My New Blog - Jalenack.com

[Jalenack]

hey,

well i've gotten around to wordpressing my design...so here's my url:

http://jalenack.com

So far it renders more or less the same in all my mac browsers, I deleted the old pngs to make it IE6 friendly...but i haven't tested it...
Be fierce in your ratings...It's set up so that about 5 of my friends can all post to it, so some of the posts may be dumb :)...the ones i wrote are by Andrew...i was playing around with fixing (to one place, not repairing :rolleyes:) the navigation and all....as well as the background...Rather the opposite of Error 404's (white) blog...very colorful...is it too much so?

The links in that box to the side are all down or decrepit..i dont need a review of "No Input file specified" hehe..the outer background is my carpet...and the inner is just a photoshopped version of it...thanx for the review.

[ronaldb66]

Ouch... green on red does not strike me as a favorable combo.
The whole appearance is rather tacky, especially with the red carpeting in the background and the overall contrast is just enough, but I expect it to get rather tiring after a while.
Furthermore, the left links box sort of hangs off of the side, like it's an afterthought; it would look better if that were integrated in the whole design.

I'd suggest letting up on the strong colors a bit and bring in some more contrast; I don't know if you fellas want to keep the "dark" look, but it's a known fact that dark type on a light background reads best.

[chilipie]

I think I agree with Ronald really. Red and green are particularly bad choices because people with the most common form of colour-blindness (whatever it's called :confused: ) find it extremely hard to distinguish between the two colours. I think the best colour choice for webwriting is dark grey (333) on white (fff), although of course it depends on your own personal preference, as well as screen size, age, resoloution etc.

However, you've done far better at styling your WordPress seup than I did, admirably so in fact (mine doesn't look right in IE/Win. or Safari :( ). I think you've got something here - just keep woking on it. Pretty good for a first effort with WP actually; mine ended in a small(ish) disaster - I had to completely reinstall it, because I accidently changed some of the backend files :o .

BTW, do you want to swap links? http://www.chilipie.co.uk/ - Chili Pie - All the hot stuff, no filler.

Update: Just added your link to my site :) .

[ronaldb66]

the outer background is my carpet

especially with the red carpeting in the background
Sorry, man; I didn't mean to diss your carpet... :o
Chilipie made a strong point about the color blindness, though.

[geek alert]

Forms of red-green color blindness (from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#Red-green_color_blindness)):

Protanopia: lack of sensitivity to red
Deuteranopia: lack of sensitivity to green
Protanomaly: reduced sensitivity to red
Deuteranomaly: reduced sensitivity to green

Very concise, of course.

[end geek alert]

[Jalenack]

yow...yes i've been aware of the red on green low contrast..even before you pointed it out...i ran the site through vischeck.com (color blindness adjuster)...anyhoo it didn't strike me as too bad...yes i'll consider reworking the colors...i like the reds...maybe swap the green for...gray? brown? white? black? what do u think? the background definitely calls for light text...

I'm struggling with concept here on the left link bar...do i want to run the blog as a main attraction? if it is...then i really don't need the sidebar at all...i would like to be able to point potential web design clients to it...so i guess the blog should not be the front page (maybe more how its setup on the side bar)...but then what would land on the front page?

anyhoo, ill tool around with dumbing down the green...thanx everyone (more reviews welcome)

p.s. just added Chilipie to my link list..thanx :)

[chilipie]

I'm struggling with concept here on the left link bar...do i want to run the blog as a main attraction? if it is...then i really don't need the sidebar at all...i would like to be able to point potential web design clients to it...so i guess the blog should not be the front page (maybe more how its setup on the side bar)...but then what would land on the front page?

I have a frontpage with a welcome/introduction on it, and then have a blog seperate from my web design stuff - I don't really want potential clients being directed to my personal thoughts :eek: .

Thanks for adding me to your links ;) .

[Jalenack]

ya i think i'll just copy your flow...with a welcome and a link to the blog..that'll give meaning to the sidebar...so for the homepage...do you write that in wordpress or just code it separately? it won't get indexed by the blog search engine that way...although i guess it doesnt matter...Here was my strategy for wordpressing my design:

Make a copy of the wordpress template (css and html/php widgets) and save...then all the code in the original templates and add mine in..then i lined up the page with my code and the wordpress code and i copied over the widgets i wanted in my final design and put them where i wanted...it sure saved me a helluva lot of time and made it easy to customize.

[chilipie]

Only the stuff in my blog directory has been done with WordPress. I put all the WP stuff into my template, and then added the neccessary styles to my style-sheet; I didn't have one main style sheet and one WP one 'cos I knew I'd never be arsed to change both of them, so the blog would end up looking completely different from the rest of my site.

[Jalenack]

ok updated again...this time the colors are dark gray and white...do you think the gray is too dark?

I'll work on the content flow now...

[Scootertaj]

Looks good to me Jalenack, looks much better. I like it a lot more than the green. Good job!

