Photocritic goes retro
My jove, you lot are harsh critics. A couple of days ago, I launched a new design of Photocritic, and asked for comments. The whole design was instantly shot down.
Comments such as “It looks like a clown puked after eating too much candy. It’s hideous and amateur looking” made me think, and then even my designer friends started making fun of me. Hey, what can I say, I’m not a designer, all right?
In case your memory is a bit rubbish, this was the original Photocritic design, which was pretty much unchanged since Feb ‘06:
And because there’s actually a pretty good chance that you missed the design that was in use only for a couple of days: This is what it looked like:
So I decided to revert to the old design, while my good friend Martin sharpened his CSS toolkit, and started tinkering with the design. Together, we decided on a colour palette, and I let slip that I quite liked retro stuff. Martin, inspired and with a bee under his bonnet, was off like a bullet, and within a few days, the revised design was completed. I have spent a couple of days tinkering with the functionality etc, but now we’re finally ready to announce the new design.
I hope you like it better than the last one, and with a bit of luck, this is going to be the look of Photocritic for the next few months, at least, while we are moving forward to bigger and better things.
Thanks for sticking with me, everybody, and I hope this new design is enjoyable to most of you. And if it ain’t, well, tough titties, really, because I like it, it’s my blog, and I ain’t changin’ it :)
Many, many thanks to Martin
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This entry is © Haje Jan Kamps / Photocritic.org, and was posted on Wednesday, November 1st, 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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#1 - November 1st, 2006 at 22:32
I like the new design, it’s easy to read. Retro is in :)
#2 - November 1st, 2006 at 23:44
I like the center portion(the green, and the header), however I dont think the sides (the grayish columns) go so well with the rest.
#3 - November 2nd, 2006 at 00:55
Hey, this is a completely different thing. Not the sort of styling that I’d use for a photography site but what the heck, this is your weblog and the desing looks just cute :)
#4 - November 2nd, 2006 at 02:28
i love the new design, its better than the last to, but i liked the thumbnails… put them back pls?
#5 - November 2nd, 2006 at 03:23
much cleaner!!
#6 - November 2nd, 2006 at 06:38
Defiantly like the new colors and design. My one beef, though, is it expects me to be browsing at 1024×768, so I need to scroll over to see things on the right side (my browser only takes up 75% of my precious 1024 pixels).
#7 - November 2nd, 2006 at 09:27
I love it! Nice palette & a very good stylistic departure from the standard blog feel. My only gripe would be that when you hover over the navigation links (right-hand side) it makes the text a bit illegible.
Well done!
#8 - November 2nd, 2006 at 09:37
1024 in 2006??? i feel for you
#9 - November 2nd, 2006 at 11:00
Well, I’m glad you like it.
I had fun doing it.
-m
(Oh, and Alex: You’re right. I’ll send Haje an update that makes the hover-state a bit more legible.)
#10 - November 2nd, 2006 at 11:12
Alot better!
#11 - November 3rd, 2006 at 03:10
Daniel: There are downsides having a 12″ laptop… Fortunately, the upsides far outweigh them (and external LCDs aren’t too shabby either)
#12 - November 4th, 2006 at 20:01
I like the last one you had :(