars (in total), and then rearrange the styles on
.custom #containerto have a 3px border that is#093(and also eliminate thepadding: 0.3em).Anyway, love that you’re running Thesis and getting your hands dirty with some customizations. Cheers!
Thanks, I made your suggestions and I think they worked, but it’s always hard for me to tell. A CSS expert I am not.
Can you set it up as a switchable theme preference, like g4tv.com/thefeed/? They also ‘went light’ a while back, but being able to keep it ‘dark’ was ideal.
I agree a bit with ‘travin’, the white does make it look a bit generic. The black/green did work well to establish identity.
Much cleaner layout both in content and design.
However, the old black seemed to emphasize the story more. Now there’s less of a hierarchy.
Either way, congrats. No small task.
::
OMG, that’s a turnover!
To be honest i don’t really know for now if i like this new template more than the older but one thing is sure, i prefer the black…
The good thing is, as you say, that pages loading much faster. Good point! :)
Are u using the plugin “WP Super Cache”? If you don’t you might try it ;)
Yes, I been using WP Super Cache since it first came out and I highly recommend it for any WordPress blogs that have a fair about of traffic.
I am looking at the new design on two computers. The Mac renders better than the PC. The black subhead type ” What Is Laughing Squid”, “Web Hosting”, “Sponsors” looks bitmapped on both Mac and PC.
The windows for the images and videos are too large and spilling in behind the ads on the Mac and overlapping the ads on the PC.
Yay for readibility/navigability. I dig the white, the tabs, the reduction of clutter.
I also think the best approach is starting super clean then adding more color and flourish. Look forward to what you come up with!
I miss the black personally.
love the new design!
Much more readable – looks nice!
Ha, so as you guys can see, the reactions are all over the map.
I like it. Love how the black border matches the black in LS logo!
“If you are reading this via RSS, head on over to the blog and check it out.”
Oh, erm. The new design is why I started using the RSS Feed. Oh well, hey, look at it this way, I’m seeing the updates more frequently than when I used to visit the site.
Awesome. Totally readable now. Thank you for finally selling out.
I’m a relative newbie, I think white text on black can be hard to read and this white layout is easier to read, cleaner & more designy… But, white on a screen uses up more CPU power than black or darker colours (this is totally irrelevant to design though!)
You should add AdSense section targeting around your blog post text to cut down on the amount of calamari and octopus ads served on the site.
Thanks yeah, I had that before. I need to add it back in.
Scott, here’s a great tutorial from Michael Gray on adding AdSense section targeting to Thesis.
Just make the background columns dark grey (or black!) and it will look grand.
The information on the site is much more digestible and its a way better on the Iphone. Its too bad about the banner ads, but it must pay the bills so.
Bring back black! Or at least enable some kind of javascript or whatever function to flip the text-on-background colors. :)
I second this request! :)
This works. Good for you, Scott. Good for us all.
Tis a smidge stark, but easy to read. Maybe just a slight tint of gray in the background would reduce my squint factor. Definitely better than the megagoth black – I kept wanting to put on heavy black eyeliner and lipstick* so I’d fit in. (* which I understand Scott wears regularly :-D )
Ha, I only wear that when I’m tweaking the design of my blog.
maybe its a gender reaction in part – women like light – white
men like black?
i’m a big fan of the new digs. i’ve been coming to laughing squid for years and think this scalable, clean space suits you well. ads are not insanely obtrusive, more direct navigation. i know it’s early and there will be tweaks, but i’m a fan; for what it’s worth.
sweet jesus that migration must have taken a lot of work.
Thanks, it only took a few hours actually. Seriously the Thesis theme saved me a ton of time and now theme upgrades are going to be much easier.
I find the new look a bit sterile – and either the body font has become too small or now appears so – but my feelings aren’t particularly strong either way. Content is king.
My point exactly. It’s about the content. How that content is wrapped is secondary and now that we have broke free of solid black, the design will continue to evolve.
I love your webpage, I’ll still check it out on a regular basis regardless of the layout, but I think you were better off with the black.
I think it was Maddox of all people who said that webpages are not like books and they shouldn’t try and emulate them. A book is powered by natural light. A webpage is powered by electricity, so when you make the background white it’s like staring into a lightbulb to read.
Regardless, congratulations on the move forward.
It’ll be really interesting to see what the layout looks like 10 years from now.
As i mentioned on twitter, I do think it is nice to move away from the black. The all white it was at first was a bit too sterile, so I like the re-addition of the black in the background with the green border. It adds some of the character back to the site.
Still I think there needs to be more differentiation between the sidebars and the main content. This was an issue I felt with the old design and the all white if anything seems to have made it feel more cluttered (even though I know that you removed some things). A simple .sidebar {background:#eee} could help with this by adding a slight difference between the sidebar and main content background colors.
Also while I’m all one for the concept of content first, I do think implementing a bit more design could help showcase the Laughing Squid content rather than hinder it. Also, it should be noted that “clean” is a design choice that imparts a feeling, and personally, I don’t feel the current design works with what Laughing Squid is. Along these lines I highly recommend A List Apart: In Defense of Eye Candy.
One thing to keep in mind is that I’m not a designer, which is why both this version and the previous version of the blog have very little in the way of design. That said, I plan to keep evolving this version now that the new theme I’m using is easier to maintain and customize. The previous theme was in fact the original theme that I first used when I launched the blog in 2005.
I really like the white. It’s more readable, and I am more proud to share a link. It’s up to date now. The font choice is very readable.
Needs more cowbell.
I like the design, but I also miss the black … it’s a whole lot of white on the screen. How about some gray? Compromise and make everyone unhappy….
New theme looks great. Too bad its based on a theme that violates not only the letter of the GPL but the spirit too.
Yeah, unfortunately I wasn’t aware of that until way after the fact.
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