JohnTP.com Redesigned
ADVERTISEMENTSI had been planning to redesign this blog for a long time and also had drawn a rough sketch of how I wanted the new design to look like but it was delayed due to many reasons. But after finding that many of the blogs I read got redesigned recently, I too felt that it was time for me to do the same.
I worked on the new design for a few days and finished with it yesterday and also tested it on Firefox, Opera, IE 6 and 7. Everything looks fine so far but I still have a few things to do like optimizing the CSS, removal of useless plugins and some other things to decrease page load time.
Long time readers may remember that I had a previous design with the header like the new one. New readers can see a preview of the old theme’s header below (screenshot was taken while reviewing CrazyEgg):
Instead of placing popular posts from the Blogging and Tweaks category separately on the header, I have the displayed a few of the overall popular posts from the blog and then linked to the Top Posts Page to save space.
You may also have noticed that the new theme is brown in color (I usually make my themes in blue color).
Some of the changes made in the new design
- Switched to 2 column for neater look
- moved money makers to the header
- removed Top Commentators plugin as I had lost a few advertisers in the past because of it (a better way is to link to good posts from the Top Commentator’s blog once a week so that they get a bit of traffic too along with the link)
- removed MyAvatars plugin as it was making single post pages load slowly (especially those with many comments)
- placed my pic near the logo and linked it to the about page so that new readers can easily find more info about the author
- put up some space on header to post my current activities and anything that is too short to make a post for (kinda like Twitter)
Please check out the new design and tell me what you think about it. If you spot any errors, please let me know that as well.
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Posted on September 11th, 2007 | Category: Personal |
Stefson
September 11, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Hum, I don’t know.
The colours used in this theme are a bit plain don’t you think? Why don’t you stick with blue/white?
Max Adams
September 11, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Congrats on your new design. The blog looks very well organized. I think it’s wise to move from 3 columns to 2 columns. And, nice color combination IMO.
Shankar Ganesh
September 11, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Hey this looks very cool. Everything’s good, John.
But you could’ve gone for a better colour scheme
James Pegram
September 11, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Theme looks good John. Sure the brown is a bit different but everybody uses blue.. lol
Rohit
September 11, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Refreshing. One suggestion though - Why not have a ‘Skip to content’ link in the header menu ? Otherwise I think the design is really good.
Nuts & Milk
September 11, 2007 at 6:30 pm
TBH the colors make your blog look boring. Add life
knupNET
September 11, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I like the change. Just refreshes things a bit and the colors don’t bother me!
Madhur Kapoor
September 11, 2007 at 7:28 pm
The design looks neat and pretty . But i think you should stick to the blue/white colour scheme .
Blogging Experiment
September 11, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Dude, I’m all for presenting info in the header (hell my design is somewhat similar) but absolutely no content above the fold? That to me is a BIG mistake. I thought John Chow was cutting it pretty close but you’ve pushed it even further down. If you got rid of that big adsense block and moved the content up I’d say it looks solid (although I agree with the blue color scheme comments). Not to be rude but right now it looks like you value a few cents per click over user experience and don’t think your content is valuable (which I feel it is).
Patrix
September 11, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Nice and clean. Great new look.
Varun
September 11, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Looks Good !! Seems like you were inspired by the problogger theme
Marc
September 11, 2007 at 10:46 pm
If I am understanding right, you seem to be more fond of pastel shades as your current page colors are also in pastel shades and the new design also has a touch of less bright colors. The design and layout of the page looks good. I personally like a lot of brights, why don’t you try a brighter color this time as your current color is also quite dull and plain.
JohnTP
September 11, 2007 at 11:17 pm
It looks like the the majority of commenters want back the old blue/white color scheme. I chose brown this time as I was tired of blue
But majority wins…I will switch back to the old blue/white color scheme as soon as possible.
JohnTP
September 11, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Rohit - I had the idea of ‘Skip to content’ link in the header menu too, but I will first try to shorten the header size.
Blogging Experiment - You are right, I will try to shorten the header and maybe move the adsense block too.
