Your humble Devil has decided to give The Kitchen a bit of a facelift. I fully expect it to take a little while to settle down, so changes may occur over the next couple of days. There are some caveats...
First, I have not been able to test the design in Internet Exploder yet, so there may well be glitches there. Sorry, there will be glitches there. If it's unreadable, please let me know. Oh, and users of older browsers will not see the rounded corners or some of the drop shadows, as these are rendered purely in CSS.
Second, I have been meaning to trim my blogroll for years. My blogroll links have always been handled by blogrolling, but I have suspended that for the moment. First, the blogrolling scripts were taking ages to load and, second, the hand-managed list in the Blogroll section is exported from my RSS reader and so represents my most up-to-date reading list. If anyone has any recommendations, however, for a blogrolling alternative then please let me know.
Third, I have not updated—as I had intended—to one of the "new" Blogger templates. This is, quite simply, because I don't understand the new Blogger code and I cannot be bothered to learn. Yet. Maybe I'll adopt it at a later stage.
Fourth, do let me know what you think. Personally, I think that it is nice and clean—I have however, preserved the old template on my computer...
UPDATE: the scaffolding is up again as your humble Devil tries to get away from the "bland" accusations. I just know I'm going to end up going back to the old one...!
UPDATE 2: back to bland for the present, whilst I work out what I really want to do with that logo...
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53 comments:
It looks fine...if a little muted.
Seems to work. The tabs are nifty. Lacks some of the warmth of the old graphics, though I guess a generally stainless steel look is what you'd expect in a kitchen. Writing on parchment in a den of flames is what I'd expect from a devil, mind you, but, er, yes. It's very sensible-looking.
No. No. No. No. No. Bring back the old one. This site is meant to be the home of an angry blog that written by an angry man who spits his venom out into cyberspace; it should, therefore, look like such a site.
What you have now looks like it's been designed by committee and that the underlying theme is "As Generic As Possible". The last site had attitude; this one is bland, bland, bland. Your template must scream; this one whispers. Your template should ram your rage into the face of anyone who visits the site; this one looks like it was made for the site of a Zen minimalist posting about organic tofu.
Also the little devil icon in the address bar is gone.
Works perfectly in the beta of IE8, which must be disappointing for you...
works really well in Chrome. I can get Guido's OK!
OK in Firefox. Crisp, clean but a bit boring DK, can't you add a few flames?
I think it is a very professional baseline for future embellishment.
Th Devil is not all spikes, vomit and bat-wings, but a immaculately turned out gentleman with polished nails, a bespoke suit of the finest cloth and flattering words spoken in clear, honey-coated tones.
OK, the consensus (ugh!) so far seems to be that it's a bit too bland. I can see that point of view for sure.
I'm going to let it run for a few days, and then maybe do something a little more... er... hellish...
DK
Seems fine in Firefox. Has a nice 'airy', open feel to it.
Formica - fit for a vivisection unit of Huntingdon Life Sciences.
I quite like it. I particularly like the way it doesn't take five years to load.
Mmmm, prefer the white - it does look 'cleaner', though no-one likes change, and I can see why some of your regulars hate it.
Nice layout, just needs a few flames.
Love it DK - I can read it and it loads ten times faster........
I prefer the wider layout of the text - I hated having the old blog squished into a narrow space when I have 20 or 22 inches of widescreen to spread it across for easy reading. It's fast to load too.
But is sucks. Bring back the steaming pot of sulphurous invective. I want to feel like I am crawling around in the underworld, not waiting in the reception area of a fashion magazine. It looks like fucking Zoolander.
It's cleaner and faster loading.
On readability:
I preferred the old font (Trebuchet?) to the new one (Lucida Sans Roman?). I think the text needs to be a tad larger (esp for the line spacing and width of text area). It could also do with being a touch darker. I disagree with BoB. I think the text area is TOO wide. More readable below 600px.
I also think the background is just a shade insipid (DDD).
Well, you did ask! :)
Works fine in my Explorer and I like it. Clean, fast load, easy on the eye, just the ticket for a 50-something (just) like me these days!
Try an up the frequency a bit. I know you have a "proper" job too, I just need my daily dose of DK.
A Sycophant
(just this once)
Not enough fire.
Lines too long.
works fine in IE 8 - narrower columns are easier to read (think newspapers)
but looks like so many others....
Works fine in FF3, IE7, and Chrome 2. You don't get the rounded CSS corners in IE7 of course. A bit bland as others have said, and you need a natty favicon IMO :-)
It loads in the blink of an eye, which is in itself a huge improvement.
looks nice and clean but i think a little too clean working fine in chrome though i havent checked the others. I prefer the old template though, but it's what you're happy with in the end.
Needs more "evil" else fine.
Works fine in FF3 & IE tab (IE7) within FF. Certainly loads more quickly, and I prefer the wider text space. Agree with other comments about the rather "bland" look, though. But I'm sure you will liven things up a bit....
W/V "upsedw" - sounds like a trade union!
First rule of web design, content is King. Unless it was background black with various times fonts in bright blue green and / or yellow I really couldn't give a flying fish.
