Comments on: Laughing Squid Launches New Blog Design

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:24:10 +0000

Yeah, unfortunately I wasn’t aware of that until way after the fact.

By: dr.xnlb

dr.xnlb — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:16:49 +0000

New theme looks great. Too bad its based on a theme that violates not only the letter of the GPL but the spirit too.

By: Larry R

Larry R — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:12:31 +0000

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….

By: Tim Case

Tim Case — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:09:06 +0000

Needs more cowbell.

By: Andrew Mager

Andrew Mager — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:14:40 +0000

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.

By: Olivier Bonin

Olivier Bonin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 20:52:53 +0000

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!

By: Krok

Krok — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:47:31 +0000

I second this request! :)

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 07:24:05 +0000

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.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:34:37 +0000

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.

By: Mike Bolger

Mike Bolger — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:46:45 +0000

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.

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:16:50 +0000

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.

By: Michael Kupietz

Michael Kupietz — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:04:30 +0000

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.

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:01:24 +0000

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.

By: Garrett

Garrett — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 02:58:17 +0000

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.

By: kare

kare — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:11:01 +0000

maybe its a gender reaction in part – women like light – white
men like black?

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:58:52 +0000

Ha, I only wear that when I’m tweaking the design of my blog.

By: M. Douglas Wray

M. Douglas Wray — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:54:35 +0000

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 )

By: John Hell

John Hell — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:36:08 +0000

This works. Good for you, Scott. Good for us all.

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:10:48 +0000

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.

By: sjp

sjp — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:04:47 +0000

Bring back black! Or at least enable some kind of javascript or whatever function to flip the text-on-background colors. :)

By: Chris Pearson

Chris Pearson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:53:34 +0000

Scott, here's a great tutorial from Michael Gray on adding AdSense section targeting to Thesis.

By: Chris Pearson

Chris Pearson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:49:50 +0000

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 #container to have a 3px border that is #093 (and also eliminate the padding: 0.3em). Anyway, love that you're running Thesis and getting your hands dirty with some customizations. Cheers!

By: Garth Williams

Garth Williams — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:37:41 +0000

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.

By: maureen

maureen — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:21:56 +0000

Just make the background columns dark grey (or black!) and it will look grand.

By: Scott Beale

Scott Beale — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:15:15 +0000

Thanks yeah, I had that before. I need to add it back in.