Asterisk 2

1. Ryan Boswell said:

I think your old design was better, but that’s just me. You should consider maybe implementing a layout/design changer like alot of sites do. That way everyone can choose their preference from the variations you make available.

Posted on April 14, 2005 10:32 PM | #

3. Kevin O'Keefe said:

New design is great Keith. Nice clean & open design with plenty of white space. I think the third column will serve you well for expansion & flexibility.

- Kevin

Posted on April 14, 2005 11:02 PM | #

5. Jonathan Fenocchi said:

Looking good. The change is very nice and very appropriate albiet a little early. Still, I like it lots more. Plus, there is more width available so I don’t have to do so much horrid scrolling. Keep up the good work. :)

Posted on April 14, 2005 11:32 PM | #

7. Mike P. said:

I like it, love the use of the no-you-see-it-now-you-don’t header and SlideshowPro. Looks like you have more room to breath and play with too. And I don’t remember you having comment permalinks before, either…

Posted on April 15, 2005 12:07 AM | #

9. Calrion said:

Looks great! I like it. There was nothing wrong with the old design–it was great too–but anything starts to appear tired and old if you look at it too long.

I love the thing with the photo, really nice touch.

Thanks! You’ve given me the inspiration to pull my own finger out and get my site up and running!

Posted on April 15, 2005 01:17 AM | #

11. mattymcg said:

I think the new design could grow on me. But I’m not sure about that green mate. Eeek.

Posted on April 15, 2005 01:43 AM | #

13. mark said:

Looks like you pulled in some healthy inspiration from Coudal, nice work. I agree on the lack-of-dropshadow-and-gradients comments, I can’t stand watching my very own weblog anymore.

Posted on April 15, 2005 02:12 AM | #

15. Matthew Pennell said:

Very nice, if a little lopsided on a large-res monitor due to the left-alignment. The heavy use of black and white immediately makes me think of Subtraction, with similar care for information design.

Just out of interest, why do you have the sIFR Javascript included when you’re not using it anywhere?

Posted on April 15, 2005 02:37 AM | #

17. Goran Anicic said:

Where are Links section?

Posted on April 15, 2005 03:11 AM | #

19. ray said:

As with any redesign, it’ll take some time to get used to, but so far I’m diggin it. Nice work Keith.

Posted on April 15, 2005 05:22 AM | #

21. Zelnox said:

I just stepped into Art Critique Keith’s new home! ^_^

Posted on April 15, 2005 05:40 AM | #

23. Richard said:

This is a terrific redesign: clearer, less busy and easy to navigate. this is another site I like that has a similar theme but I like yours a bit better: it works better on my smaller (15” powerbook) screen and I like your navigation a bit more. Well done.

Posted on April 15, 2005 05:41 AM | #

25. Alistair said:

I think the new design is great Keith. The lack of the patterns we’ve come to expect is fresh and clean. I didn’t not like the patterns, they are very well done, however they grew old on me after a while.

Have you got a plan for pulling all your existing inbound links into their new repsective places until everyone has updated their links?

Posted on April 15, 2005 06:11 AM | #

27. Ste Grainer said:

Looks nice - I have to second the person who said it reminds them of Subtraction. Not a rip, just a pleasant use of similar ideas. My only complain (and this is definitely personal): I don’t like bold Georgia - I think it’s ugly when it’s bold. ;) But someone mentioned that you have the sIFR code in without using the technique yet (I’m too lazy to check) so maybe you have plans to replace the bold Georgia headlines. :)

Posted on April 15, 2005 06:44 AM | #

29. B. Adam said:

Nice work, Keith. Like some have said above, a nice, bright separation from the previous design.

But come one, you couldn’t wait a couple more weeks to upload it?! You’re off the list man, I hope you’re happy! :)

P.S. What’s this Sweetdex I spy down below?

Posted on April 15, 2005 07:07 AM | #

31. johntaylor said:

Nice first impression i had with the design. Just one thing i would like to point: the header jpeg looks too compressed, wich for my taste is not a good thing. If file size is a problem i could try to make it a gif instead. Its a two color image (plus the gradient colors) so it should work well in the gif format.

Posted on April 15, 2005 07:23 AM | #

33. Keith said:

Thanks for the comments everyone. Sorry I couldn’t dialogue in “real time” with y’all, but I needed to sleep.

A few things from above:

Inspritation: I did draw inspiration from Coudal. And while the menu idea isn’t a new one for me, I do note the similarity to Subrtaction, which I drew inspration from as well. Ste should note I drew inspiration from his site (http://www.wanderlost.org) as well.

Links section: I hadn’t updated it in forever. It will be back in some form though.

Old vs. New: Well you can’t please everyone, however, I am thinking about keeping the old archives as is so you can see it whenever you want! ;)

Liquid: I may work a style switcher in. We’ll see.

The Green: I like it. Got the color scheme off the packaging of a bar of soap at The Omni in Austin.

Professional vs. Personal: I see how this may appear to be more professional at first, but if you look harder, there’s actually more of me in here.

Sweetdex: Ha! I’ll explain that very soon. It’s ok some of y’all saw it, but it’s not really working yet. ;)

May 1st Reboot: Sorry B. but I had to get this off the plate. I wanted to wait but…

Anyway, I wan’t y’all to keep in mind the old design was left off after over a year of tweaking and feedback AND I tried to make sure it was as perfect as possible before I launched. This one has lots of work left.

Posted on April 15, 2005 07:42 AM | #

35. Kim Siever said:

I love the inclusion of Flickr ino your sidebar. An excellent idea.

Posted on April 15, 2005 08:06 AM | #

37. Philipp Keller said:

I second
John Tailor: The iron tree is too much compressed.
It is clear that it is a JPEG by just looking at it because it has those JPEG artifacts..
PNG would be the right format I suppose..

