The Format of This Site

by Joshua Lane (March 6, 2006) | 6 Comments

Why Things Are The Way They Are

When creating this site, one of the first things I thought about was the format. How should I position everything? Should I have two columns or three? Should I stick with 800×600 or go wide to 1024×768? What about color schemes and fonts?

  • Going Wide
    One of the reasons I decided to go wide was because of Bearskinrug. I really enjoy the way Kevin presents his content, and wanted to do something similar.
  • Less is More
    Instead of using the extra width to pack in more features/articles/etc, I went the other way and decided on no scrolling for the home page. That meant ONE full post and only a few links/excerpts to previous articles. And on “photo-only” days, the site mimics a typical photo-blog layout… a format I’m quite fond of.
  • The “Look”
    The things that define my style right now are large blocks of color and thick borders to frame a site. They obviously come through on this design, but some heavy decorative pieces also get introduced. A big thanks goes to Jason Santa Maria for pushing me on the logo and Rob Weychert, Dan Mall and Kevin Cornell for setting great examples with decorative elements and typography.

Comments:

by Dan Mall (March 6, 2006)

Well done, Josh! This is a really nice evolution of your style. Xara X should be proud that you’re using it.

by Veracon (March 6, 2006)

Very nice job indeed. The only ‘complaint’ would have to be the large number of div(ision) tags. I think if it wasn’t for those, I’d have immediately added it to css thesis (which you submitted it to).

by Joshua Lane (March 6, 2006)

Thanks Veracon! In my defense, a number of sites listed at CSS thesis have more divs than I do. At my max, I count only 15 divs.

by Lou (March 6, 2006)

What is with this fad of “grandma’s underwear” pattern lately? I enjoy the color palette but I don’t think I am alone when I say this grandma’s underwear (mainly full-seaters) pattern is just getting stale.

by BigA (March 7, 2006)

Well, you’ve certainly got some great role models there and it’s clearly paid off. Nice job.

by Veracon (March 7, 2006)

Sat down and considered it a bit… Thought “What the heck.” Consider yourself css thesis’d. :)

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BlissfullyAware is the online home of Web Designer / Information Architect, Joshua Lane. It features his thoughts, ramblings, commentary and (more often than necessary) some of his photos.

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