New blog design!
Take a look around… I’ve just unveiled the new blog design for Chris Bloczynski dot Com!
This new theme is similar to other popular redesigns that have been released in the last year. I did fuss a bit about having a blog that looked “just like everyone else’s” until a good friend pointed out that my old theme looked like everyone else’s, too, and I settled down. Even though I knew that this design format might be too familiar, I’ve been impressed with the fact that everything about it is so technically sound… every element is intelligently placed, plus the familiarity of the design will make readers comfortable, as they’ll intuitively know how to navigate their way around the blog.
The new design solves fundamental limitations that frustrated me with my old design… it brings critical elements above the screen fold, and it allows for community building. Some new features that we’ve added are threaded comments and a new archives page.
I worked originally with Ant from Turk Hit Box on the initial concept of the design, then I turned to my friend Jerry Gartner of Gartner Web Development to tighten the screws and add the functionality that I needed from the theme. Jerry’s great at understanding what I want, and I continue to enjoy working with the Gartners. Daniel, the head designer for Grassroots Network (a full-fledged multimedia company here in Seattle), helped me to round out the identity by providing design work for my matching business cards, and a small banner package that I can use to promote my blog elsewhere.
What do you think of the new design? I’m very interested in feedback, and I’ll be spending some extra time today testing and tweaking, so if you have a good idea, please share it!
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Chris Bloczynski dot Com is a blog about entrepreneurship and internet marketing. It's targeted towards ebusiness owners and bloggers, with an emphasis on principles such as attitude, mentorship, tools to streamline your business, and tactics for marketing and growth.
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Gee, it looks like your business card.
That was intentional. Otherwise, do you like it?
Overall, it looks nice. It has a polished professional look to it.
But…
The RSS logo is a more than a little large. I know I’ve written about making sure it’s easily found and seen, but yours may go overboard.
And the top (Popular Articles, Recent Comments, Subscribe) is a little too text heavy. Needs some graphics or something to break it up a bit. And the orange text on the grey background can be a little difficult to read. There’s not enough contrast, and it may be difficult for visually-impaired people to read.
I’m saving my judgment Chris. At first glance I don’t care for it but maybe it will grow on me.
Looks nice. I liked your old design too. This one is definitely cleaner. Looks good.
I like it. The RSS logo looked more like an ad at first… Maybe because it isn’t a button, but a large splash image? I don’t mind the size all that much, just it doesn’t feel ‘clickable’.
First time to your blog for me anyway, so nothing to compare the new design with. The content and posts seem pretty good from a quick read through.
Hey Chris, I like your new blog design. Kinda John Chow-ish.
Great!
The blog is not bad at all. cheers
I design is awesome, much, much better
Wow, I feel as if I’ve been away for so long!
I really like the design. I agree that the RSS button is a tad big but the new design is easy on the eyes, has clear (and logical) navigation, and equally as important, loads really quickly.
Thanks, Chanya! I love how quickly it loads… there’s still a couple of tweaks I want to make, but I’ve got my hands right full with the conference this week and all, so I’ll have to get on those not long after I return to Seattle. It’s great to see you stop by!
[…] customer, I had to move him up in my to do list. His design was ready about a month ago, but he has recently changed his design. Eventhough I did the whole design and coding of the theme, Jerry Gartner of Gartner Web […]