Posted on April 15, 2005 08:25 AM | #

39. Kevin Tamura said:

LOL, I was scratching my head wonder what you were talking about before I decided to clear the cache.

Can’t wait to see where the tweaks take you.

Posted on April 15, 2005 09:13 AM | #

41. Justin Perkins said:

Ahhhh, what happened to the larger image view ;)

Glad to see the new design up, I like the wider layout and whitespace. Good luck getting everything all sorted out, that’s never very fun. Asterisk is in shambles right now :)

Posted on April 15, 2005 10:00 AM | #

43. Keith said:

Paul (nix) – thanks! Hey and I should note, your site was an inspiration of mine for this also.

Justin – Umm, it got axed beacuse of IE.

Jason – I think the color will come back when I get a more colorful image. This one is “kind-of” a place holder. I’ve not had time to scan all my fun new stuff in. Color will come soon and it makes a kind of nice effect and contrast to the clean layout.

Posted on April 15, 2005 11:25 AM | #

45. Steph said:

Hi Keith… I’ve never commented before, but I guess this is a perfect opportunity to start! I wanted to say that I like your new design. It’s very clean and easy to read. I read that the image on your homepage is temporary, but I think it would be cool to have a more crisp and colorful image - maybe something with green to complement your green rollovers?

Also, I’d like to see your sub-header links spiced up to stand out more (Delicious Links, About the Author, etc.).

Anyway, congratulations on your new design launch! One day, I’ll have a full CSS-driven site, but for now I’m still learning. ;)

Posted on April 15, 2005 12:04 PM | #

47. Kevin Tamura said:

I think one of my favorite aspects of the new design is in the text alignment (and it only hit me after looking at the site a couple of times). Large gaps would appear between words when it was justified, sometime making reading a little uncomfortable. Now that it’s aligned left ragged right I find it much easier to read.

Posted on April 15, 2005 01:52 PM | #

49. Keith said:

Virginia – and a few other sites out there! ;)

Kevin – yes, I agree.

Philipe – Ah! Yes it does, I can see that. BUT – I assure you that part of the design was done before Roger went live with his. ;) Love that design…

Posted on April 15, 2005 02:08 PM | #

51. Kyle said:

Looks great. But I’d still read if it looked like complete ass. Smile.

Posted on April 15, 2005 03:25 PM | #

53. Keith said:

Justin – Yeah there are a few. I could worry, but…why bother? There isn’t much I can do. I don’t mind if people copy parts of my site, but there have been a few wholesale rip-offs. Used to bug me, but now…got bigger fish to fry. Comes with the territory I guess.

Posted on April 15, 2005 04:08 PM | #

55. Andrew Lark said:

Love the site. One thought. Make the XML/Syndication link appear at the top. It’s a pain to get to at the bottom.

Posted on April 15, 2005 04:40 PM | #

57. Zelnox said:

I agree with Steph. I find the delicious links blend too much with the text. Maybe this is an intended effect?

Posted on April 15, 2005 07:50 PM | #

59. Keith said:

re: Delicious Links – I think I see what y’all mean. Any ideas on how to get around that? I”ll think about it, but to be honest I don’t see that as a huge issue – here’s why:

Readability on my homepage isn’t top priority. I’m much more concerned about my archive pages as far as that goes. From what I can tell (via feedback and the user-testing I’ve done in the past) people don’t really “read” my homepage. They look at it and either move off or into the archives.

Now, having said that, those links are absolutley not the #1 priority of my homepage and I certainly don’t want people distracted by them. Maybe if I swapped the middle and left column?

Anyway – thanks to everyone for the feedback. I’ve got lots of tinkering and if you’ve read my site at all you know it’s more about y’all than it is me (well, ok–half anyway) and I’ll try to do my best to make it the way you like it.

Just like Burger King. LOL.

Posted on April 16, 2005 09:21 AM | #

61. Keith said:

Jough – There is no “need” for a horizontal scroll on 800x600. However I’m not to worried about it as I don’t have all that many people who read at that resolution. It’s probably just a padding/margin thing. If I’ve got time I may look into that and I’m working on a liquid version also to be accessed via a style-switch widget.

As I’ve pointed out, it’s not finished yet. ;)

As far as the nav – there are a few sites out there that go for a similar style.

Posted on April 16, 2005 02:57 PM | #

63. Garrett said:

So, I’m trying to figure this out. The header, every single column, etc. Which parts of your site aren’t a post?

I’m digging it all, it was the change of the header that brought me out of silence. I’m all about taking one of the biggest parts of your design and changing it ever so often.

Plus, it’s not easy to design a site that will work with whatever image you slap in there. Nice work.

Posted on April 16, 2005 04:27 PM | #

65. Anup said:

Interesting. Sorry I haven’t read all the comments before to see if this is said, but why did you go for an arial type font??? Also, when resizing, it looks like it is fixed-width so resizing doesn’t work very well… What if you defined the width in ems, and maybe add a max width of 100% to avoid horizontal scroll bars??? (You might have to play with the width settings for the right nav though). This could help make the site a bit more accessible.

Posted on April 18, 2005 01:23 AM | #

67. Jough said:

I remembered it was Subtraction that has a similar nav style. I think the nav and the painting tie-in nicely here, though.

Actually, now that I’ve come back a bit I’m liking the new design more and more - it’s just not quite as “sharp” as the old one.

And perhaps I didn’t mean “need” but rather “why have the page go over 768px wide in Firefox when it’s only over by about 20 pixels?”

It’s only about 5px now, so improvements were made.

Posted on April 18, 2005 09:21 AM | #