A new theme?
Michael Mihalev’s Rusty has served Talking Squid well, but I think it is time for a change. And I need help choosing a new theme. Follow the break and comment to tell me what you think…
Remember that the banners will be changed, so try not to let them influence you. To see the pix in full, right click on each image and select “View Image.”
Velocity
Velocity is my current favourite. It looks great and has lots of space for content. My only quibble is that the links are not highlighted. This makes the text look very stylish but it completely undermines the purpose of hypertext. Mind you, it should be an easy fix.
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Victoria
This is the most gorgeous of the layouts I like, but its magazine style is not (I think) quite right for a blog. Also, as you can see from the screenshot, the theme did not pick up on the existing blog entries and I suspect an awful lot of work will have to be done to get the theme tweaked to a functional level.
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Big Blue
Big Blue is nice and clean. But, you know, maybe a bit too clean. It looks like a wall of text.
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Cutline 3
Cutline 3 has Big Blue’s clean text but is more inviting to the reader. On the downside, it looks astonishingly like the front page of a small regional newspaper. For some reason that bugs me a little.
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InSense
Nice and clean again, InSense has a bit more character. There’s a little too much colour in the text for my liking but that can be tweaked easily. InSense has a very welcoming feel to it.
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In the Kitchen
I like In the Kitchen’s warm colours. Ignore the godawful banner.
9 People have left comments on this post
I like Velocity and it’d be NO trouble to highlight the links with some sort of font style change (underline, bold, background change, whatever) - easy-peasy.
That said, Victoria is beautiful, so if you could make it suit your needs, it’d be great!
Not too fond of the others - they’re all too generic in one way or other, compared to the rather nice style you currently have. And I’m *not* into the Kitchen’s pink background. Eeeeeek! :P
Interesting that you see pink where I see a creamy yellow. The actual colour is #FFE7CD, which according to this neat table makes it the same colour as a G7(IV) class star. Which proves my case.*
* In the same way that Euler apocryphally proved his case to Diderot.
Velocity and Cutline 3 look the best to me. I’d go with Velocity if there’s an easy way to fix the problem with hyperlinks.
Victoria* followed by Velocity for me.
* Not just because she was a Dr Who assistant, honest.
In private communication, I’ve had the following preferences expressed:
RH: Velocity or Victoria
GN: Velocity or Victoria
CS: Victoria
DB: Velocity, provided we get rid of the car and replace it with a squid. “Cars are only interesting when the 3 guys from Top Gear are driving ‘em into walls & stuff.”
GW: Velocity
Hmmm. Victoria is nice, might be worth the work. Then again, Velocity is also nice, and less work?
All else far too generic looking, although I can imagine InSense being retrofitted with some ironic flat-toned technopop graphics to zazz it up some and add interest. Technopop cephalopods?
1. Velocity
2. Cutline 3
3. Big Blue (I like its stark minimalism, it’s all about the content dude.)
I feel Victoria sucks. Badly. In The Kitchen is a joke, right? I get the sense that InSense makes no sense and it’s not welcoming to me. It screams “cheap ‘n’ nasty site run by cheap ‘n’ nasty people” (or cephalopods as the case may be) to me I’m afraid.
But frankly none of them are a patch on Rusty! If you must change with the seasons go into fashion design.
Thanks for the comments, David. I’d just like to point out that we’ve had this theme for over 2 years now so it’s hardly changing with the seasons. I’m intrigued that you are the second person to tell me they like the Rusty theme a lot. I wasn’t aware until now that it had such a following.
Coming in quite late, but I like Velocity and then Victoria. Though there’s really nothing wrong with Rusty. I like it better than any of the remaining options.