Monday, March 26, 2007

META: A New Look

I haven't ever been happy with the old look of the site, but also didn't like any of Blogger's default templates. This morning while looking around, however, I found this one, which I think is much, much better. For one thing, it's called "The Hobbit", and how can a fantasy geek who's living in the country NOT use a template with that name?!

But I also like all of the elements around it. I think it's the perfect blending of bubba and techy, which is really what this blog is all about.

Let me know what you think -- if enough people hate it, I can always switch back to the old one.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks Great! The Hobbit opened much faster and we actually got pictures with dial up, uh-huh, I always wondered what was in the blank spaces.

John said...

looks good. i take issue with how the formatting lays out the drop caps, though. it's a bit busy and distracting.

Jeff Hebert said...

Good call, John, that was bugging me too. I've removed that. I also moved up the title a bit so that the little graphic divider is between it and the blog description. Other tweaks include top and bottom dashed borders on the blockquotes, smaller blockquote font than originally there, a white padding and green solid border around images, and the left dashed border on the left column.

Glad to hear the site's actually loading for you now, sph! I was on 14k dialup for five long painful years when we first moved out to the country, it's downright abominable.

John said...

I approve.

*ka-chunk!*

Anonymous said...

i think it's great! very classy and easy to get to the stories..not that classy was what you were going for, but i think hobbits can be classy huh?
Hope

Denise said...

Nice job, bro. Thought I was in the wrong place at first.

Unknown said...

I think it might be a blogger hiccup, but right now, I'm seeing a dark green background and brown (or darker green) text. Almost impossible to read.

I did manage to see it in its regular state yesterday. I hate to be a nay-sayer, but I liked the look of the old version a lot better.

Jeff Hebert said...

The biggest problem with the old template (which granted is very nice) is that everyone else uses it too, especially comic-book related sites. You, me, Chris' Invincible Super-Blog, Dave's Long Box, and then two or three others in the same day I went looking at. I want to stand out and be different!!

Still, your opinion has weight, Rob. I'll look around and see if there are other better options that also aren't so common.

Rob Rogers said...

I'm liking the new look a lot, Jeff, especially the graphic at the top (and hey, I just noticed--Toxico!).

The green ivy or whatever is a little flowery for my tastes, but hey, it's not my blog.

And now you've done gone and challenged me to make my own blog look a little spiffier. I'll have to think on that a bit.