[ronaldb66]

The legibility sure has gone up a lot; now if could only make the text a teeeensy bit bigger...? :o

On that links block: how 'bout a horizontal bar underneath the header? Been (http://www.simplebits.com/) done (http://www.mezzoblue.com/) before (http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/), and doesn't look bad; if you align it to the right or something, it won't attract too much attention and still be available.

[Ryltar]

I like it. Just looking at the design the looks clean and it seems to function correctly.

[tsguitar2004]

I don't really like the red carpet. The color is too harsh and I just don't fall in love with it as a design element. I can see it tiling and I don't like that. It's also hard on the eyes when reading the content. What if the content text is the color of the link text?

The grey grid background is getting to me, too.

I kind of like the blurred carpet that's the main content area background. Fix the tiling that we can see and look into making something like that as the whole site background.

Why have that box on the left with the search field? That looks like it should go somewhere on the right side, with the other nav elements.

A contact form would be nice.

It's up and running; friends are posting; folk are reading. That's more than I have.
-ts

[gsnedders]

Rather the opposite of Error 404's (white) blog...very colorful...is it too much so?Well, if your talking about my blog, it'd be colourful :D, and why my blog? Our connection through *cough*xhtmlBB*cough*?

Anyhow, nice site...

[chilipie]

I'm still not totally sure about the grey, but like ts said; you've got plenty of posters and commenters (unlike me :( ), and it all works fine.

Good job :cool: .

[squirellplaying]

I like the whole carpet idea as the background. The tinted part though shouldn't scroll though. Keep it so that it matches up with the nontinted part and have the text scroll over it. I think would look better.

[tsguitar2004]

The carpet *idea* is fine, but it's looking kind of gross in spots and the red is hurting my eyes while I read the site. I'd also like to see the carpet idea developed a bit into more of a site-wide theme. Right now, it's just the background to the pages, it doesn't match with anything in particular, it's just there.
-ts

[Jalenack]

Points taken.

Ryltar - Thanks. I too am enjoying the functionality.

ts - yea, there are a couple times when i see it tiling too, and i don't like it. I like the inside pattern a lot better than the outside. I'm not sure when you posted this, was it before I changed the link text to pale yellow? Should I make the content darker, or is it better how it is now? I deleted the box on the left. I thought it was pointless too. I added some icons for the 3 most needed nav features (top of page, home, and bottom)...but I'm not sure if I like the actual icons. Anyone got cool icons they can point me to? I can't wait till the next version of WP, with templates, instead of passing stuff through the index to decide how the entire site looks. So until then, the contact form may have to wait...Also, I'm hoping to get a profiles page up with all the authors and their pics (somewhat stylized, of course) and a little bit about them. I think it would be fun for the viewers to see who they are talking to :-D. I think I'll lighten the gray grid....By the way ts, I really appreciate your participation at my site. All the stuff you say is fantastic. :p

Chilipie - Your link is first in my links roll...thats all i can do :D

Error 404 - Not sure exactly what you're saying. I didn't mean to dis your blog or anything if thats what you meant. I like it, and i visit it. Also I can't wait to get our *sneeze*xhtmlbb*sneeze* running. I hope to implement it to my site so that some of my members can have smaller conversations without making big posts.

Chilipie (again) - Ok, i'll work on the gray. Thanks!

squirrelplaying - I tried fixing the background before...and i couldn't make a decision. I'll fix it now though. I think you're right about that.

ts (again) - i'll work on the photoshopping the carpet today. I dunno, I was thinking of just coming up with a new less abrasive background for the outside.

Thanks to everyone who gave input, it's helping a lot. If you've seen my shortstats, I've got 54% firefox users. Whoopie!! I tested the site in IE6/Win and its functional, the header is pretty off...but its good otherwise. Check back later today, I'm going to be improving it. That's assuming I can get out of this house and into my work house.

I've been noticing that it's looking more and more like the wordpress template. I'm not sure if I like that so much. Also, I think one of the best functions I could add to the site would be a little comments rss reader that would pick up the last 5 comments all over the blog and post em in the nav bar. Friends have been complaining of having to read each post and see if there's new stuff...I've tried to explain the rss feeds to them, but i think it would be easier for everyone if it was just there all the time. Can anyone point me to a good script I could integrate into my wordpress?

[chilipie]

Chilipie - Your link is first in my links roll...thats all i can do :D

Hey, where's the space between Chili + Pie in the link :eek: ? Not that I'm going to be really fussy about spaces like some people... *cough*Geoffers*cough* :p

[gsnedders]

Not that I'm going to be really fussy about spaces like some people... *cough*Geoffers*cough* :p

Shouldn't that be *cough* Geoffers *cough* :D :p... Naww... Not seriously...

[Jalenack]

List of improvements:

fixed the page background - i'm lovin it now
darkened the gray grid - when i tried lightening it...it sucked
replaced the carpet background - or more like ran it through a photoshop filter and desaturated it...i like it a lot better
added border to the credit box at the bottom
killed the white border around the post boxes and the comments..
Added a space in Chili Pie :)
fixed the favicon (made it not green!)

[chilipie]

I like it much more now :) . The background makes a really good effect, the grey is really fitting in with the red.