Kitsune Noir Gets Flipped
December 2, 2009 // Kitsune Noir + Redesign
As you may have noticed, things are a bit different here on the blog, but actually they’re really not. Last night I started making some little tweaks to the site, changing some fonts and stuff. As per usual, this lead to me totally redoing entire chunks such as flipping the entire blog and having to completely recreate the header and big yellow dot. So while it’s kind of opposite from it’s normal state, everything is the same, like the widths of the columns and the main layout.
This is something I’ve been wanting to try forever now, and honestly I’m really liking how it looks. To me, it feels like the content is more front and center where it’s supposed to be. I know it looks weird for now, but all I’m asking is to give it a try. There’s no right or wrong way to design a blog. I just want it to be as clear and simple as possible.
While doing all of this I found a screen capture of the site from July of 2007. If you’re not a fan of the site right now, imagine browsing it over 2 years ago! What the shit was I thinking?! Those half tone dot dots in the background, the crusty looking ID picture, the typewriter font all over the place… the purple. It was a different time and I was a different man. Please enjoy laughing at what once was and feel free to leave snide remarks in the comments.
Also, if you have any constructive feedback for the site design I’d love to hear it. One thing I was thinking about doing was adding 10 more pixels to the center divider to give the sidebar and main column a bit more space. I can’t promise I’ll do through with suggestions but I’m always open to new ideas.
Thanks for being awesome readers.
Bobby
`Oh, pictures of delicious Mini-Bites: http://twitpic.com/18j69b`
i’m loving the changes though i think you should definitely bring back the mugshot.
Comment by Colleen — December 2, 2009 #
@Colleen – The mugshot is not cute. Don’t you like the “catching-flies-with-my-mouth-open” picture better?
Comment by Bobby — December 2, 2009 #
It’s awsome, but i liked the old arrangement, ads on the right, that is. more functional i suppose ? :D
anyway great blog i never stop reading it. :D
Comment by sopi — December 2, 2009 #
Hey cool, the Unabomber has a website!
Comment by Zack — December 2, 2009 #
It’s like when people decide to rearrange things in their room. Move your bed against the wall, put your drawers on the adjacent wall. That kind of stuff. Then, you see that the room looks way bigger than before and mucho better. That’s what I’m getting from this. It looks bigger and better. lol
Comment by Jas — December 2, 2009 #
I think adding the spacing to separate the content a bit is a good idea. And you’re right, this current iteration makes the article stand out more.
Comment by Nokadota — December 2, 2009 #
i have only been following for the last few months but everything looks great. maybe some more padding on the opposite side of the sidebar instead of the column side?
Comment by Leigh — December 2, 2009 #
B,
The badass little yellow circle looks like it has a stray space bar tap right before your name.
Comment by Jason — December 2, 2009 #
I really enjoyed the sidebar on the right layout. Having it on the left distracts my focus from the posts since i naturally read from left to right anyways. Also, i feel like the side bar is a bunch of useless ads now instead of a simple directory to more awesome content.
Regardless, love the blog! :D
Comment by Michael — December 2, 2009 #
@Zack – Who knew he liked design so much?
@Jas – I like that description a lot.
@Jason – That gap is only on Internet Explorer. I implore you to try a modern day browser like Firefox, Safari or Chrome. In the meantime I will attempt to fix it.
@Michael – We all read English right to left, but you didn’t continue reading into the sidebar when it was the old way, right? ; )
As for those “bunch of useless ads” in the sidebar, that’s what makes it possible for me to update the blog 5 times a day plus come up with a ton of upcoming projects. Necessary evils my friend.
Thanks for the feedback!
Comment by Bobby — December 2, 2009 #
i much, much prefer the site the way it was before! this feels too foreign
Comment by jessica — December 2, 2009 #
I like the flip. Your old layout wasn’t that bad, I kinda liked it. I recently adopted the typewriter font just because it was a little bit more fitting with the grid and the torn paper. I guess it depends on what’s your liking, for example I think the typewrite font works nice on Jeff Hamada’s site. But I’m liking your revamp.
Comment by Robert — December 2, 2009 #
I think you should follow through with the 10 pixels idea, feels a tiny bit cluttered right now. like it a lot though, also I appreciate the explanation because I hate when my fave blogs up and change and act like nothing happened.
Comment by becca — December 3, 2009 #
The site now looks ordinary and boring and the new logo is incredibly cheesy. You are going horribly mainstream.
Comment by Dani R — December 3, 2009 #
I like the new change, actually I was browsing your blog’s pages yesterday when the right side moved to left.
As I rarely comment I also wanted to thank you for all the awsome things you share with us, the artists, the designs… Now the only music I listen to is your mixcasts and mixtapes and I use your desktop wallpapers very often.
