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.
Congrats, Antonio! This is an awesome, awesome redesign. I’m really diggin’ the small features you’ve added. LOVE the up and down arrow navigation. I did find an issue with that when typing a comment. I can’t use the up or down arrows to navigate through the text I’ve written in the comment form—it still navigates the entire page.
Anyway, you and Emil did a great job. Nice work.
Lovely work.
As design you’ve made a great update. Aisle One was looking lovely, but this is just a fantastic.
Emil did a great job on the programming, making Aisle One one of the most user friendly blogs I’m reading.
The navigation and the look of the site are fitting great and giving a lot of pleasure.
Very attractive and thoughtfully designed site here. Excellent job!
Best one yet. Nice work.
Is the Fusion ad in the fixed div a requirement due to the infinite scrolling?
It’s amazing. Congratulations, Antonio.
I’m really love this new design.
very awesome as always.
Looks great! I love all the features you have integrated into the site. I can’t wait to see what you post next. 🙂
Lovely redesign. Really liking the list/grid options.
Welcome back!
Hmmm…it seems your site is too smart for me. I didn’t expect my little happy face to turn into an ACTUAL emoticon. Lesson learned.
Nice one Antonio and welcome back. I was looking forward to have AisleOne back online. Congrats!
Great features, looks like they’ll become new standards soon.
There’s just a little bit of text that has vanished after “since the previous design made use of that size and I wanted”.
That’s the only issue I can see by now.
Big up!
«Mainly because I wanted to work with an image width of 450px since the previous design made use of that size and I wanted»
Looks like an unfinished sentence.
Anyway, the redesign is mind-blowing.
Congrats to the new website! I really love the concept and ideas behind it and I think those new feature are really great. You (all) pushed AisleOne some steps forward.
Best regards,
Sebastian
I liked the old layout—but this is a massive improvement. Nice work.
Well done guys, great job, puts me to shame yet again!
😉
B
Well done redesign making it an even bigger pleasure to read. Congrats!
Superb, Antonio. A definite leap-up from your last iteration.
A massive improvement.
Much better having multiple articles on one page to scroll through instead of just 2 articles per page like the old site.
i ? A1
Loving it.
Well done Antonio – the design is great. Really love the option to view as a grid or a list, very helpful addition
Antonio, that is wonderful as expected!
But one thing is puzzling me: I can not find how to go to previous and next articles…
Are there keys for that? I tried “p” and “n” but nothing happened.
Or you preferred zapping this now standard feature?
Anyway it makes browsing the archives an impossible task.
I also presume you forgot the word “this” in the third paragraph (“but […] time I didn’t follow that rule”).
For what is of the width, I also choose to go around 1200px BUT the iPad could make me reconsider…
nicely done and congrats Antonio!
Love the design and the keyboard functionality!
One gripe though, the #34C48 (green) on white text is practically illegible for me.
I was nervous as I clicked through from my feed reader — I was a big fan of the last design — but I must say I’m impressed.
I love the keyboard short-cuts, particularly the dashboard.
Very nicely done!
Thank you everyone for the kind words and support!
@ Erwin, can you send a screenshot on your screen? Is your contrast set low?
Hello all, and thanks for all the kind words! We had a little issue with comments telling you that you needed to have cookies and javascript turned on even though you had. This issue is now solved, and you’re able to comment again. Btw. we have a short list with other minor bugs and improvements that will be taking care of the coming days. Enjoy
I have now also taking care of the arrow Up & Down navigation when you have a text box selected, so you can browse your text (in the text box) with the up and down arrows, when for example writing a comment. Click outside the text box to activate the key navigation again.
Very cool!
I like the redesign very much. Now I can read so many articles… There’s something wrong with the sidebar, though, at least in Opera. And scrolling is plainly wrong.
Wow… its really lovely!
Loving it! Can’t wait to explore more.
I think the wordpress dev done on this site is simply brilliant.
A wonderful touch of modernism applied in the design, but also in the simple, yet very elaborated UI. Modernism in all its meanings.
Good job. Definitely one of the few graphic design site I follow on a half-daily basis 😀
A great redesign for a great web.
I love the simplicity and the view focussed on the information.
Nice new design.
lovely job!
lovely and simple!
This is one of the best looking/functioning sites i have seen….brilliant!
beautiful stuff mate. first time on this site and im in love =)