Regular readers will have noticed a bit of a change to the site. Essentially, the sidebar has gone, and been replaced by dynamic boxes, which appear and disappear according to which particular page you are on. These boxes have shifted to the right-hand-side. This changes very little functionally about the site, except for some tidying up of the Permalink pages – the ‘More about this post’ and ‘Related Posts’ sections are now in dynamic boxes, allowing comments to flow more freely from the bottom of the text. A menu has also magically appeared below the banner-head, replacing some of the sidebar’s functionality.

The aim of the change was to put more immediate emphasis on the latest content, that being what people visit to read. To aid this, the size of the headlines has increased by about 15%, and long titles now (rather cutely) shrink-to-fit, as best as possible (particularly in the ‘My Work’ section, there are still some two-liners). Also, external links have sprouted their own page as well, instead of being forever stuck in the sidebar. This allows more links to be added, which is a clear improvement. The site background has changed a little bit, too, and new posts no longer turn red for an hour after posting, as I felt this played against the unified blue design. The site guide has been updated to reflect the changes.

It’s almost six months since the last design tweak, so I don’t think I can be accused of changing too much too often! Overall, I hope you’ll agree that the freshened-up design gives the site a cleaner, clearer look. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to add them to this post. You know what to do!