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November 13, 2006
A few changes
If you're reading this post at the online home of our blog and website, you've probably noticed we've updated the site's design and navigation. (RSS readers can click through to the site to see what I'm talking about.)
On a cellphone, our previous design displayed like a tub of mud. So, inspired by Jeffrey Zeldman's evangelism for cool design that uses web standards, we retooled for form and function. Here's a bit of background about a few site items:
The photo for the page header was taken by the multi-talented Trey Ratcliff. By day, he's the CEO of an Austin-based gaming company. By night, he shoots incredible photographs during his travels around the world. I'd noticed his work on Flickr several months ago (where he has a strong following) and asked him to shoot our book/press portraits during one of his frequent business trips to Chicago. Trey shot the photo you see above in Millennium Park.
The guys at XHTMLized took our Illustrator-based designs and turned them into XHTML and CSS in a few days' time, but it seemed shorter than that. They designed the code to look exactly like the design. I was blown away, and you can't beat the great, per-page deal they offer. Awesome value. I love those guys.
Finally, we now have a book website for "Citizen Marketers." Lots of good things are happening with the book in the weeks and months after it arrives next month.
We know there are a few loose screws on our redesigned site (literally and figuratively). We'll tighten those up during the next few days. If you have any comments or suggestions about the new look, we'd love to hear them.
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I like the new look! Good job!
Nice design!
And you two look all "rumble ready" in the pic. Leather jackets. Serious faces. Can I join the CotC street gang?
Nice job.
I love the new look guys!
Just some constructive criticism: You might want your photographer friend to either blur or clone out the objects in the background of the photo. the biker with the red shirt is really distracting. the color red is always really strong in photos
jackie and ben, between you guys, guy kawasaki and of course seth godin I have put myself through "school" the past year! I went in with an appetite for this new perspective on business, marketing, and customers. I came out with a new perspcetive and...lease on life!
All to say your blog looks fantastic, clean and elegant (I'm envious) and jackie "brace face" you look perfectly "HOT"...smile -- ben you look fine too -- keep changing the world U2! michael
Too bad you didn't get a shot when one of the Millennium Park Faces was spitting.
:)
But in all seriousness, the design looks great. Congratulations.
Andrew
Spike: Street gang? I love that.Of course, the rumble would have to be with the toughs from Sales.
Chris: Trey saw your suggestion and agreed. He sent a new file, which I'll pop into the site in the next day or two.
Eric(s): Thanks, guys!
Michael: Many thanks. I love it when those faces spit the giant water. That video installation in the park is simply brilliant.
I think the photo looks great! It almost looks surreal--but that's why I like it.
Very nice.
P.S., why don't you guys join us at the first ever Chicago Coffee Morning this Friday?
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2006/11/1st_chicago_cof.html
I like your design so it was a joy to work on it.
I noticed though that there are differences in the original code and in the final blog template that cause a few issues in the look of the website (e.g. the way comments are displayed and gray boxes all around), but this can be fixed easily.
Anyway, great job.
Thanks, Vladimir. We changed the body copy style and didn't do the best job here of implementing the code for the comment display. We'll work on that. And we have these annoying gray boxes in Firefox (but not IE or Safari). I'd love it if you had a suggestion for getting rid of the gray boxes. You guys did a great job overall.
Wow! Very impressive. Love it.
Just to clarify...they "are not a gang; [they] are a club."
Hi, nice design and thanks for the tip about XHTMLized.
Just wanted to tell you that in my browser (IE 6.029) the blogroll (right column) starts after/below right of the body on the blog and speaking pages. But the other pages look OK.
Congrats! on the new design. I like its simplicity.
Must be the leather jackets that makes it look gang-ish, Zane.
Richard -- Thanks for the heads-up. We'll troubleshoot that.
Toby -- Thanks. The old design, by comparison, had too many buttons, too many links. Glad to hear this version works!
