Hey folks, just a quick update that I moved The Grid System to a new URL: thegridsystem.net
Please update your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions. Thanks.
Tag: site
Site Tweaks
Hey folks, I made some changes to the site, the biggest being the typeface. The site is now set in Lexia, a clean slab serif by Ron Carpenter for Dalton Maag. I’m a sucker for a nice slab serif, and Lexia is easy to read.
I also applied some color, using a dark blue as the primary, and I did some minor visual clean-up.
Enjoy.
A Responsive AisleOne
New year, new design. I’ve been wanting to redesign the site for a few months now with five goals in mind:
- Strip it down and make it more minimal
- Improve typography
- Make it responsive
- Allow for bigger images
- Allow for non-image posts
This new design addresses all five.
Because I don’t have very much free time these days, I started with a purchased theme and modified it to my liking. Visually, I simplified it a great deal. Some might think it’s too minimal, maybe even boring, but I think it serves its purpose well. The typography is greatly improved. The entire site is set in Proxima Nova, which at larger sizes is a pleasure read. No more tiny type. The main text is now set at a large size with spacious leading to make reading easier.
Now that mobile devices are a large part of everyday life, I wanted the site to be responsive. Unlike the previous design, this new design presents an optimal viewing experience on a phone, tablet, and desktop browser.
It also allows for more flexibility in terms of post formats. The previous design I was constrained within a 450px column for the images, so it didn’t allow for larger images. With the new design I can post images up to 690px wide. Bigger images means more details. I also want to make more posts that are just text, for example quotes or this post. This single column design presents text only posts in a better way. Videos also work well, so expect to see more video posts in the future.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with this new design, and I think you will be as well. I’ve tested it as much as I could, but I’d love to hear from you folks on what you think and if you see any issues.
Enjoy.
Welcome to The New AisleOne
It’s finally here, after months of on and off work I’m proud to present the new AisleOne. Before I jump into some of the new features I want to give a MASSIVE THANK YOU to Emil Olsson for all the development work and for making this possible. Without him this new site wouldn’t exist. Words can not express how grateful I am for all his help. Not only is he ridiculously talented, he’s a super nice guy. So now onto the new features.
This site utilizes keyboard navigation to enhance the viewing experience. Use the up ? and down ? arrow keys to scroll through the site, which takes advantage of a nifty infinite scrolling feature. The site also has two viewing modes that can be accessed by pressing the (g) key for grid mode and the (l) key for list mode. And finally there’s a dashboard that can be opened and closed by pressing the (d) key. It contains other goodies like Twitter Hastags, inspirational links, featured articles and more.
For the design I wanted to keep it very simple, pushing site interface in the background and making the content the focus. I didn’t want to over do it with design elements that distracted you from the content. Based on the site stats over 85% of A1 viewers have screens larger than 1024 × 768 and 96% have a window width of 968px. Armed with that data, I decided to move beyond a 960px width to 1202px. Having an extra 242px to play with makes a big difference. The grid is made up of 10 columns, each 96px wide with 22px gutters between them. I usually build my grids based on the rule of thirds but this time I didn’t follow it. Mainly because I wanted to work with an image width of 450px since the previous design made use of that size.
You’ll also notice that AisleOne is now part of the Thinking for a Living Network, which will be launching a new site very soon. The Network is an alliance of like-minded individuals who are experimenting with publishing and education through a series of topic specific sites, conferences, workshops and publications. The Network includes Thinking for a Living, The Grid System, AisleOne, The Design Manifesto, Design Facts, More Substance, and Thought & Theory and is organized by Shane Bzdok, Antonio Carusone, Frank Chimero, Ian Coyle, J. Ellis and Duane King.
So that’s the new site. Please look around and let me know if you see any issues or if there’s anything you don’t like about the site or you want to see improved. This site is for you so I want to make it the best it can be.
New Site Design Coming in 2010
Howdy folks. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted much in the last week and won’t resume until next week. Just enjoying this time off with the family.
Anyway, I just briefly want to mention that I’ll be launching a revamped site in about a week or so. I’m pretty happy with it and I think you’ll like it a lot. Emil Olsson of TypeNeu is doing all the coding and he’s implemented some awesome functionality. I’ll let you all know right before I switch over to the new design because the site will have to be done for a little while.
Also, if you look in the header, on the right, you’ll notice a small ad. AisleOne is now part of the Fusion Ad Network. It’s a great network that caters to designers, developers, publishers and creative professionals. The ads are small and for the most part well-designed and unobtrusive. I’ve always struggled with displaying ads on the site, I’ve been approached by many companies in the past, but this is the first time that I feel comfortable doing it. The network is great and this is an easy way to pay for the site hosting and other site related costs. I’d love to know what you think about the new ads since your opinions matter most to me.
This version of the site won’t be up for long so I plopped the ads at the top, but in the new site design I’ve placed them in a much better space that isn’t so distracting.
Well, that’s it for now. I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I’ll be back on Monday. Peace.
Update: MrBowlegs
Jeffrey wrote in to let me know that he’s updated his site with a fresh new look as well a bunch of new work. Definitely worth a look.