Redesign of JimWestergren.com
There comes a point where your feel so ashamed of your old design you did a few years ago that you just have to sit down and change it.
Writing the CSS and XHTML from scratch took only around 4 hours. I was little surprised by that as a year ago it would probably have taken several days. I have been learning a lot the last months when building new sites (that are not released yet).
But what took a lot more time than writing the CSS and XHTML was to find and debug a stupid “endif”-error in Worpress, making the simple navigation menu to work in IE6 (great tip here) and finding a solution for getting rid of borders from linked images. Why is there no method for parent targeting in modern CSS?! I found myself having to assign a class to these – any other solution that exist for this?
Now those small details took way more time than writing almost all the CSS and XHTML. Is it supposed to be like that?
Coding with the Web Developer toolbar in Firefox with the Edit CSS and Edit HTML is really a bliss.
Those who knows me know that I am a fan of simplicity in web design and putting the text in focus and that I am no fan of graphics or Javascript. So this is no exception.
What you think? And is all looking fine in IE6? IE8? I have only IE7 to test with myself and browsershots.org takes quite some time to work with …
There are more to do such as a search box and some other stuff but that will have to come later.
Now hopefully I will also write more, so grab the feed or follow me on Twitter.
Jim Westergren is a company owner from Sweden who lives together with his wife and son. Some of his interests are SEO, web development, writing and
Hey Jim,
you’re looking good in firefox 3.0.9 for mac
-peter
Thanks Peter.
Nice work Jim, its all looking good here. Highlighting text was a good idea, I must say the blog has become more readable now.
Looking forward to more articles from you
Cheers !
Mani
Hi Mani,
Thanks and welcome as a reader!
It’s beautiful,I always like your design.How can you did this in 4 hours?!
Thanks Jan.
Well, I have been making a lot of web sites and so it is easy. I am actually seriously thinking about making some Wordpress themes for the general public, let’s see.
Wow, didnt expect you to update this blog, because when ever i used to check your blog, i use to see the same old stuff with no updates. Overall a better design when compared to the previous one.
Hi Amit!
Thanks. I hope to change that and get some more written. But I am really busy the next weeks so after that I guess.
Hi, This site is low on graphics but high on content…
Thats how it should be!!!
I like your clean style. I am trying to accelerate my web design skills myself, and you are a light in the darkness. It use to take me weeks to create a site, now it takes me a couple of days. I am trying to see how fast I can code a CSS XHTML site without graphics that loads fast and is SEO-ed. My goal is under an hour but I am light years away from that.
Two great tips you have me from your last site design were
1) Web developer tool bar. – Editing right in your browser is great. 2) Notepad ++. I try to do everything with these two tools.
I am aware that there are other tools with more power, but often this detracts from the simplicity of the process and not as fun.
I know you are not a graphics guy, but I would be curious about if you had any thoughts about open source graphics programs. Right now I edit my images for my sites in paint.net, I prefer this even to gimp as it does not contradict my mantra of ‘less sometimes is more’. However, people tell me without Photoshop, you are not a real web designer.
One last question, I think you use Wordpress, so what if your approach? – create the code first in xhtml then make it a wordpress theme
or
- code it directly into Wordpress theme editor maybe with the theme tester plugin as you go?
Either way I think your design and style are elegant in their brevity, unlike my comment.
Hi Mark,
Thanks.
About open source graphic program I don’t have so much experience so would be hard for me to recommend that.
About Wordpress I am still using the Web developer tool bar and edit right into the browser. Then I copy and paste into Wordpress template files and upload and continue editing until all done. So no theme editor or plugins. You could use the default template that comes with and insert your new XHTML and CSS into that.
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