Some changes to the blog

November 25th, 2007

I know the last time I tried to change the look of the blog there was some “resistance”.

Well – I was still struggling with the old style, and I have been looking at the way people use the site and it seemed that this kind of layout would work better. There may be the odd problem with the formatting of old posts – let me know if you find anything (a comment in that post would be great!) This layout should also mean that the front page loads a lot quicker because there are less big images (though I can now post bigger, prettier images in posts which is nice).

Hopefully you’ll all like it – there shouldn’t be any changes to the feed so if you usually read like that then don’t worry.

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  • http://www.squaremilecoffee.com Anette

    I like it, hun!

  • http://www.tonx.org t o n x

    I approve!

  • http://www.jimseven.com James Hoffmann

    This is good! Was quite a chunk of work, but I think it looks nice. Will continue to gently pimp it.

  • http://espressolab.ca Jimmy

    I miss the macro banners… other than that, the new layout is awesome!

  • http://www.hasblog.co.uk Stephen Leighton

    I like the old style (sorry) but love the flickr side bar. That search bars a bit big too, but what the heck do I know. I’m so old fashioned :)

  • http://www.jimseven.com James

    Thanks Jimmy – I did also love the macro banners but I’ve been a little uninspired recently and was sick of seeing the same old ones on loop. I’ll probably expand the header here just a little bit to indulge my photo needs!

    Steve – the search bar is quite big, but then I find a load of visitors do searches on the blog for all sorts so I thought I’d make it a little easier. Traffic to the blog is a weird kind of half and half – half “current” posts (the last week or two) and then half people visiting older posts. Hence the choice of layout and design.
    Plus I really wanted something really different from the old blog – I guess I am easily bored!

  • Matthew Brinski

    It loads much faster … nice.

  • Dave Liefbroer

    Looks good James. Maybe you could cut down on some stats, cutting on some more load time.

    Maybe the Flickr bar could be 2 images wide.

    But I like it.

  • http://www.jimseven.com James Hoffmann

    I will be cutting back on the stats a little – I have just been trying to find out whose are the most comprehensive/useful amongst the free ones (wordpress, statcounter, google analytics etc)

    As for the flickr photos – I think I will probably keep the 9, I don’t think it is a massive weight on the load but I will keep an eye on things.

    Glad people are finding it faster.

  • http://www.hasblog.co.uk Stephen Leighton

    I love it that its changed. Now I can tell everyone my blog was my idea and not one stolen from yourself :)

  • http://wilsonhines.wordpress.com Wilson Hines

    Busy, real busy. But, I like it.

  • http://caffenation.blogspot.com rob berghmans

    hi,
    i’ve been struggling with my blog design as well.
    i changed it and changed it again, and again. now i’m happy.
    what i noticed with my experiments and that’s the same for you : the longer the lines the more difficult it reads. it looks nice 16:9 but it’s better to keep the lines shorter.
    For the rest : very nice design and very interesting articles. keep up the good work.
    Rob

  • http://marburger.cc Larry Marburger

    James,

    I like the redsign. Nice work!

    I thought you might like to know that the text in isn’t rendering quite as you might like it to in Firefox on Mac. I took some screenshots in case you’d like to see it.

    Firefox: http://marburger.cc/files/jimseven/fullff.png
    Safari: http://marburger.cc/files/jimseven/fullsafari.png

    I like the new header. You still kept your amazing macrophotography, shrunk it so it doesn’t take up as much headroom, and overlaid the page title on top of it. Simple.

    The only real criticism I have is when I step back and look at the page as a whole, the one area that sticks out to me is the search block at the top. For some reason it just doesn’t fit with the simplicity in the rest of the design. The inner shadow on the text input and the gradient on the search button doesn’t go with anything else on the site that I’ve seen.

    I think as far as the home page is concerned, it does feel a little like information overload. There’s not a whole lot of content compared to all the navigation on the right half of the screen. Personally, I think you could remove some of it, but I don’t know your readers or how they use your site.

    All in all I think it’s a good design. You still write the best coffee blog on the internet!

  • http://www.tristanstephenson.com Tristan

    I think it’s very cool, love the front page.

    And yes, mine was starting to look a lot like yours!

    Wow, just saw the preview as you type thing, is that a plugin or part of the theme?

  • http://www.dutchbarista.wordpress.com Jeroen

    I’m just jealous,

    I tried to redesign my blog to, but the only result I have, is a very irritating peace of music :-)

    compliments!

  • http://www.toomuchcoffee.com CakeBoy

    Eeeeek, I can’t find anything! :O

    Only joking ;), it looks great James :D