I was able to resist the redesign urge, lasting a full seven months. That might just be a record for me.

This new design (theme dubbed ‘Awesome’, semi-tongue-in-cheekily) continues to maintain a single column but features a full-width dark header and footer, within which resides site internals such as navigation and search. Hovering the mouse over the header reveals the navigation, something I’ve been wanting to use since seeing it quite some time ago at Pierce’s Distorte. I utilized the Blueprint CSS framework to provide a clean foundation for typography and have switched to Verdana (Helvetica on Mac) for the typeface.

I chose not to set a specific font size, which lets your browser show you the default size or allows your personal settings to take over. It might seem a bit large at first, but isn’t it easy to read? This decision was based in part upon Sarven Capadisli’s article on typography for the screen and my belief that we shouldn’t have to squint or get closer to the monitor just to read something.

I am also coming away from XHTML and leaning towards HTML(5), after reading many articles on the subject of XHTML vs HTML. This theme’s code is set to easily switch to HTML5 (e.g., change <div class="article"> to <article>), which, although it is in the early stages of development, is currently handled well by the major (modern) browsers (even that bastard IE). My markup is still along XHTML’s vein of strict syntax, as my anal tendencies prefer order in code, and things should degrade gracefully. If not, trial and error.

I’m attempting to adhere to web accessibility guidelines, although not everything (such as access keys or a mobile device style option) has been implemented, yet. I have a to-do list and this is all one giant exercise.

If you come across anything wonky, let me know. I welcome your comments and suggestions.