Audrey Reloaded

Yet another redesign. Don’t I have anything better to do with myself? Nah. After spending much time with Audrey (my custom personal theme for WordPress 1.5b), I decided it was time to incorporate some new design merits after seeing what works and what doesn’t with the last incarnation of Audrey. Audrey Reloaded basically only has one design feature in mind: easy reading. There comes a point where I realized creating good looking websites and creating websites which look good given the content are generally two very different layouts. Therefore, after years and years of writing on this website, I am trying to take into account my personal writing habits and designing towards those goals. As you probably know I am exceptionally verbose and the old harsh black and default line spacing definitely made it much harder to read. But let me be the first to say that I by no means am a designer. I am simply a developer and avid writer. Here is a list of things I tweaked around for Audrey Reloaded:

1. Color Scheme: Adam Polselli predicts that purple is the new pink. And I agree with him but I gave my hand at trying to compose a masculine purple themed color scheme and well, it simply didn’t work. I may revisit purple soon but in the meantime I took Adam’s other advice and gave the “desaturates” a try. Tell me if you like it.
2. Readability & Line Spacing: I am a very verbose fellow and reading my entries with the default line-text is almost nauseating. I have vertically spaced out the lines and lightened the text to create a much easier reading environment. I still don’t expect any of you to actually read what I write, but this way I can continue to pretend you care.
3. Contrast & Background: I have put an emphasis on attempting to create a much more open and lighter presence. The old dark gray background did not seem to go over very well. Again, lighter colors and more open space has been the key.
4. Search Functionality: I have not only enabled searching but I have also added a new search template to the theme. Maybe I will throw LiveSearch in down the road. We’ll see.
5. Categories: I added a lot of new categories to help organize the ever growing collection of entries. Originally, the sidebar only displayed the parent categories.
6. Banner Design: I still think the top header looks plain as an all white background but its going to stay that way until I (or my cousin Arshia) find something better.
7. Color Scheme: I have also added little minor touches of color here and there to spruce things up. I am really liking the new design but then again, I could be totally alone in this category.

Your comments are always well received especially when they pertain to the websites’ readability, accessibility and just plain old good looks. Let me know what you think and if you feel this is a step into the right direction.

Note: If you still see the blue banner with Audrey’s picture in the header, please refresh.

Adieu. Navid.