I’m considering a redesign myself, though I’m waiting on some advice from a designer who has promised to create a logo and color scheme for my own blog.

It’s tough. If you’re considering a redesign, you’re not happy with what you have, or you believe others aren’t. The best thing to do is to test some new ideas, put up a new design and live with it for a couple of weeks. Then try another one. Create a poll, take a vote or just watch your web stats. Longer stays equals better design, generally.

As for your logo, keep it clean and effective. I like your current bendy one. The flaming one doesn’t quite do it for me, even if it’s well done.

Well, as I say, my unhappiness fluctuates, like it does with all my projects. I think the site does what it needs to do, I just sometimes wonder: can it do it better? (Answer: yes, duh. But second question becomes: is it worth a redesign of any stripe, or is it perfectly functional, if imperfect?)

By the way, the fire logo isn’t something I’d use. It was just me playing around with Photoshop.

– c.

Chuck-

I do like the site, I have designed a few sites in my days, often work on webpages for various people, and when I was a MIS manager, I designed the companies website.

Things I would change:
Drop the photo stream or put it further down on the page, along with the twitter stuff. Actually, make the page a three column page, with a left side, middle, right side. Putting photos and twitter on the left, middle would be all your posts on the right would be Blogroll, recent rambles, Miscellaneous Debris and then your tag cloud.

Everything else is great. I might put some artwork from your various works lightly faded in the background, just enough to see it, but not enough to distract you.

just my two cents.

Vince

Thanks, Vincent!

I ultimately want to keep my photostream close to the top — I seem to get a lot of click-through on that, so it seems better when more prominently placed. As for the columnar shift, not a bad idea at all, but unfortunately the theme I have doesn’t allow that. I’d need to find a new theme, or design my own, and since… er, I’m basically a muffin-head when it comes to web design, I’d have to find a theme that does what I want already.

But, it does give me a starting point to look for new themes if it ends up that way. Rock on.

– c.

Well check your email, I sent you an idea.

V.

I think the photostream is good where it is, though it could be even higher up on the right, maybe?

It’s a tricky thing, website design. Ultimately it becomes kind of a branding thing, and consistency is key. That doesn’t mean you can’t try out some new things. If you know CSS (or know someone who knows it AND you have enough dirt on them to bury them a mile deep) then you could try some very interesting tweaks out using style sheets that would let you swap out looks pretty easily, testing as many as you like.

Personally, I’m a fan of grey, green and blue together. The background of the page is probably the thing that you could test first, as even a small change in shade or texture could be dramatic.

I think it’s a very slick site. In fact, your reboot inspired my own re-design interests. It’s Oroborosy, maybe.

I like your site just fine. I reads it. I’m here for the words, well and the pictures sometimes, but I’m mostly here for the words.

Recently I’ve finally accepted the fact that I’m old and my eyes are the suck and as much as I like white font on black backgrounds, they’re harder to read every day. That said, I read you on google reader, so I get black font on a nice white background and ultimately my inability doesn’t seem to matter too much at the end of the day. But, um, yeah, that’s as close to an opinion as I have.

Like I said, I’m here for the words.

Put some space around the author image in your bio and you’re good. Here’s what you do: Find the image and, in it’s “” code, put in the following: style=”margin:3px;” And then dial that 3 up or down until you’re happy, just so long as the text isn’t actually touching the image like it is now.

I might dabble with the background texture and shorten the number of tweets that appear per page (so that your tag cloud isn’t so far below the fold), too.

I like the new front page, but your name’s too hard to read down there. With the image just floating around, it feels a little unfinished, but I like the gist of it.

Free advice, worth what you paid for it.

Naturally I didn’t even stop to think that WP would eat the fake code I typed in there. Inside the “img” code is where that style data goes — or maybe some hspace/vspace HTML if that works better for you.

Will –

This is all good stuff.

Space around author photo — yes! I’ve tried doing it, and failed. Obviously I was doing the Wrong Shit. Awesome.

Background texture — this is actually a (newer) texture I’m using. I’ve got a whole bunch I played with, but as yet, none look right (and some interfere with the text).

Front page — I did that on a lark the other day. It’s… er, evolving. But name bigger is a good start.

Advice is worth more than free, sir. Thanky.

– c.

Try putting the following code into the image tag is the style thing doesn’t work: (sans quotes) “hspace=3 vspace=3″ and adjust that number until you’re happy with the space.

The background texture works now, but I’m actually not sure a repeating texture is what you need anyway. I’d almost experiment with a flat color, or with a gentle gradient. But that’s only if you wanted a change. Works as is just fine.