So, how do you like the new digs? Pretty different, eh?
If you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you may have caught yesterday’s tweet about a new theme on Beyond the Rhetoric. As you can quite plainly see, the new theme is up and running, but it’s still in “beta” stage. There are probably some kinks that still need to be ironed out, so if you catch anything strange or out of place, do let me know.
The new custom WordPress theme comes courtesy of Matt Freedman, a long time reader of Beyond the Rhetoric and a good friend. He will be offering his blog design services at some point in the future through WeblogDesign.ca, but I have no idea when that service will officially launch.
In case you don’t really remember what the old Beyond the Rhetoric (v2.0) looked like, here’s a screenshot from a couple of days ago:
And here is a shot of the new Beyond the Rhetoric, in case you’re reading this in an RSS aggregator or via the free email subscription feature. (I still encourage you to visit the live site to get a better sense of how it looks.)
While this list is certainly not exhaustive, here are some of the changes and new features that you’ll find with the new theme.
- Full custom background image. Will change based on occasions. May be offered as ad space later.
- Trio of 125×125 ad blocks near the top of the page. Will rotate through max of 6 ads.
- Flickr photostream in the footer.
- Completely redesigned sidebar and header navigation links
- ShareThis widget added to end of each post
- Comment moderation notification
- Recent comments in sidebar
- MyBlogLog widget removed from sidebar
- Content area and sidebar are both slightly wider.
- Removal of Kontera ContentLink
As always, I’m open to whatever feedback (positive or negative) that you have to offer. You can do so through the comment section at the end of this post. Thanks!
I like it! Even though I feel that the previous version had a cleaner feel to it, this one looks a lot more functional.
This design has definitely shed that “Once upon a time, it came from GoDaddy” feel to it 😉
I really like the “Twitter-like” outer background. It’s cool. You might give it a while before you decide to live here for good … I speak from experience as you have seen I tend to change my designs a lot. But even if you didn’t change it, I think it looks really cool as-is.
Nice change of scenery!
Good to know “Top Commentators” have been upgraded to “Top Thinkers”.
@Damien: I really like the custom outer background too. It’ll be a lot of fun putting up season/event-specific images.
@betshopboy: That’s because you guys are more than just commentators; you’re thinkers!
I like it. It does have a Twitter feel to it; maybe that’s part of why I like it. 😉
I’m glad you didn’t go with that magazine style layout that seems all the rage these days.
Finally made it out of the RSS reader to see everything first-hand. As Samar had noted, I think the old theme felt “cleaner” but this one grabs me more.
It will be interesting to see the background image change over time too. How much input did you have on the design?
Just noticed one thing…the ShareThis code seems to be hanging the load from fully completing. The site is still functional, although not sure about the actual ShareThis functionality.
Just sayin…
@Derek: Not sure what you mean by how much input I had. I worked collaboratively with Matt, so communication was definitely a two-way street. While the previous theme may have had a cleaner feel, I was starting to get pretty bored with it. It felt bland to me, so the change is refreshing.
Regarding the ShareThis, I’ll have to keep an eye on that. If it hangs the site too much, I’ll switch back to the regular social media links rather than the ShareThis widget thing.
Yeah, I was just curious if you worked with Matt on the design or if you had just given him free reign to come up with something that looked good.
As for the ShareThis, it wasn’t preventing the site from loading and now seems to be loading much sooner. Maybe it was on my end.
The new digs seem pretty cool, except the screenshots looke better than what I’ve been seeing in my browser…well, on this particular computer anyway (it has IE6) it seems as though there may be something wrong with the stylesheet. I’ll try and take/email some screenshots. I haven’t remembered to come here from any of my other computers yet.
I agree with the others though that it will be quite interesting to see the backgrounds change.
sweet, nice theme. i’m sure you’re going to have a ton of fun updating it.
Looking good Michael!
Though I don’t think the mountain suites the ‘feel’ for BTR. Though I guess for winter is suffices 😉
What resolution is the background made for? 1600 wide at least I think? Fits about 1.5 screens across my two WS 19’s 🙂 but fits fine in one window lol.
@Tyler: Yeah, the mountains are for the winter. I originally looked around for a Christmas theme, but didn’t really find anything I liked. This one had more punch to it. I’ll be changing it every so often anyway. In terms of resolution, I’m shooting for at least 1600 for sure, but ideally in the 1920 range. I’m thinking that will cover most single-monitor users…. I don’t think too many people will be reading my blog across dual monitors. Haha.
I’m a little backlogged on my RSS Feed Reader, but I just wanted to say I do like the new theme!
While I like the new theme, it feels “cold” (maybe b/c of the snow in the mountains and in Vancouver!) – but it will be dynamic, I would think 😉