Hooray, my new design is up! Finally right? :D I have named it RockGrrl v1.0 because of the bright colors and contrast and just because I want to, hah! For those of you who have visited my site before, you'll notice a huge difference in the organization of my content and lots of new stuff to browse as well!
How I Made It
I actually went through 10 revisions before I finally came up with this particular design. However, once I found the color scheme and layout that I liked, it was a much smoother process from there.
Overall Design
All the images were designed in Adobe Photoshop CS2 with lots of revisions, hehe. Organization-wise, I pretty much utilized every possible Wordpress conditional and template tags to shuffle my content around how I want it.
Angel Wings
I followed this tutorial from Lunaregina.com to learn how to draw out and color them. It is seriously hard to find any other kind of wings tutorial or downloadable shapes and images for it, surprisingly.
Image Elements
A lot of the gray swirly things in the header as well as the shapes used in my navigation hover images came from this roundup of Photoshop resources.
The "Web 2.0" Look
I did actually make all the visuals here myself, meaning the shine effect on the images, however a lot of inspiration came from this resource for awesome Photoshop layer styles.
Changing Sidebar
One major thing that makes up this design is the changing sidebar! Almost every single page (or at least every section) will display different content in the sidebar that fits the topic. This mostly will just apply to pages, however blog posts have some special things to show as well. :) This effect was achieved using Wordpress conditional tags, like I mentioned before.
New Content
You'll notice I kept pretty much the same parent pages as before, just updated and switched them around a bit. There is a ton of new content and I have much more to add to each section over the next few days! I just figured it was about time to make this whole thing live and not let my site go stale for so long.
Updated Sections
The major areas that have been updated so far are the About and Gaming sections. I combined the info about myself with info about the site, to cut down on redundancy.
Instead of just merely listing the games I own in a boring text list with some random game pictures like before, I'm actually going to (over time, hehe) dynamically list and review every single game I've played or that I own.
The search results and archive pages have a new look as well. Click on any category, tag, or date archive (or search for something random through the box on the sidebar) and you will see the updated organization! :D
Lastly, all the subsections have been given content overhauls as well!
Brand New Sections
The newest addition to my website is my Media Library, which will eventually be a collection of reviews on all the books and movies I own!
I heavily (really, I mean seriously heavily) tweaked the Now Reading Plugin for Wordpress to do this, especially for the movie section.
Also, my game collection plugs into this system as well, so that is why the listings might look a bit similar.
That's It!
I hope everyone likes the new design! I'm pretty sure I captured any little display bugs for IE, however if you spot one please let me know! I appreciate all feedback and suggestions! :)
As for my network of other sites, including my Q*Bee Quilt, TCG Trading Post, and Collective, they might display weird for now until I finish updating them. But no worries, they are next on my list now that the bulk of my site is finished. :D
I am also happy to announce that I am now hosted at Site5! After doing some serious research and getting the opinions of my friends online, I finally made the decision. I think what I am impressed with the most so far is the awesome control panel they have for both your website and your account with them.
Every other host I had only had the generic CPanel system and a separate billing interface. I really appreciate how everything is incorporated together with Site5. I highly recommend them right now!
I'm so excited to be starting this new chapter in my web life, hehe. Thanks everyone for your support and patience! Have a fabulous weekend!
I love your new design. And the ‘new’ content is nice as well. I hope to be as talented as you one day!
Ohh my gosh… this design is so (!) beautiful. There is so much to see and… hohh… it’s amazing! I wish my site could once (somewhere far in the future) could look like something like this. <3 <3 <3
Awww, thanks, ladies! :D
Wauw I LOVE your new look, it is awesome. Congratulations on the new style, you should be proud. I love the wings !!
Yay! It’s finally up!! Looks awesome Melissa! Of course, I expected no less from you. :) I haven’t gone through all the pages yet. I will when I finish typing this. I do have to say, my favorite part so far is the footer. :D It’s beautiful!
I’m loving the pages! :D I ran across a couple of links to your archive that didn’t work in case you weren’t aware.
It’s soo beautiful! Everything looks so sleek, but also eye-catching at the same time! But hey, that’s pretty much your style from what I’ve seen. ;) I’m gonna go look around some more!
I love this! Interested with coding aspects, related/conditional sections… is this based on keywords, tags, or some kind of algorithm that processes the words?
I should really get back into this stuff!
lovely!!!
I kept visiting your site all last night in hopes of seing the new design, now it’s up and I love it!
The new organized content is also great, I love your gaming page, you’re actually the one who inspired me to buy rtc :p
FINALLYYYYY
..and it’s amazing.
