GlennWolsey.com Version 3.0
Personal February 17th, 2007GlennWolsey.com has been begging for a stylish design since the day the blog was launched. I’ve always wanted a theme which drives me even further to write, and keeps my blogging energy alive - yes, a theme can do that.
That’s why I used part of the recent donations collected to help fund paying web designer Andreas Lengyel to create a unique blog theme.
I am blown away with how fast Andreas worked, I asked him about the possibility of creating a design yesterday morning, and here I am, 24 hours later, launching it. Andreas, I really appreciate your dedication and energy towards this project, this wont be the last design related job coming your way.
Back to the design, it’s still work in progress, and new features will be added as seen fit. I’m also considering about matching the forum theme to this main theme, if you’d like that, please consider donating to help fund the effort.
I hope you all like the design. Now, I’ll get back to creating content to put in front of your eyes and test out the limits of the new design.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:54 am
That’s great to see! Definitely looks cleaner and seems to fit more on one page, which is always good. Also, I might be imagining, but the site seems faster.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Hey Glenn, this definitely feels more open a fresh.
One suggestion, coming from a usability standpoint, is to make your logo a link back home. Most people expect that.
February 17th, 2007 at 10:03 am
nice change. Very clean.
February 17th, 2007 at 10:07 am
Looking Good–I Like it!!
February 17th, 2007 at 10:09 am
The new design looks very nice. It is clean, well-structured and friendly.
Very nice!
February 17th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hmm, looking good. Really bright compared to the old theme. Nice!
February 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
If you find any bugs with the theme, make a comment here to let myself and Andreas aware of the problem, then we can get onto fixing it as soon as possible. Thanks.
February 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
eh… I don’t really like it. First, your favicon is still green. Second, I think red and blue makes it look cluttered. And third, it’s broken for me. The “Reader Hangout” button is blocking the “Home” and “Archives” buttons at the top. I liked the old theme, but if it makes everyone happy…
February 17th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Perhaps if you decrease your font size, the “Reader Hangout” button will return to its place. I’ll replace the favicon with a red one soon.
I’m sorry to hear you don’t like the color scheme…
February 17th, 2007 at 11:02 am
The layout is nice, the comments are much better. A few things though…
- The text is a little bit hard to read. Make it perhaps a tad bigger and a tad darker.
- The italics on your name are not so nice… I’d leave it normal.
- The nav bar’s buttons are not too nice… I don’t like them being so tall.
Other than that, I like it! Pretty radical!
February 17th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Also, on your Colophon page, under “Apple of my eye” you misspelled ‘possession’ as ‘procession’
I’m such an English nerd…
February 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Very nice.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:12 am
@ Andreas
Oh, ok the font thing fixed it. And me not liking the color scheme isn’t a knock against you, so I’m sorry if I offended you; everyone else enjoyed it, so you’ve done a fine job. And especially given time constraints.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Yeh, I agree with shadownight on all counts.
The nav bar is the worst thing though… maybe a subtle image roll-over would be better. For example, when someone hovers over the word a little ’spotlight’ appears over it but when the user isn’t hovering it just looks normal.
All in all, a nice start to a fresh layout.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I like it. I don’t think the sidebar is useful but i guess it kinda has to be there.
Well done Andreas.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
It’s a rather nice design. :-) Not a big fan of the nav bar, but the size of the text is excellent.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
BTW, every time I post a comment I get an International Server Error.
The comment still goes through, obiously, but still.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Has it been based on the themeGlossyBlue by NDesign?
It looks really familiar - and it’s what I based my design on. Looks like it’s the same font I use on my blog, same icon theme and width etc. NDesign’s GlossyBlue is such a cool theme.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Nice Look Glenn. The colors are really nice.
February 17th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
No, no!!!!!!
… I hate it :(
February 17th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
im not a fan dude. to go from green to red is a big change. i liked the glossy look of the green. your blog is very mac orientated so having the glossy green was a good motif.
nah.. sorry. its not for me
February 17th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Looking good! The only thing I don’t like is how the comments are inversed. Otherwise it’s great.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Sorry Glenn, but I’m also not really a fan. I don’t like the reflected logo and the big buttons. Reminds me too much of Circuit City or something.
February 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
I hope you didn’t pay this Andreas too much… The theme is so cold and impersonal, it looks like a dotclear base theme. I really liked the previous, sober and warm.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Hey Glenn,
I definitely think the design is a lot “cleaner”, and I love the white 9rules logo in the bottom bar, but overall, I don’t like it too much. The font, the font size, the RSS icons, and the light blue background… I feel like I’m in a 1930s candy shop. Nice design, but I preferred the old one.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
And I just got a database error while posting that comment. It said I should contact webmaster@glennwolsey.com. But when I tried to resubmit, it gave me a duplicate comment warning.
February 17th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
And once again! I’m pasting the error text below.
