New layout: yea or nay?
Let me know what you think in comments.
Update: Verdict is, new layout is staying (for now), but we all wish the type were a little easier to read. And I’m too dumb/cheap to make that happen.
Thanks for bearing with me through the ongoing name changes and design changes and whatnot. (For the record, since at least one person has wondered about this, I don’t care if you refer to this site as “Shapely Prose,” “Kate Harding” or “Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose” when you link to it. It’ll always be some variation on that, and frankly, the only reason I changed it from “KHSP” is that in this template, that split into a couple lines and looked stupid.) When I started this, I planned on moving to a different host and fucking around with the design eventually, but I kind of figured I had years before I’d have any readers, so there was no rush. Now, whaddaya know, I have readers — thank you! — and y’all get to see how the sausage is made.
Mmm, sausage.
I like it better , maybe a darker shade of grey but I like the feel, it looks less housewifey.
I like it; very professional!!
Yeah, I think it’s very readable and easy on the eyes. . .
Sorry Kate, no go. I think it’s too hard to read – the letter spacing is too tight and the font too small. [/grumpyoldman]
Paul, so far you’re outvoted. :) If I had more control over things like letter spacing, I’d be right with you. As it is, I’m currently going with standard wordpress templates, and I do think I like this one better overall than the old one.
I’m finding it a little dim ‘n ‘gloomy, makes me squint with the low contrast. But I don’t know what the standard wordpress template choices are, so this may well be the best of a bad bunch. Is there any way to lighten the background within this theme?
On the whole, I like this one better. I’m with Paul on the font spacing and size though. They don’t let you edit that?
(I might be able to improve it if I squiz at the CSS file)
Your current stylesheet has the fontsize set to 76%, with no spacing specified for content text and tight spacing specified for headings. It shouldn’t be too hard to copy the CSS to your own site so that you can tweak it instead of linking to the CSS at wordpress.com as you’re currently doing.
Ooh, thanks, tigtog. The only catch is, I have to pay wordpress if I want to do any custom CSS. (Also, my response to what you just told me is still about 76% “Huh?”)
This is actually a stopgap solution on the way to having a properly designed site on an outside host, anyway. But tigtog and Paul, thank you both for your feedback. I might ask someone to use this template as the basis for the new design, so I’ll definitely make sure the type is fixed.