Looking at my sites, both past and present- there is a horrible underlying issue which says “yuck”, it is a principle which has extended and stuck to the site and become a bad stigma. That is- does this site design wise function.
The site has seen many designs in the past few years. When I say many, I mean at one stage- a new one each week. This became a problem, and if you have been a regular visitor the past year you would notice it has been less and less. New designs have been more on the back burner of problems which the site faces, mainly now more content wise, then design wise.
But that does not mean the design should be forgotten. With the design in 2011, the site developed an interesting design language. One which functions how the blog posts are written, and how the site looks to the over all user.
For years I’ve developed for my own use, more simple and arguably elegant designs which embody the site. Especially in the the early years these changes had been more helpful and useful not for the visitor, but for me. Something people would notice is that most of the designs in the rush which featured many each month is that the designs each featured something unique. Different techniques on how the overall site is presented to the user, and while slight changes, they helped grow the knowledge of how to develop the site further.
With the back story done its time to move on almost. This design has been around for good while. It needs to evolve as they say. Slight changes which eventually over the years it becomes a new design. A style which has been more recently the way new designs have been performed so the user can get to know the changes before they happen. However any changes I feel like doing in that regard later will be purely navigational for now.
The site embodies a simple layout. But is it really that simple?
Each article has a banner. With the banner representative of the color theme. With each image in the banner blurred in various ways. However some are different, some break this rule and are mainly ones which I show images to the article, you see the images in article idea is something the site avoids, however sometimes the articles need an image in the article, and there has never been an efficient way coded in this particular design. So there is one strike against this design already.
Secondly is the navigation. It has been a style which has been in previous designs used on the site and features less intrusive style then before. It is a simple list which has the categories on the site, and then a more tab. It works. It’s not a strike its a plus for this design. It’s the only thing which centres itself as a prominent delicate hold to the site which shakes the rest like a wet towel if it has anything else wrong with it. This navigation controls the style the rest of the site has to put up with.
The footer is also plain, and the pages within the site which are not posts are not really straddled to any design either.
So ask me again, does this design work? My answer will be yes and no. It works for the fact it is an obvious evolution to what has always been pushed for this site. As a personal blog, it has always been a design style which is simple and not very graphical orientated. However on the flip side it has issues which where clearly related to it been a rushed design.