New Design is Live

So I was anxious to get the new design up, and decided to launch it today, although there are a few rough edges still to be ironed out. Some key points:

• As I said before, the new layout is based on the Hemingway theme for Wordpress. Hemingway is an extremely flexible theme designed for simplicity, maximum readibility, and easy customizability (is that a word?). Along with K2, Hemingway is one of the most widely used and modified Wordpress themes out there.

• I’ve re-imagined the site’s purpose and presentation a little bit. Before it was mostly just the Ready Fire Aim blog, with a few personal tidbits (resume, portfolio, pictures) kind of tacked onto the side. The new design showcases the blog, however the site is laid out as more of a personal homepage, of which the blog is just one section.

  I’ve tried to accomplish this by not splashing the “Ready Fire Aim” name all over the site, you’ll only see it when you’re reading the blog. Otherwise, the header will display what you’re actually looking at, with a description. I’ve also put the static BillDA.com in script at the top right, which hopefully lends some continuity to the site, even though the header changes.

• I’m using a number of plugins to power the new design, which I’m going to feature in their own post in the next few days.

• I’ve disabled the photos section (it was empty anyway) for now, as I need to re-style it to match the new design.

• My Portfolio has been redesigned to be more readable.

That’s about it in terms of new features and design changes. There are still some things I want to add however:

• Colors – I’m not sure I’m completely sold on the black/white minimalism thing, I’d like to splash a little bit of color somewhere in the design, possibly just one color graphic (I’d love to get the “spark” integrated again) somewhere that “pops” among all the black and white.

• AJAX – I want to get back to the Ajax commenting I had in the previous design, as well as live Ajax searching. Fewer page loads definitely make the experience better, especially when commenting.

• Gallery – As I mentioned before, I am redesigning the photo gallery to match the new design. I’m also making it a priority to actually use it! Everyone’s been asking me what happened to them, but have patience, they’ll all be back soon. Well almost all, server space is expensive, some of those high school shots might become by request only…

• Polls – I’m building a simple polling plugin for Wordpress, something I’ve noticed seems to be lacking in the world of Wordpress plugins. Just type in the multiple choice options, and the poll appears in your sidebar. Definitely will be Ajax enabled.

That does it for the new design, hope everyone thinks it’s an improvement. As always, leave comments.