Varun- Are you talking about the popular articles in the header? I had this design even before the previous theme and seriously I was not inspired by the problogger theme. I got the idea when I saw a screenshot of some site on a tech magazine.
But now you can find many blogs having this type of design, it’s no more unique
Ashwin
September 11, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Looks cool but we’ll have got used to your Blue design so this looks odd….nevertheless you changed it for good.
Blogging Experiment
September 12, 2007 at 1:21 am
John,
That looks much better now. I’d still suggest playing around with it and trying different things but it really does make all the difference for me being able to find content above the fold.
Technojuice
September 12, 2007 at 2:06 am
dude blue was better ! my suggestions is never change the trademark color make changes to the feel of the site but never the theme color !!!
kamal
September 12, 2007 at 9:01 am
Hi,
I appreciate your new design and looks very great.My suggestion is the presentation is very cute.But the colors are you choose is one of the rare colors that very few site are using (including mysite).I suggest you to add some maroon on the header part where the title goes.Say in sidebar where the title category goes.Layout is really unique and it makes navigation much easier.
Good luck!
Nirmal
September 12, 2007 at 9:31 am
The redesign looks really good, but as everyone said the blue and white looks were still better. John, it would be great if you can bring back the blue and white effect.
Ronald
September 12, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Hmmm, i like the old designed
Andrew
September 12, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I dont think the new one is that bad, it makes the site look more serious.
Ronald
September 12, 2007 at 10:24 pm
John - your old themes is available for download because you’ve a new themes?
Shivaranjan
September 12, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Neat, but John I want your blue colours back…
I feel the sidebar is far too wide, may be you can reduce the size of side bar a bit.
JohnTP
September 13, 2007 at 7:58 am
Ronald- I somehow knew you were going to ask me that
I am not sure..the theme is slow loading and I have modified the theme a lot to my liking.
Also…I don’t think there is much space to put your site name, it can fit only small names like ‘JohnTP.com’
Do you really need it? I would like to know if anyone else is interested.
Shivaranjan- I did not make the sidebars wide without a reason
Ronald
September 13, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Hehehehe…No problem for me John about the small space
I really like it!
David Bradley
September 13, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I’m looking at the new design in Firefox with noscript and AdBlock+ running (sorry, but I never was going to click any ads, anyway) and it looks great. Nice subdued tones and we finally get to put a face to the name.
Meanwhile, I did a tongue-in-cheek post recently on Sig Figs offering a Top Ten Firefox Addons to Annoy Advertisers. It seems that since then, some sites have been blocking FF users because it’s not worth serving the page if they aren’t going to make any money out of the reader! Pah!
Anyway, good luck with the new design, you’re sure to make that 2000 RSS subscribers any time soon…
db
Webmaster Money
September 14, 2007 at 12:04 am
Your blog looks definitely different from others. I am just missing the Top Commentators…
Keith Dsouza
September 14, 2007 at 12:42 am
The new theme and color look great John, it was high time you had made a change and this one is cool.
Ronald
September 14, 2007 at 10:56 pm
WOW, this seems very cool, John. Anyway, i still wait your old themes ,
Kadir
September 15, 2007 at 8:48 am
Wow… This is perfectly a pleasant blog. The Bg and the sidebar colors are really fascinating. I have subscribed to your RSS feed as you’re having top notch content. Keep posting good stuff to enrich the wordpress blogs of your clients…
Alex Panait
September 15, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Congrats John, your blog looks better redesigned !
kamal
September 18, 2007 at 9:33 am
The new look feels nice.Good luck!
Rod
September 21, 2007 at 7:54 am
“removed Top Commentators plugin as I had lost a few advertisers in the past because of it (a better way is to link to good posts from the Top Commentator’s blog once a week so that they get a bit of traffic too along with the link)”
Can you go into more detail about this John? Why would you lose advertisers because of the Top Commentator’s plugin?
JohnTP
September 25, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Rod - In the past some of the advertisers that contacted me for advertising on this blog, never replied back and just started commenting a few times to get free links.
yeahlang
January 6, 2008 at 11:54 am
Hey,John,can you share this theme ?