–
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@glennwolsey.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.0.54 Server at http://www.glennwolsey.com Port 80
February 17th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Sorry Glenn,
I don’t care for the look either. The red and blue really don’t go together and the header makes me feel like I’m on a cheap electronics shop’s website.
February 17th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Chill out guys! Remember, Glenn mentioned above that the design is still in progress, and there are still a lot of bugs to be fixed.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Thanks for all the comments so far guys, there’s some good ones there mixed with some bad. Hopefully I can make some changes to please you all.
Anything in particular you want changing which is not too big? If you make a list for me/Andreas, we can get onto it as soon as possible.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
I hate to admit it too, but the theme does look like quite similar to GlossyBlue. I think at the very least, the icons should be credited to Nick.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Oops. I meant “the theme does look quite similar to GlossyBlue”. As well as repairing the comment posting, can you also add the edit comment plugin so that commentators can edit their own comments within the first 30 minutes?
February 17th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Wow, I thought I had a link somewhere in the footer. I’ll add that in now Teddy.
On the other note, I will get the “edit comments” plugin installed tonight for all those who have requested it.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Why credit the icons to Nick? They’re from Famfamfam.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
@Mackie: No, I think Nick made them/
February 17th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Hey now. I put those icons in, so I should know where they’re from. They’re from Famfamfam, and yes, they look similar to Nick’s icons, but they’re not his.
February 17th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
@Andreas: So this theme isn’t a mod of GlossyBlue?
February 17th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
I wouldn’t call it a mod, as it significantly differs from GlossyBlue. Some parts of the code are from GlossyBlue, but the design is not.
February 17th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Ah okay. I was just curious.
Edit: Cool, the edit plugin works.
Edit #2: Testing for Glenn.
February 17th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Much, much cleaner than before. Really love the colour scheme you have going on here, Glenn. Andreas did an awesome job.
February 18th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Like many of the others have said its much more cleaner and quicker. I think the ‘Glenn Wolsey’ header logo could be improved but overall I do like v3.0
February 18th, 2007 at 2:43 am
It could do with being a hybrid layout, allowing you to increase the text size and the page would widen, that way when you make the text bigger you don’t end up with about 5 words per line.
For the blue to work with the red, according to Color Schemer Studio, the blue should be a deeper, more saturated blue, the same hue as #069 (roughly). Personally it doesn’t bother me, but that’s what everyone seems to be saying.
I would try something else than the orange links, that isn’t working for me at all, sorry.
I like the new sidebar, a lot cleaner, nice one.
February 18th, 2007 at 5:22 am
hmm I liked the old one better.
Especially the old font you used in your header.
The content area could use more contrast.
:/
February 18th, 2007 at 6:27 am
Yeah I agree with yannic on the header. The old font was better. Otherwise, the new design is really beautiful.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:47 am
I just checked the theme css file, I believe this is a mod of GlossyBlue from ndesign studio. But the design/layout is not.
February 18th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Yes, I mentioned that I use GlossyBlue as a base for working, but the design and layout (which Glenn wanted) are custom.
February 18th, 2007 at 7:11 am
I think I’ve fixed the comments.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I guess I like the new design…Just nice to see a change.
February 18th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I dont know if its my computer or not, but there is a large gap on your sidebar between your Twitter and the start of your categories
February 19th, 2007 at 3:36 am
I like it. Very clean, easy to read, the icons are a nice touch.
Change your favicon and you’ll be set.
February 19th, 2007 at 5:54 am
hey glenn. i liked having the comment input section on the right hand side of the page underneath the sponsors. it saved having to scroll all the way to the bottom.
also, not sure if this has been mentioned yet but when i click on a month in the archive section it just takes me back to the home page.
February 19th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Update: If you empty your cache, you will see the updated favicon.
February 20th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Wow, I do like the new design. Bit of a shock when I first saw it!
52 comments! You got a lot of readers while I was gone for 2 1/2 days!
February 20th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Any particular reason why this site is not optimised for IE? I know it’s not a preferred browser for most of us, but my workplace restricts me to use IE 6.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:31 am
Whats the font used on your logo name?
February 21st, 2007 at 9:33 am
Aww. I liked the last design. It was much easier to read than the original green one you had. But now you’ve reverted back to the super small text!
Why, Glenn? Why!?!
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:41 am
Glenn, thanks for removing all of the texture from the header and sides. I like the site a LOT better now, it looks much more clean and fresh. Also like the new header font. One suggestion - could the people who have specified links to their websites have different colored names in the comments? It would save me from having to mouse over to tell if someone has a website or not.
March 16th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Tyler, comment authors with websites show up with larger fonts on their names, commenters without a website show up with smaller fonts.
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:05 am
Very Nice Design.
October 5th, 2007 at 4:56 am
Awesome. The design is great, it looks quite nice.