I don’t know, my eyes have been bugging me lately. Chalk it up to old age. But the fact is, it was getting so I could barely stand to look at my own blog, what with the high contrast, bright blue color scheme and all. So I’ve changed the colors. Not as exciting as the old design, but certainly easier on the ol’ peepers.
Enjoy!
9 Comments
I say this lovingly, but the new scheme sucks even more than the old one, which was pretty damn sucky in the first place.
The old scheme was noisy and distracting, but at least there was contrast between the text and background. The new scheme departs from the whole contrast thing.
Try black text on a white background. It just works. You can express your own style in many ways while preserving readability, which is job #1 in web design.
What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.
-systemsboy
“What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.”
I did overstate the case a bit. Black text on a white background always works, but one can certainly achieve readability with other schemes. Gruber’s scheme is quite nice, for example, even though it doesn’t achieve maximal contrast.
Whatever works is what works. I did like your previous aquaness, even though the readability sucked. I could imagine a muted light aqua background with black text functioning well, or a much darker muted aqua background with white text working well as well…
The trick is that while you want to be appealing on first view of the page, your reader will then hopefully be spending the next five minutes in the “readability” app of your blog, so the first view ends up being less important than the readability.
Aw! That’s sweet. You’re really a soft touch.
Seriously, when I started out today it was my intention to go very basic — almost black on white — but I got lost somewhere along the way. Now that I’m back to basics I must admit I’m pretty pleased. You can read it from across the room and it doesn’t hurt to look at it close up either. It’s just a little plain for a site called “The Adventures of Systems Boy!”
In any case, Chucky, your input is always welcome, tactless though it may sometimes be.
-systemsboy
The lack of color, framing and other (generally) superfluous design work makes the site seem as it if is unfinished. I know you didn’t offer a poll, but here’s a vote for a bit more polishing.
I definitely liked the old theme in comparison.
Just my .02
Sorry, meant to add-
I keep thinking the page hasn’t finished loading when I come here now. Guess I’m too used to a bit of color or framing on the page (used however sparingly).
I agree, there does seem to be an emptiness now that reads as somewhat unfinished. But at least now it’s not painful. Just extremely plain.
I’m actually enjoying the feedback on the look of the site. I’m not a designer by any means, so it’s really useful, and I’m completely open to suggestions. So, keep it coming. If others have opinions, I’m all ears.
I think for now I’m gonna let this sit and stew for a bit. See how I feel about it in a few days. For now I’m happy not to have the text seared into my brain every time I write a post.
-systemsboy
I just found this site, so I can’t comment on the previous look, but I trully like this scheme; I dunno why, but find it very passive and somewhat relaxing.
I’m no designer by any means and my knowledge on color schemes and stuff is practically non-existant, but I fancy the layout on the site: clean, passive and simple.
Regards!
Looks great!
That blue background was a little annoying to my eyes…