Truebluetitan Goes Grungy
Days after the longest post that I’ve ever written, I’ve decided to write the shortest post to ever grace the pages of Truebluetitan.com. As you can tell Truebluetitan has officially gone grungy (Click through RSS Readers!).
I’ll let the rest of the design speak for itself, but there’s a couple of new bells and whistles implemented in this release with a few more scheduled to appear later this week, which in web 2.0 terms that would make this a beta! ;)
What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Inquiring minds want to know.
I like, I like!
I won’t say I like it as much as the old, but I dig it. Great execution of the logo with the distressing. I don’t really like the other spotlights in the middle and the right of the header, though, as they’re a bit bright and distracting.
But…excellent! It’s a very nice color palette you picked and it’s really quite pleasing. Well played, bro!
Great design, but the sidebar text is a little hard to read. Make sure you are following Usibility guidlines.
Kickass!
Thank you for the feedback guys. I’ve made some changes to the sidebar so hopefully it’s more legible for ya’ll. Keep the recommendations flowing.
I’m excited to have Truebluetitan take a direction different from the white/blue/gray that we’ve become familiar with seeing here.
Much better!
All of your hard work definitely paid off…it looks great.
I don’t like it. I don’t like the dark colors at all. It makes readability harder. Dark color are kind of “old fashion” if you ask me…
Hey man. I was visiting so I figured that I would jump in.
I like the styles you use at the top of the page which make the font readable. It adds a handwritten sense to the headers. The coffee on coffee font colors for the main content are hard to read. The ‘chalked’ text is a cool touch, but I think it would be nice if it was used as your content header font or for the content navigation. Too hard to read otherwise. Just my 2 cents.
Ah, one more random thing. I keep getting this damn socialspark authentication request that I have to cancel on every page. Not sure what that’s about but I can’t get rid of it.
Hope things are going well dude.
-Spoogly
Thomas: Thanks! I aim to please! ^__^
Laurann: Thank you! Your encouragement always means a lot.
Cash get: Thank you for your input! I know that dark colors are a love it or hate it kind of thing, which is one of the reasons that I went this direction. Far too many people are using cookie cutter themes with 125×125 advertisements cluttering up the sidebar of their stark white sites.
I’ll be the first to admit that the site needs some stylistic tweaking. I designed and coded it in a day (actually over night) and think that my dark room made the dark colors far more readable. It’ll be brightened up shortly (but not too too much).
Dark color sites are coming back. Check out Smashing Magazine for some pretty sweet dark themed sites.
Sir Spooglus: Thank you for taking the time to comment. I agree with some of your suggestions and am making some changes behind the scenes. They’ll be live as soon as I get some time to return to TBT coding. It’s on the back burner as I have some pretty freakin’ exciting stuff coming out soon.
Also, I’ll have to run a trace to figure out what plugin is causing you an issue. I wonder if you get it at home away from the fire-walled working world?!
Cheers,
GF ;)
Wow…3 comments from me in my own post! I lightened up the site a bit, while still maintaining some of the originally colors. Additionally, Spoogly, I found the source of your annoying authentication and nipped it in the bud.
I still welcome and encourage any feedback that you may have.
Looking good! Even if some people don’t like the dark design, it really makes your blog stand out in the crowd.
Thomas Flight
One thing I liked about your old thing was how readable it was. I find this difficult to read. Maybe if the font was bigger…
I like it, I haven’t been here in a while, and it’s a pleasant surprise.
Interesting approach,
siFr for the menu?
.shelfwrap for screenreaders?
I like it. Really. I don’t have any problems with reading text, but I must say, that the background (which looks… weird, like a leather, by the way) could be a little more dark, just to ease some readers. And top of the site is pretty empty, but it looks OK.
And I also have to agree with the the dark colours - they certainly return, and I love it.
(sorry for my english, btw)
Rob -
I really like this design and have put it in my collection of great desings.
What I’d love to see the progression of designs you have created, especially to show my students.
So any chance of a ‘library’ of screen shots of them?
Cheers.
I really like the new look. It’s not as much of a “corporate” feel as before and I think that’s a good thing.
I especially like how your comments are branded with your TBT logo. Very nice.
Thomas Thanks! I tend to like to go against the grain in certain situations…especially with Truebluetitan.
Chris Has the updated theme made it any easier for you to read?
Tyler Welcome back! Come back more often. I’m glad you like the change. This version is a better reflection of me and what I’m doing right now, so it just feels right.
milo no sIFR here, even though I originally intended there to be.
Tomek I see what you’re saying about the BK, I may change it up a bit in the future, but for now, it’s going to stay this way as I’ve got more exciting things in the hopper!
Ady G I’m pretty bad at taking screenshots of my work, and I’m making a concerted effort to change that, but in the meantime, feel free to check out my Flickr set to see the evolution of Truebluetitan over the past couple of years.
Shannon I’m glad that you like what I’ve done with the place. There’s a little more me in this release.
Have you ever thought of uploading multiple style sheets with multiple versions and allowing the user to choose their poison.
Phil I have definitely thought about allowing the users to choose the site layout that they like the most and may incorporate that functionality in the future.
Is this something that others would like to see here as well?
I definitely like the new look. The new background texture is great and the drop shadow text actually works (the first I’ve seen that pulls it off). The only thing that I would consider adjusting is the contrast between the type and the text box background.
The other thing that is just awesome is how you’ve put your logo into the comments that you’ve left. Brilliant way to show where you’ve responded.
Holy crap! AWESOME new design. Love it.