Back with a Vengeance

Aug 1st, 2008
28 Comments

Back with a Vengeance

I’m happy to announce that SeptemberIndustry is finally back after a short hiatus.

That’s bad news for you unfortunately – you’re going to have to put up with my weekly antics all over again.

So what’s changed? Pretty much everything as you may have noticed. I felt it was time to stray away from the conventional blog layout and try something new and more visual. It wasn’t my original intention to include the overlapping /images, but like I mentioned before, I wanted to kick the traditional “500px wide blog image” in the belly and try something new. Remember, It can always be changed later.
One of the many things I realised whilst designing the new theme was the fact that on the old SI, every post was tagged with “graphic design.” I won’t be doing that anymore because it’s quite frankly, pointless tagging every post with graphic design when the blog itself is dedicated to graphic design. From now on each post wil be tagged according to the nature of the work featured, which will hopefully make it easier for you, dear reader to search for what you want in that swanky apple search bar you see at the top right of the screen. Safari is a beautiful thing.

I’ve still got some sorting out to do with the, “about” and “links” pages which you can access in that neat little drop down at the top right, but everything else is pretty much in order. It’s also worth noting that I might not be able to post every single day like before because this version of SI requires a lot more time and preparation to run as you can imagine!

Other than that, I hope you find the new version of SI acceptable, and I do encourage you to say hello. Don’t be shy ;)

Have a good one,

David


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28 Comments

  1. Aug 1st, 2008

    David Airey

    Love the new design, David. Reminds me of one of my favourite WordPress themes from Derek Punsalan. Can’t remember the name off the top of my head, but great minds think alike (or so I’ve heard).

    Have a great weekend.

  2. Aug 1st, 2008

    admin

    David thank you for the kind words.
    I’m not going to lie to you, this theme was based off Derek’s original version because I felt that it had the potential to become something great. I gave it a complete facelift and changed a lot of the php, not too mention the majority of the CSS, to suit my fancy. If you use Safari, you’ll more than appreciate the apple search bar I added :)

  3. Aug 1st, 2008

    Sam Mallett

    Yeah David, you’ve done a fine job.
    Looks lovely and fresh! And you’re right, the swanky apple search bar is a nice touch.
    One thing — I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the lower case ‘a’ in August. The same on the ‘Respond’ and ‘Trackback’ link.

    If it’s a design feature, I take it all back and send my apologies!

    Looks great though, can’t wait for more…

  4. Aug 1st, 2008

    David

    Cheers mate :)

    There are still a few things I missed because I couldn’t make you guys and girls wait any longer! I’ll sort out the lowercase characters over the course of the weekend. You see I’ve been very busy this week, picking up the posters from the printers and all… ;)

  5. Aug 1st, 2008

    michael

    well done!

  6. Aug 1st, 2008

    Sam Mallett

    Posters you say!
    Great stuff! Will you be taking pictures before sending them out?
    I can’t tell if I can wait to see it in the flesh. Maybe I just won’t check
    Si until Mr Postman comes.

  7. Aug 1st, 2008

    David

    Of course :) I’m probably getting it shot sometime next week in a studio, but the decision to wait for the pictures first is up to you ;)

  8. Aug 1st, 2008

    Glenn

    Looking good D! Not sure about the overlapping menu on the images. But at least you’re trying something different from the usual blog format, which I can’t say for myself ;)

    Looking forward to seeing more content in the new site!

  9. Aug 1st, 2008

    David

    Cheers for the kind words mate. I wasn’t so sure on the over lapping to begin with, but I thought, what the hell, it wouldn’t hurt to try something new. I’ll probably have a poll sooner or later to determine the fate of the overlapping images. Looks like I have your vote already ;)

  10. Aug 1st, 2008

    u_helv

    Nice work David, I like the cropped picture grid, feels a bit more dynamic, all good!

  11. Aug 1st, 2008

    Philippe A.

    Glad that you’re back! Keep it up.

  12. Aug 1st, 2008

    Dave (Grafikcache)

    Lovely job on the blog. Good to see Si back up and running.

  13. Aug 1st, 2008

    Joey

    Great job, David! Visually, it’s a big improvement. I like this design much more than the previous version. However, I’m going to miss some of the functionality of the old design, though. I liked being able to scroll down the main page and if a photo caught my attention, I could quickly open the link in a new tab. Now, if I like what I see, I have to click through to the permalink and THEN click on the link.

