Why get a new design? Why re-design instead of re-align?

The simple answer is: I got bored of the old one and didn’t think that it reflected my personality anymore. Long before I started with the webdesign work (you know, sketching, researching and all that) I made the decision to update my logo. This turned out to be the hardest job ever. Over the years this blog has gained a loyal fanbase and coming up with a new brand image is never an easy task (Gap anyone?). For months I’ve been working on different designs in Illustrator, only to come back a few weeks later not to like it anymore.

The main aim was for the logo to be:

• recognizable
• effective in both gray scale and colour
• heavy typography-based
• having that vintage touch
• flexible

So here we are. See below the final evolution of the brand spanking new Fudgegraphics logo.

Once  set on the logo it became clear that this should be the main focal point of site, resulting in a rather minimal design.

What’s new then?

The first thing returning visitors will notice is that the site is dark now. While this isn’t as text-friendly as a light website the decision to use it nonetheless was based on the fact that most articles on the blog are highly visual. There have never been long discussion-type articles (apart from this one) and as such the dark colour scheme didn’t raise much concern.

The other major change is that the post excerpts now sport thumbnails. There’s still a few posts which haven’t been updated with their own featured image. As you can image this is a tedious task.

In terms of general layout, not much has changed. It still uses a right-aligned sidebar, horizontal navigation and the icon blogroll in the footer. I was always happy with the general layout and didn’t want to confuse visitors too much.

No design blog re-design would be complete without a custom 404 page. Here’s mine (hopefully this is the only time you will see this page).

Under the Hood:

These tools were used to design and develop the site:

• Pencil and paper
• Adobe Illustrator CS5
• Adobe Photoshop CS5
• Coda (by Panic)
• Firebug (Firefox plugin)

Fudgegraphics is powered by WordPress and uses the HTML5 Doctype as well as some fancy CSS3 properties.

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed the look behind the scene of the new design. Should you encounter any bugs then please let me know and I’ll do my best to fix them promptly. All other suggestions are welcome too.

The Cool:

Cool colours are generally associated with feelings of calmness, stability, harmony, trust and wisdom.

The Warm:

Warm colours are generally associated with feelings of love, energy, enthusiasm, joy and strength.

The Neutral:

Neutral colours are generally associated with feelings of elegance, sophistication, authority, modernity and reliabilty.

The Poster:

contains 1 .pdf file – 175 Kb

Final Thoughts:

If you want to know more about your favourite bloggers and designer I highly recommend reading “Music of Design: What do you listen to?” on Outlaw Design Blog. Danny Outlaw asked a handful of popular designers (including me) to share with him what type of music gets their creative juices flowing and what they listen to while designing. The results are quite surprising and range from classical to metal tunes.

For those of you who are interested in the meaning of colours I recommend reading “Color in Web Design: Color Symbology“.

Finally I want to thank everyone who participated in this project. I couldn’t have done it without you.

AJ from Phire Design started a new series of interviews and I am happy to announce that I’m part of it. The first interview investigates how different people blog while the second one looks into how freelance designers manage their time and assets. It is a very interesting read. Some of the people who contributed are: Adelle Charles (Fuel Your Creativity), Jacob Cass (Just Creative Design), Andrew Houle (My Ink Blog), Calvin Lee (Mayhem Studios), Grant Friedman (Colourburned) and Brian Lovin (Elite By Design). I feel honoured to be amongst those great designers/bloggers. If everything goes to plan I will be a regular in the upcoming interview. The next one is supposed investigate the different Twitter routines. Here are the links for the first to interviews:

How Do You Blog?

How Do You Manage?

As mentioned a couple weeks back today is Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty. Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue – poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web! Blog Action Day have compliled a list of 88 ways to do something about poverty today. I have already donated for this cause and hope that this post will motivate some of my dear readers to do so too, or to take another positive action to fight poverty. Together we can actually make a difference. Be part of it!