New Minimalist Blog Design

I've got brand new design, yay! (regular visitors hit reload in your browser)

This minimalist design is based on Hemingway, and I called this one 'Nomad'.

Always wanted to have fluid width theme (if only we could vectorize fonts!) so almost everything will stretch to accommodate for your screen space.

The original font I used is Lucida Grande, but everything seems to work nice:  Georgia, Tahoma, Calibri

I was anxious to have it online (I accidently deleted the only copy of my Blue grace tweakd style so there was no turning back yikes), so you will witness some live tweaking the following days.

So, what do you think?

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Posted in: Rants
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46 Comments

  1. May 16th, 2009

    Too bad I am going to change it again soon :)

  2. Michel
    May 16th, 2009

    Hi Vlad and everybody !

    You really improved this design! I almost like it now! Wow!

  3. May 16th, 2009

    Hey Daniel, I think you are right - added a light background to the header to make it more distinguished.

  4. Daniel Schildt
    Apr 21st, 2009

    Looks nice, liked this theme from the beginning as I found my way to your site few moments ago. There are things that could be made better (header could have some kind of light background color or some another visual clue so elements of it would stay together in better way), but this is still quite refreshing compared to many other visually overloaded blogs.

  5. Apr 19th, 2009

    Well said. minimalism is me, at least for this moment.

  6. Zdravko
    Apr 19th, 2009

    Odlicno, svidja mi se dizajn.

  7. Danijel Gajan
    Apr 19th, 2009

    Well... it certainly came as a surprise and quite a change from the previous design. Hence the magnitude of negative comments, maybe :) I personally love graphically richer website designs, but that's me. This, however, is your website and I think it represents who you are and more importantly, what you do. I do miss the beautiful photos in the header :)

  8. Goran Aničić
    Apr 17th, 2009

    To je to, ne diraj više ništa ;)
    simple, pregledno i jasno

  9. dave
    Apr 17th, 2009

    Vlad, I'm an avid reader of yours on email, so rarely visit the site, but i clicked through to check out the new design. I hate to say it but I'm not a fan.

    Bandwidth rates are increasing around the world, so page load times are becoming less relevant (especially if you're using plugins for mobile visitor experience). These minimalist design websites tend to appeal to coders because they're clever / clean / quick to load from a code perspective, but to everyone else.. they're just visually boring.

    Whilst I can personally vouch for your content's ability to captivate, consider that in advertising they say you have seconds to grab someone's attention before they move on. Finally, remember the old saying... "a picture is worth a thousand words".

    kr,

    Dave

  10. Apr 16th, 2009

    Today I added more colors to headings (each category has its own color), and also changed to verdana font.

  11. Michel
    Apr 14th, 2009

    You're right Vlad, I didn't say why I don't like the minimalist design. It's just that I like colors, buttons and pictures. But I appreciate your work and your articles. Hopefully I discovered it before you changed the design :)
    Anyway, continue the good work !

  12. Apr 14th, 2009

    response to Michel {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/I0ajCnZaXj_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"response to Michel "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/FxDtO0O8zu"}}}

  13. Michel
    Apr 14th, 2009

    Excuse my poor english {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/GahsiLOscQ_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"Excuse my poor english "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/eLn9IoaNcm"}}}

  14. Apr 14th, 2009

    Hi all!

    I felt like I needed the change. The new design is also much lighter then the previous one (home page of only 21K compared to 250K of the old design). Which means its faster to load and browse.

    I feel the navigation is not perfect yet so any suggestions in that direction are welcome.

    How do you like the 'Recommend this post' feature?

    Is the footer clear enough - can you find the old stuff?

    Does sidebar need any more information?

  15. Dick Kirkland
    Apr 14th, 2009

    Hey Vladimir,

    I admire your "adventurerness".

    It's also nice to see your video comments on the site now.

    It looks like you're sitting on a throne in the video.
    I guess that's only appropriate as you're a WP KING!!

    Keep up the innovation and great content.

    Sincerely,
    dedicated lowly WP Peasant
    Dick

  16. Bamarlay
    Apr 14th, 2009

    Hi,

    I am a regular reader and subscriber of your blog as well as the user of a number of your plugins. The new theme is clean and tidy, but, in my opinion, a little bit unattractive. Personally speaking, I like the old theme Blue Grace (possibly because I used to use it on my site in the past). However, things need to change time from time and the new theme is a welcome. I think a bit of graphic at the top in header will make it more attractive. And I think excerpts are a bit too short. Better to have longer excerpts so that people will read more. With a little tweak in design, I believe your new minimalist design will shine.

  17. Malcolm Marler
    Apr 14th, 2009

    Vladimir, your minimalist design is starting to grow on me. I also admire your adventuresome spirit to break away and create something new. I use your Blue Grace design and have enjoyed "tinkering" with it.

    Keep up the good work, and thanks.

  18. Apr 13th, 2009

    Goran: Povecao sam h1, u pravu si. Manji mi se sidebar trenutno ne svidja. Redizajnirao sam opet home page (design is fun!)

  19. Goran Aničić
    Apr 13th, 2009

    Potrebna je samo mala vizuelan diferencijacija (bar po meni):
    - H1 posta uvećati
    - umanjiti veličinu fonta sidebara
    Ništa više, ostaće minimal, ali če biti ne IA gradacije ;)

    @Goran: Ubacio sam jos neke navigacione elemente ali akopreteram vise nije minimalizam :) Daj konkretne predloge.

  20. Apr 13th, 2009

    @Goran: Ubacio sam jos neke navigacione elemente ali akopreteram vise nije minimalizam :) Daj konkretne predloge.

    @Domainer: It's exactly one sentence I will test other layouts as well.

  21. Domainer
    Apr 13th, 2009

    V,

    Another suggestion.
    You need to add more words to perk their interest to read more.

    A couple words is not going to get them to read further.

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About Vladimir

vladimir prelovac Hi! My name is Vladimir Prelovac. I am a computer engineer by profession and an adventurer by state of mind.

"I would love to change the world, I just don't have the source code yet."

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