But, the width and height means you can seamlessly link to The Times!
I like it. My only criticism would be that the old colours were very distinctive whereas the new ones are a bit samey. I come for the content not the style though.
Why do you have "Posted by Devil's Kitchen at----" both top and bottom ?
Lines are a bit long but I quite like it. Looking forward to your tasteful embellishments.
Nice and clean, and as MW said, loads quicker which is great. The clipped DK logo is natty too.
My site seem to have disappeared from your blogroll though ... was it something I said?
Is that logo supposed to move down the page and trample all over the bit I'm trying to read? (IE7)
thingy with paperclip should stay at the top - not drift down as I scroll.
(both IE8 and Firefox)
Could we have British dates and not American ? (posts and comments)
Sod them DK. It's not bland. I like it. Clean and efficient. If they want loud and colourful tell them to fuck off elsewhere or even start their own. Your blog, your rules, your design.
Or... If you fancied a challenge you could implement a stylesheet switcher and have multiple options for folk. That would mean having to link to stylesheets hosted elsewhere, though. I think.
Mike, to be fair, DK did ASK for feedback. I tried to be constructive rather than just complain in general terms. Personally, I find the typeface lacks punch and there could be a shade more contrast, but that is just my tuppence worth.
Content isn't everything. Try Normblog! Style and readability do matter. It's woth tweaking until you are happy with it. That could take a few days. Whatever you do don't go back to the old design. Never go back! :)
Looks great on FF 3.0.8 on Ubuntu!
Works just fine on IE 6.0.2900.5512
Not bothered about how it looks as long as there is vast swathes of venom spewed forth at anything wearing a political tag.
Keep up the inspiring work. In a down and tawdry world visiting DK is refreshing a highlight.
Rich
The site looks good! Don't listen to that 'bland' bollocks. The yellowy scroll thing looked like a fucking year 8s history project, and it was too cluttered before.
This is good and the new logo up top is the way forward.
Fuck 'em, keep it mate.
Rouse..Dk asked for opinions,he got them...it's for him to act or not....so shut the fuck up.
With the new changes the logo appears to be fixed, so it blocks text when I scroll. This is with firefox. Also, the site doesn't render properly if I have javascript turned off, which is a shame.
Much obliged DK :-)
Hi DK
I dunno.
I loved the way it loaded so much more quickly. Blogrolling is a problem for all of is. A really useful program, but it's just too slow. If you find a better solution, let me know.
In terms of the artwork, I am less sure.
It was an incredible achievement to build up a blog purely on the basis of the strength of your writing, which is what you have done, and so I suppose the wrapping paper does not matter that much. But your "wrapping paper" was a design triumph, has become such a part of your trade mark (and you DO have a strong trade mark) . I do not associate the DK with "bland" in any shape or form.
Of course, I am elderly, stuck in my ways and totally resistant to change of any sort. If I had my way, I would return The Times to broadsheet form and put the personal ads back on the front page, where they should be.
John
your rss feed still doesn't work.
Yes, it's clean, minimalist and loads as fast as shit moves off a hot shovel.
Oh gawd, now it's on twitter. You aren't by any chance planning to do something in power point are you?
PS you still get tick and a VG for content.
I have to concur with Dr Crippen. I never had any problem loading the old page so I can't comment on that but it was a 'design triumph'.
Thanks for all the feedback: I have taken it on board and shall ponder it.
I have a few other ideas for introducing the new functions whilst maintaining the vibrancy of the old template, but it may take a little while to pull together.
Please do keep the comments coming...
DK
I like it. Minimal is good, because my work computer is shite and so when I'm messing about on the internet instead of doing any work, sites with a lot going on take ages to load, meaning my boss is more likely to catch me. I can't comment on blogrolls because I'm an utter techno-tard and I don't know what they are but I'm sure trimming it is a very good idea, because anything overgrown is rarely attractive, nasal hair, toenails, beards, politician's expenses, all better when trimmed to the bare minimal necessary.
Change is bad
Have a look at this:
http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/
I liked the old version better. It's general grunginess was somehow in keeping with the political filth and degradation you lift the lid on.
I like it. It loads much quicker in IE (which I have to use at work...) and the simple design is easy to read.
But it may be a little bit too plain to be suitable for a blogger taking on the guise of the Devil...
TNL
I like it. it loads much quicker in opera mobile, which i still haven't found a decent alternative to. the only thing that would make me happier is if you made it black with white writing!
Nah.
Don't like it, oreferred the old one. Also it hangs up google Chrome _and_ firefox.... so there you go!
Also it looks too much like those buggers at LPUK, and we would not be wanting that sort of stuff, now!
Don't like it. Too bland, lines too long harder to read.
Late to the party. DOES load fast, but DOESN'T hit the eye with the sort of look which immediately screams out that this is the Devil's lair. I would suggest you have yet to hit that Aristotelian "Golden Mean"/Goldilocks
midpoint somewhere between where you are now and a site like "Atlas Shrugs" which, while colorful and distinctive, takes forever to load..on good day..
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