P.S.:I can see the gap Jason was talking about on Chrome :)
Comment by Hanen — December 3, 2009 #
@Dani R. – Haha, what new logo? It’s the very same as before. How is any of this mainstream?
@Hanen – Fixed it for Chrome ; )
And thanks, I’m glad you like the mixes and wallpapers so much.
Comment by Bobby — December 3, 2009 #
The sidebar feels a little too wide in relation to the content – they seem to be equally weighted whereas the content should be the hero – my eye is drawn to the sidebar first. i also like centre alignment rather than left but that’s a personal thing!
Comment by katie — December 3, 2009 #
@Katie – That’s how wide the sidebar was before, it didn’t change at all, haha… the sidebar is 300px and the main column is 576px, so it’s almost double the width.
It’s funny how much perception changes with such a simple swapping of two columns.
Comment by Bobby — December 3, 2009 #
I don’t like the flip for now, everything is too far to the left, but I’ll give a chance!
Comment by Silvia — December 3, 2009 #
I’m seeing the extra space before your name on Firefox… strange. Apart from that, I’m loving the flip!
Comment by g — December 3, 2009 #
I like the vertical lines that you added, but personally I loved the old, quirky layout. It great that it was quirky and something a little different, but it made sense as well. It’s the nature of the human eye to look at the left column first, so it drew your eye to the content. The left hand sidebar pulls your eye away from the content, and that’s a bad thing due to the nature of your blog in my opinion.
It doesn’t stop me from reading your awesome posts though!
Comment by Brendan — December 3, 2009 #
Looks like there’s an unwanted space before “bobby” in the yellow circle? I have to say I’m not lovin’ the flip, but I could get used to it. I also think it’s a bit of a shame to have blog sit under the “looking to advertise” banner, which seems out of place.
Aesthetics aside, I freaking love this blog. When I first found it I must have spent a good portion of the day going through what I’ve been missing.
Comment by Sean — December 3, 2009 #
I’m not really sure about the flip. Maybe it’s just because it takes some getting used to, but i feel distracted in my reading. Like, every time my eyes jump from one line to the next, they get drawn by the colors to the left, and it makes it uneasy to continue reading. Maybe a bigger gap between the colums would do the trick…
Anyway, i still love this site and always will…
Comment by Peter — December 3, 2009 #
Jason and G are talking about your name not being lined up with the rest of the text in the circle. It is not a browser problem.
Commenting out the whitespace out in the html between the div tag and the bottom yellow circle img tag might fix the gap problem in IE. Stupid shit like seems to work on mysterious gap problems.
Comment by Dusty — December 3, 2009 #
Well I agree with the naysayers. Not looking to harsh your mellow but this layout really doesn’t feel reader-friendly to me. I’d even say it doesn’t feel advertiser friendly. I always took a sec to peek at the banners since they’re usually more interesting than most. Just look at this page, the daily sites links really distract you from the body copy.
Maybe it would be better if the the content column was wider and had bigger margins.
Hope that helps.
Comment by invisible — December 3, 2009 #
I think the navigation on the right is more user friendly, but I like how the content is now centered on the screen. Why wasn’t the old layout centered? I also feel the content column could be wider.
The whole two column blog format that everyone uses is really stale, so I like the fact that you’re changing it up with the navigation on the left.
Comment by ikea — December 3, 2009 #
Could I be really annoying and ask for an button to flip the page to how we like it? ;)
Comment by Brendan — December 3, 2009 #
yes. cuter but less badass, which we all know you are.
Comment by colleen — December 3, 2009 #
What you don’t seem to notice, Bobby, is that in two years we’ll be laughing of this layout. The grid background; the bitmap picture; the grey-yellow branding; it’s all trendy right now. Not to say I don’t like it, though. And I think the new arrangement really lightens up the user interaction; as you well know we read left-right however awesome Gestalt kinda filters all those adds. You know you’re design 101.
On a side note, the yellow dot has an extra space besides your name, although maybe it’s intentional.
This blog has so much heart. Thank you for your time Bobby, really.
Comment by Julio — December 4, 2009 #
looked better with nav on the right.
Comment by lorena — December 4, 2009 #
I am a FF user!
Comment by Jason — December 4, 2009 #
It’s great to see so many comments on a post. I’m a fan of having the sidebar on the right. It gets the reader to the content a bit faster. On the other hand, maybe it’s good to have them see the ads first.
Comment by rburch — December 5, 2009 #
new design not so good on the netbook that i frequently use. before i could see all the content, and never really needed to scroll horizontally but now when the page first loads i only get about two thirds of what i am actually trying to read.
Comment by S — December 14, 2009 #