Spring (design) cleaning
I’m a little surprised by how long I managed to put off redesigning this site, but it’s finally got a new look inspired by the design work we’ve been doing on gdgt over the past few months.
Although it’s not a radical departure, blogging as a format — even personal blogging — has changed significantly in the four years since my last design. A venue for a simple feed of blog posts almost feels like it’s from a bygone era; although I’m not a big Tumblr user, it’s easy to see the appeal of blog-like content aggregation points.
The new (re)distribution of that content is a concept I tried to loosely work in here: besides only showing one full (and two abridged) posts on the front page, the layout now has a more naturally integrated Twitter feed on the right, and by scrolling down you’ll also pick up more of what I’ve posted elsewhere (like Engadget, for example).
Also changed: Mosso is now hosting this site. They also host our live event coverage at live.gdgt.com, and if they can stand up to one of my liveblogs, they can surely stand up to just about anything. Shout outs also go to John Wiseman / Brolly for the great work on building out the new template.
Please do hit up the comments and let me know what you think, or if you’re noticing any visual tics or anomalies.
I'm an editor and technology critic in the midst of founding a new web startup: 

Sorry about that, looks like comments are back online!
Lookin’ good!
Looks good. Loads fast. Maybe a prev – next in-post navigation links?
Funny that you mentioned the still-developing gdgt – your weekly podcasts (which are great for my trip to uni) make it feel like the site’s been up and running for a while.
I’m liking your new clean design, although so clean that I missed the RSS feed links at the bottom. :p Similar to Titanas’ suggestion, a short list of recent blog posts on the right might be handy. (Didn’t you used to have that?)
Thanks for responding to my bug report and good job at fixing it so quickly. Will also look out for new posts in your “Posts from other places” section. :) *adds RSS feed*
Thanks for the suggestions! Titanas: I’ll look at a prev/next nav in each post, not entirely sure it’s a common use-case for this site though.
Richard: I dropped RSS in at the bottom since most browsers and feed readers detect it in the header info, so it didn’t seem like it needed to be too prominent. List of recent stories might be useful, but since I seem to only update like once a month these days, it didn’t seem super pressing.
Just note, though, that RSS feed is for this site only. Stuff from Twitter, Engadget, and elsewhere won’t show up there (at least not for now).
All lookin’ good from here, Ryan. Enjoying the new design.
Nice!
Very Helvetica!
:-)
Your template blows because you spelled my name the ‘old-fashioned’ way. However you and I do share a similar appreciation for typography.
JD, don’t tempt fate. I could just as easily remove it and deprive you of your 3-5 monthly page views.
I like this. Simple, clean and not cluttered at all.
Ryan , hi
Really like the clean, crisp design – really liking the feeds and search down in the footer.
Take it easy.
M.
Very clean and it loaded instanly. Looks great Ryan.
The design looks clean and simple, the way I like it. Good luck with gdgt btw.
Great design. Readable, uncluttered, quick load time, and easy to navigate… what more can you ask for…
Looks great, Ryan. The appearance is much cleaner and more modern looking.
Much cleaner!
The “content” link next to the title switches back and forth to “contact” when I mouse over it. Also, your title image background is tan-colored instead of transparent, which I assume it’s supposed to be. These are probably both a function of IE6, which I know has a bug with transparent backgrounds on png’s. (damn-you, enterprise machines…) so take it FWIW. Great job on the design!
Sorry Pat — not supporting IE6 in any current or future projects/sites. All the anomalies you’re seeing are likely due to its notorious lack of standards compliance.
The site looks really great. The redesign came out really well.
I’ve been a huge Engadget fan since circa 2005 ! So, when you left, I just looked at what you were dabbling into, found gdgt to be a great idea (if implemented efficiently). Been following you on twitter just recently.
As per the design, I thought the old design was or atleast the header was inspired by Bioshock’s art-style! ( forgive me!, I’m an over-zealous gamer ). But the new design is great, being a minimalistic myself, I totally dig it, its’ awesomeness personified !
twt: aMjAZzz
@Pat: Never too late to switch to Firefox. ;)
I’m guessing that this theme is exclusively yours and not free or publicly available. Is that right? It has inspired me to declutter my blog.
John: yeah, it’s custom, sorry man!
looks good, the re design is really great. good blog, thanks.
Very clean and it loaded instanly. Looks great Ryan.