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mikesusz

meet the new mikeyboy

so on top of everything else going on in my life, i got the itch to redesign my blog. it’s been a while. the new design is something i’ve had rattling around in my brain for a while, and i finally took a bit of time to bring it all together.

this is the eighth design iteration for my website, starting from it’s humble beginnings in 1996.

i had originally intended to design my own paisley for the background. paisleys are something i’ve been obsessed with for a number of years as well (the things you’re learning about me!). but i’ve found that while i think i’m a pretty competent developer, and and adequate designer, i would rank ‘illustrator’ even lower on my list of attributes than ‘writer.’ so, i found and licensed the paisley pattern on istockphoto.com.

it’s a subtle effect, but in browsers other than Internet Explorer 6, on top of the paisleys are a shadow and a highlight that stay fixed when you scroll the page (although the paisley and the content move).

not that i’m dropping support for IE6, but i wanted to take advantage of functionality available in modern browsers. you should still get proper layout and usability in IE6, and something special if you’re using something newer.

thanks for reading, and you can give me feedback (constructive, please!) in the comments or use the contact form to send me a private note.

6 responses to “meet the new mikeyboy”

Marc Amos says:

I like it quite a bit, Mike. I like the layered background(s), the font-use, and some of the CSS2/3 touches you added. Nice stuff!

posted on July 8, 2009

mike says:

thanks marc! your use of text-shadow on the new Boston Web Studio site inspired me to use it here, but with a smaller offset it acts more like a glow effect.

posted on July 8, 2009

Frank says:

It looks amazing Mike. The attention to the small things really shine! Great job!

posted on July 8, 2009

mike says:

thanks, frank! i’m quite in love with this design. if we could afford to move to Utah, i could marry it in addition to my lovely wife. (sssh).

posted on July 9, 2009

David Betz says:

It looks great. Won’t it be nice when we *can* drop support for IE6, tho?

posted on July 12, 2009

mike says:

yeah i keep going back and forth on “IE6 support.” on one hand, IE6 represents all the non-mainstream/non-modern browsers. i check my work in a lot of them, including ELinks.

on the other hand, IE6 masquerades as a modern, supported product, when in actuality it’s an eight year old vestige. in some cases, it requires an almost equivalent share of development effort to produce (what our clients and users expect) in it.

my official stance, i suppose, is no negative user experiences for anyone. but there are degrees of effort to make an equivalent positive experience for every user – and you must judge whether to spend that time based on your audience.

posted on July 13, 2009