One of the greatest frustrations I have faced blogging and working with Wordpress, is a lack of any real graphic design skills - the challenge to design something fresh and new has become an exponentially more complex task as time progresses.
While design is all about aesthetics and flow, code at it’s core is a language based on structured logic, predictable and definable. Indeed, how does one define the aesthetics of graphic design? ..it has no rules or structure per-say, yet there can be both a logical and structured flow to how a design is represented.
Part of the design goals I have had for this blog for over a year now have been based around a simple, aesthetic design with logical flow and ease of navigation.
While the previous theme certainly had a wonderful design - it’s flow was confused, with content broken up over sidebars and hidden ajaxified div’s. Ajax is in limited use in this theme1 - it will stay that way with a little more to be added to enhance some features such as the comment form.
The comment preview needs more work and there are a few rough edges but overall I am reasonably happy with the way the theme ((based on the awesome original foliage theme by derek.)) has turned out. Indeed with the css reboot just around the corner ((derek’s in the middle of a reboot as I write this)) I am quite confident that the bar will yet again be raised.
- ajax is great, but only in moderation - too much leads to a confusing navigational experience and does not degrade gracefully without some serious fore-thought in alternative content (↩)
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of code, design, noteworthy, themes, wordpress.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Apr 30th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Amen!
Design is something which comes easily for me. Code is something which has taken years to begin to feel like a novice with. But one thing we both have going for us is that we work from the users experience outward. Rather than try to code something amazing, or design the next craze in copycat themes, why not stip things back and look at bigger shapes and placement which makes sense.
From there, learning the colors and background images is easier and more fun.
Inverseley, I’ve done the same thing with code. I have enjoyed stripping out all the code I don’t understand, and concentrating on design.
Maybe we should put our heads together and make a baad ass theme for people who feel the way we do?
There’s a thought.
Apr 30th, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Exactly..
It’s certainly a thought - although I can’t recommend my design skills for such a task. :)