Spring cleaning, hypernarrative gets updated
Last weekend I updated hypernarrative.com to the most recent version of Wordpress. I haven’t been writing very frequently in the last months. I don’t know why, it just happened.
Black?
While updating the back-end of the site, I also decided to give the front-end a makeover. A more magazine style interface that also promotes some projects and things I do. Hypernarrative is not just a blog, it’s also a personal timeline.
The color black gives it a magazine/portfolio style interface. I haven’t figured out if black is optimal for reading.
Technical details
I use a five column design based on a 960 pixel width. The website has a Flash header, I’m not sure yet what to do with this, but I like something interactive. The site looks best on a Mac because they have the Helvetica and Rockwell fonts installed. If you have Windows you will see a combination of Courier and Arial, which is pretty nice as well.
I tried sIFR for font replacement, but didn’t like the loading speed of this.
The header picture was taken in the room of a bed and breakfast in France.
Subscriber
If you are a reader of the full article feed, or if you read this blog somewhere syndicated, nothing changed.
14 comments
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March 25 2009 @ 8:35 am
Congratulations. I must admit I always read your posts in my feedreader so nothing changed for me but of course I was curious and “came over” to your blog.
The text is indeed hard to read, for some reason the white on black hurts my eyes. Everything above the fold looks perfect, the text beneath the fold could maybe use some adjustments.
March 25 2009 @ 9:29 am
Thanks, I will just keep finetuning and if it doesn’t work out switch back to white :)
It’s funny that on a mobile phone the black reads great. Maybe I’ll search for some more info about reading and sceen colors.
March 25 2009 @ 9:35 am
If you’re looking for font replacement, you could also try this plugin (since you’re working with wordpress): http://www.hostscope.com/wordpress-plugins/ttftitles-wordpress-plugin/
Works for me.
March 25 2009 @ 10:49 am
Thanks, I’ll try ttftitles.
March 25 2009 @ 11:45 pm
Not sure about the combination of black and the really thin font. The contrast is so high the letters start ‘dancing’ a bit when i look at the page too long. Or maybe i’m just tired ;)
March 26 2009 @ 11:04 am
Thanks, I changed the text color into a very light grey. And doubled the font width. Let’s see if this works out. Otherwise, back to white :)
March 26 2009 @ 12:58 pm
The double font width doesn’t do it for me. The shade of grey does.
March 26 2009 @ 11:57 pm
Wow, quite refreshing shower to enter the new design… I really like the change. I really like the proces of changing.
March 28 2009 @ 4:36 pm
Hey cool!
Alltough I wouldn’t right away think of black at the beginning of spring :)
Well actually here in Poland the spring sort of started today, pretty depressive to see have of Europe already celebrating spring while you are till sitting in snow :S (In that case black’s perfect.)
Well ok, my first impression is fine, I like the yellow and pink very much. The links are very recognizable like this. Only for me the text in post column could be even more grey. It sort of starts to hurt after a while. The text in the right column is a lot better an less painful.
Good job!
March 30 2009 @ 3:44 pm
I will add a little Polish grey to text :) Bob Ross style!
April 22 2009 @ 9:02 am
I have serious doubts about the new setup. Might change it again soon… :)
A blog is work in progress!
May 7 2009 @ 9:32 am
Swap the black background and white text with white or light-gray background with black or dark-gray text.
No one can read long text in terminal window style. Everyone will stop reading after one paragraph, because it hurts eyes. Do you ever do usability study on your designs?
May 7 2009 @ 5:34 pm
Thanks for your comment. I’m working on a light version of the blog.
Most of the things I design are very usability oriented. I work at a newspaper, where usability is obviously one of the most important aspects of anything we make online. On my blog I try to experiment, sometimes these experiments are successful sometimes they are not.
And while I’m trying things there is a very good alternative, the full text rss feed @ http://feeds.feedburner.com/hypernarrative
I did this redesign because more people are asking for my portfolio. When I say I have a blog that has the most interesting things I do on it they find this a difficult interface for a portfolio. It doesn’t have an overview.
I don’t have a reel or sorted collection of projects. The problem with a portfolio is that they are very fast out-of-date, that’s why I like a blog, but I’m in a split here, a blog is not a very good portfolio either…
The black is a nice background and atmosphere for a portfolio, the style also relates to an offline pdf/powerpoint portfolio I have. Unfortunately the black doesn’t work very well for a blog.
June 7 2009 @ 7:55 pm
[...] done. … wilbertbaan: More work in progress … wilbertbaan: Work in progress … Wilbert Baan: Thanks for your comment. I’m working on a light version of the blog. Most of the things I design… George Zafirovski: Swap the black background and white text with white or light-gray background [...]