  14. Aug 2nd, 2008

    David

    u_helv

    Thanks mate. Im glad you’re happy with it ;)

  15. Aug 2nd, 2008

    David

    Philippe A. & Dave

    Appreciate the support and kind words. It does feel good to be back!

  16. Aug 2nd, 2008

    David

    Joey,

    Thanks for the kind words. You don’t have to click twice to see a post. But if you want to read the previous post, I guess that counts as two clicks! I did decide to stray away from the original scrolling format because I was getting a bit bored of it!

  17. Aug 2nd, 2008

    Joey

    David,

    The links I am referring to are the links to the studios featured in each post. In the old design, I could scroll down the page, and if I saw a photo of some work from a certain studio, the link to the studio was right there. I guess it would be nice to have a link to the studio on the front page, beneath the title or something like that.

    Anyway, keep up the good work and keep posting!

  18. Aug 2nd, 2008

    dean

    Nice. Love it.

  19. Aug 2nd, 2008

    David

    I get you Joey. You win some you lose some ;)

    Cheers for dropping by Dean, appreciate the support :)

  20. Aug 3rd, 2008

    Antonio

    Nice job D.

  21. Aug 3rd, 2008

    David

    Thank you very much Antonio :)

  22. Aug 3rd, 2008

    Ben

    Nice one, David.

    The new layout is great. It feels a bit like a resource as well as a blog.
    Looking forward to seeing more linkage.

  23. Aug 4th, 2008

    Darius

    Though I prefer the previous layout where I could view the sites and work without having to ‘enter’ a blog post, this design is refreshing nonetheless. Clean, minimal, and simply put, nice. Thumbs and toes up. :)

  24. Aug 4th, 2008

    David

    Thanks guys!

  25. Aug 7th, 2008

    josh

    Good to see the new site up, i was here on the 1st to check it out, but didn’t have time to review and comment since I was a bit bogged down at work, but that’s what i get for preparing to leave for a few days.

    I enjoy the new site visually, it’s really dynamic and different. We’ve all gotten really comfortable with the current state of many blogs, and it’s became the norm. I’m included with this group.

    And on that idea, I don’t want to sound overly negative on the new site, but i really don’t like the functionality. As many others said i enjoy being able to scroll through what looks good and what doesn’t picking and choosing as i please, but the new design doesn’t go along with that at all. Along with the text and links over the photographs, although it is fresh and different it takes away from the images.

    Since there are only 9 posts so far, I don’t know how it will build as it goes on, but so far I’m not a fan. I liked the snippet of information of an article that usually goes along with the post, and more then a cropped image to decide if i want to click through yet as it was before. Right now there isn’t enough information presented for each topic to make me want to click though without having to click through them all to then decide. I know you said you wanted to get away from the traditional blog set up, and without experimentation we’d still be in the dark ages.

    On the same note though i sent the link of your new blog to a friend of mine whom i trade blogs with constantly. I wanted to get her reaction on the new design, never seeing the old one. She sided with my thoughts without me saying anything about it. Same thoughts on the functionality, the way to click through and all that.

    I’m not trying to rain on a parade but as a long time reader from before i just wanted to put my thoughts out on it.

  26. Aug 7th, 2008

    David

    Josh,

    Thanks for the feedback. The new format still allows you to chose what you like the look of, the only thing this requires is a simple click to get to the content, whereas before it was just there in front of you which I didn’t want to do again. You ultimately make the choice based on the image, which to many designers shouldn’t be too difficult.
    I also felt that the old version had too much stuff crammed on one page so I decided to opt for something more minimal. As a result, 9 posts are shown own the homepage and the older posts can be a accessed via the archives feature on the sidebar menu.
    Unfortunately a large number of people have given me positive feedback regarding the new design so it may take some getting used to!

    Thanks again

    David

  27. Aug 7th, 2008

    Robbie

    Do not change the overlaying type!
    It’s a great point of difference from all the other bloggers out there.

    However I would like to be able to click on the images as a direct link to designer’s sites.
    But I could imagine this is a CSS issue.

    Good job overall, very clean and refreshing.

  28. Aug 7th, 2008

    David

    Thank you for the support Robbie.
    When I find some time, I will see if I can add a direct link to the designers’ site.

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