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It has been nearly a year since I did a genuine redesign of this blog. I say ‘genuine’, because there has been cosmetic changes twice since, but the basic structure and framework was largely left untouched.
Needless to say, I coded that theme at a time when my knowledge of coding was paltry. Every time I tried to change something or add some elements to the theme, I felt restrained because the underlying code was not good enough. I did not use a reset in the previous theme (resulting in IE bugs which was fixed painfully by hand), grid concept or any other nitpicks that help in modifying the theme. The code was highly compressed and ugly by the standards of CSS coders.
Enter TechZilo version 3, aka T3. I started out with the name TechZilo_v3, but that seemed too long. Plus, I am a fan of the Terminator movie series.
The redesign
Logo
Simply put, the logo holds back the design. I like the font, but it needs sprucing up. I have always been terrible at vector art, so it does not come as a surprise that the logo is not good. I will probably hire a logo designer in the near future, for a proper logo.
SEO
Needless to say, the new theme has better code under the hood. SEO has been improved, though the previous theme was quite good in that aspect too. There are fewer stray links (like those for categories) and no bloated sitewide sidebar links. There are a few other tricks that I used, about which I will be writing on Blog Creativity in future (subscribe to BlogCreativity RSS feed or email subscription so that you won’t miss it).
Optimization
Though I used images liberally, I did not want to make the theme bloated.
Enter spriting. Spriting is a technique to combine most of the images(except repeating backgrounds) into a single, large image, and then using CSS to control the part of the image to be displayed. It basically reduces file requests to the server, resulting in less load on the server, and faster page loading for the blog. This is important because search and social media traffic, two of my better sources, are typically impatient and would do well with quick-loading designs. However, using a plain theme would probably drive them away with the thought “Google-like design”. With sprites and CSS, I have (hopefully) achieved the best of both worlds.
Feed Subscription area
Feed subscription areas are often bland, with a link to RSS, an email subscription form and perhaps a chicklet. All blogs have one, and visitors are slowly ignoring them much like ads (visitors who do not know/use subscriptions, that is). There is a Feedcount plugin with which you can retrieve feed count in plain text and use CSS to style around it, but most blogs settle for a gradient background, an RSS icon and the feed count in visible text.
With this new theme, I wanted something that was eye-catching and different from the rest of the crowd. You can see the new theme’s feed subscription area on the right. Unlike most other designs which might have used 6 or more images for it, I used a single image for the backgrounds, and a chicklet. Optimization can never be forgotten in the midst of eye-candy, after all.
Visual comparison of new and old designs
What is a new design without a comparison of the new and old? The first image below is the older, now-retired design, and the second image is the new design. If you are reading this from your feed reader or inbox, you can click through to look around.
What is your opinion about the new theme? Did you like the various elements of this design? Do let me know your opinions, via comments. Critique and suggestions for improvement are also welcome.
Personally I like th old design. It had a light clean feeling although I did not like the color scheme for the right column widgets.
As I told you earlier, I just love the new design.
Looks pretty nice, I like the colors you are using too.
cool redesign….specially feed subscription area looks great.
Liked the layout very much and I don’t have complaints on the logo; looks clean.
You might want the change the background of the page, it seems to blend with the header and looks little odd. Also change in the font is desirable, the current bold font doesn’t blend that well
T3 version is better than before(the older theme loads slower).
@all: Thanks for your replies, will help me in minor changes.
@Khurt: Design is a subjective matter, and I guess not everyone would like the three column layout. But for me, switching to 3col was the only way to keep feed and advertising sections on top, and above the fold.
@Abhishek: Thanks
@Venu: Glad that you liked the logo. As for the page, I want it to blend in and let only page content stand out. As for the font, I’ve used Lucida variants – I guess it is time to revert to Verdana. But it isn’t bold – maybe you’re using Safari and it screws up the font. Hmm….
I like the new design. Good job.
The design look nice. I think you should include some more things in your sidebar.
@Binny & Madhur: Thanks for your reassurances, guys. I think most of you have liked this design, so it is a success. After all, no design can please everyone.
@Madhur: I try to keep the sidebars uncluttered, because 3col layouts with too much content in sidebars can make it look very busy. But I’ll be adding a few images with links to popular posts (like those by Skelliewag.org).
New design is cool and calm… add some more stuff to sidebars
Nice redesign.
Hi,
I really like this design. This T3 design. Is there a way I could get a copy from you? I would love to use it for my own blog, after translating the template into Dutch, of course I would then leave the credits in the footer.
Please write me back and tell me what you think.
Navin