Well done <3
I’m so pleased, everyone, thank you! :D
Yes! I was sent those error reports and I fixed them. Thank youuu! I know most of these silly broken pages are from misspelled links. :P
Girl, you SO have to get back into this. :P I miss reading your blog! And you never used Wordpress did you? I remember you really liked MT back in the day. I’m not sure if MT has this functionality, but WP has a ton of conditional tags that you can utilize to show specific content at a time. As for related posts, that is based on the tagging system. :)
Oh I love this Melissa!
But at the same time, shame on you, now I feel the need to change my site. Bleh.
;o This new design is amazing. I love the colours you’ve used, I especially love how the header and footer have been done as well. Haven’t had chance to look around things yet but I’m about too. :)
ZOMG! Lubs it! All your hard work is paying off! And thanks for my site! Maybe one day mine will be as awesome as yours… *bows down*
Looks fandabbydocious! I think you’ve definitely much improved your skills over the past couple of years, and it’s definitely interesting and impressive to watch what you come up with.
It makes me want to create a new layout XD
This is WONDERFUL. Simple and trendy, yet cute, personalized and stylish! Everything is so tightly organized and considered. Beautiful job. :)
I think you know my thoughts before I even try and type them. But God bless it, your layout and everything it is still amazes me. And I’ll just keep dieing here on the spot. <3 <3 <3
It’s absolutely stunning; I love all the intention to detail.
Holy *!
So. Jealous.
*stares* *plays with* *tries to steal talent*
Shit, it looks awesome! And I want to steal your heavily tweaked Now Reading plugin! ;)
I love it, esp. the footer! Grrreat :)
Holy crap. This design is FABULOUS. I am so uber jealous.
This is an awesome design, good job!!
Your design is fab!
Hi there, first time I’ve been here, came through the link from Jem’s post. I’m really impressed, this is a beautiful design and so much useful stuff in it too. The footer is great, I especially like the profiles section. I’d also love to hear about what you did with the library section as it is a really good use of the blog (plus, I’m jealous of the two books you’re reading at the moment)!
I happen to be in the middle of a rethink of my own blog, so it is nice to see such inspiration here.
I am floored, Melissa. You will be getting a plug at Amarantine also. You deserve it. This is simply amazing. Wonderful job, Melissa.
Holy Jesus! I knew there was a reason why I had to see your layout (it finally works for me). Its gorgeous!
It’s lovely <33 I love the hot pink & the binder things (I dunno what they’re called hehe)
I’m going to have to change hosts… ASO sucks now :P My site is ALWAYS down…
Hello, I’m a first timer as well (came via Jem’s blog), and I just wanted to tell you that I love love love your new design. :D Everything’s so clean and pristine and in its place. And not just the design, I also like how you used the changing sidebars (ex. on a page with a post, it’ll display information about said post, rather than using the sidebar from the main bar). Creativity at its finest. :3
Wow, thanks everyone! Your comments really mean a lot to me. :)
I’ve actually been thinking about writing up a more detailed explanation about that! I agree, it really makes things more dynamic. :)
I noticed that! :( I don’t know what it is about hosts that are just so awesome in the beginning and then slowly decline over time. We both got it with Netrillium and now ASO. :( Switch to Site5 with me! :D I promise it’s a good recommendation this time. :P
Hi! I came here through Jem’s site – this new layout is beautiful! Kudos from a fellow bee <3
This layout really is beautiful :)
I love the new look. The design is very clean!
Id love to know how you did the now reading plugin. That’s awesome.
Wow, it’s gorgeous! And the meta-type section at the bottom really ties it all in.
wow. well, it was definitely worth the wait my dear. it’s aaammmaaaaaazing. i love it. i love it! it’s inspiring. i want to try and make something this beautiful and accessible. ./cheers
In Firefox, it looks amazing. I agree with Jem: you captured so many of the good aspects of design that I like. :) Very cool.
In IE7, it needs work. (The background doesn’t carry to the bottom, the footer doesn’t “stick” to the bottom–it’s midway through the content, the content images that are inside the update show below the paragraph instead of beside, etc.
I really like how this layout turned out, it looks so pretty. :)
You know how incredibly, ridiculously jealous I am?
Like, the detail. The fine things like the border around stuff, and the loops that join the footer. And how you’ve got everything to work together so smoothly.
It’s downright gorgeous.
Mucho thanks, all! :D
You sure that’s IE7? It actually looks fine to me in that version, aside from the entry images (which happens in both)…it’s IE6 that kicks the footer around from what I can see. I’m working on a fix for it all! Margins and floats are beastly things sometimes.
I freakin’ LOVE it. :))) You are incredible. <3
So I’ve been wanting to do a revamp of my site utilizing the different sidebar method you and Jem have going on at your sites. Do you use actual WordPress pages or do you make your own implementing the appropriate PHP includes? I do the latter so I am not sure how to go about using the Conditional tags.
It IS such an awesome layout :D thanks for the resources and walk-throughs and tutorials! you rock! \m/