As you may have noticed, my blog is looking a bit different-- this is mostly due to the fact that I spent about three hours yesterday searching in vain for a less lame blog template, and ended up wiping out all my links. I was able to recreate most of them, but if I've forgotten your link, please contact me so I can readd it-- I swear that this is not a roundabout way of booting people from the blogroll, but rather just further proof of my internet-based ineptitude.
I am still planning an overhaul, but should probably attempt it when I have more than a Sunday afternoon to unveil it. So if anyone has any suggestions for that, I'm all ears.
Basically, Frisby, I'm looking to you for both of these things, since your blog link was obliterated and you know everything there is to know about the internet and all things awesome.
In the meantime, please enjoy the somewhat ominous picture of my eyes burning into your soul as you read each new post. Please note that new Swing State author (and super hilarious dude) Matt is featured in the background! I think he's a little tired of me using this picture for everything from MySpace to Twitter, so I like to give him a little shout-out.
Monday, March 17, 2008
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1 pipers piping:
I love that picture! I even put it on my iPhone, so I'll always have it with me. That is, so I know who I'm emailing from my phone. You know, if I ever opt to send you an email from my phone. Or at all.
...
I'm not stalking you!
My blog link can be safely ignored for now. I went to do some awesome upgrades of my own, and took it down "temporarily." But that was the night before I found a stranger in my apartment, and in all the chaos, I kind of forgot about my site for six months.
It will return eventually, albeit in a new form. In the meantime, I have "coming soon" pictures for two sites.
* majeest
* Cirrhosis
That's a lot of lazy for me to overcome, but hopefully I'm up for it.
But let's talk about your site. (Okay, just a little bit more about me first.) It is true: I am a Doctor of Awesome. But being an expert in the truly awesome is more about recognizing the awesomeness of others, which is why I'm totally going to call out The GUI Girl and say she knows oodles more about design than me.
That's my dirty little secret, by the way: I have no taste. But! I am rather mercenary about these things, and I can tell you that the reason Blogger looks the way it does is because others seem to like it. Spartan design is "in." You kids today with your bubble gum and your hula hoops, you have such short attention spans! The theory (emphasis on "theory") is that the reader is actively annoyed by everything that doesn't help them get the info they want. (See, e.g., this comic.) This is an interesting parallel to the old writing mantra, "Eliminate unnecessary words." (Something I'm bad at, btw.) With billions of other Web pages to choose from, people will naturally prefer those that minimize the (subjective) feeling that time is being wasted on irrelevancies.
So, ask yourself why people come to your blog. (Likely answers: to read about your life and Goonies-style adventures; to read original fiction by you; to identify the precise moment when my comments went from "endearing" to "creepy.") Then, emphasize those things, and to the greatest extent practical, eliminate all else.
Working under that arbitrary rule, I don't see anything that needs to get culled from your site as it is. The only things I would consider changing are the font (which feels a little too small) and improving some of the color contrasts, like the headings on the right. White on... sea foam? pea soup? pea foam? anyway, it's not the easiest to read. Oh, and comments in a popup bugs me, but that's probably just a personal preference. (My recommendations make me think I need to see the optometrist. Hmm....)
...and that's why you want The GUI Girl to do your design. I'll be happy to help implement whatever ideas get chosen, but sadly, I'm not very original.
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