A Fresh Look
As Justin Goodlett noted after the launch of the previous version:
There wasn’t much activity the past few months on your site and then all of a sudden a redesign happens.
The reason behind my recent silence is much the same as it was a little under a year and a half ago: too busy designing and programming to get a word out edgewise. My motivation was much the same this time as well: the previous version wasn’t serving my needs. It didn’t showcase my current approach to CSS and JavaScript, my portfolio and music took second seat to the web-focused content, and overall the site had been too watered down with frequent “borrowing” of elements.
So now, for a limited time I give you the unique and new ShaunInman.com.
So what’s new?
Well, it’s probably easier to list what isn’t:
- Still using Din (while shaking my head at using frames on a commerce site)
- Still largely grayscale with a smattering of diluted maroon
- Same domain name
Short list, huh?
No really, what’s new?
Plenty. There is the unobtrusive navigation that provides quick access to recent and commonly requested content as well as search (in both the header and footer—while appearing only once in the source).
There are categories, with archives organized by them or by date. There is a smarter 404 that automatically runs a search using the text content of the missing or mistyped url. If only one result is found it automatically redirects you to it. Search results are now organized by category, hopefully improving your chances of finding the content you’re looking for.
A new version of IFR that accomodates multiple lines, fixed typed size, and multiple colors per replaced element. With less of it. Pages with nearly a hundred comments should now load much quicker—sure, it’s not as cool but it serves the content better.
About the Author and FAQs sections. A new homepage that should provide a better overview of what is current on the site and of interest to me. And finally a customizable RSS feed so you can “la-la-la” out the parts of my babble that don’t interest you.
Like most projects I’m involved in, this site wouldn’t be half itself if not for the poking, prodding and suggestions of Leslie Jensen, Mike Davidson and Jason Santa Maria.
098 Comments
Spectaculous.
The finished product is beautiful. I love it!
Wolf strikes again…
Smashingly good form, Inman. Now finish Mint, and we’ll be content for at least a week.
Nice work!
Shaun just called me from a gay bar to give me his ftp info so that I could launch his site. It’s a beaut!
Excellent work, Mr. Inman. Do you hear me? Excellent.
Might just be me, but all of the italic text is giving me a headache. I stayed up (EST) to see it and I would lkie to read it, but it’s a pain on my eyes right now.
Is there someway to change stylesheets or is the one I see the only one?
Really like the navigation sliding in from the top or bottom and then being able to hide it when I don’t need it.
Shaun, it looks great. It even helped me get rid of my headache after seeing Technorati’s redo. Much thanks for that alone! Bravo…
sweet jesus! Awesome! I really love the sliding navigation/search thing, but mm… it might look too big on one of my 1024x768 computer.
But.. this is amazingly nice. I think I deserve a second punch in the face! :)
My goodness, I’m swooning. Someone get me a lime cordial and a cool towel for my forehead.
White-alicious!
amazing. simply amazing.
great job shaun. i give you full respect very detailed :)
Excellent job, Shaun. Simple and crisp as always.
Gorgeous. I love the little widgets placed here and there that seem to do everything you want them to do. The front page is very well layed-out.
Oh, and thanks for that link!
Beautiful. I absolutely love the header, and the code is zesty clean (ooh! useless adjective that sounds fun).
Shaun-
I’ll make this simple. You rule. Damn, this is sweet. Way to go.
Purty.
Love the navigation/search drop-down thingy.
My eyes and ego hurt. Tastes like burning.
Wonderfully done. Glad you kept the color scheme too. It fits.
Looks great, Shaun!
My only comment would be that you photoshopped the extra hands out of your ‘author’ picture. I KNOW you must have them…
Am I the only one who finds the type too small to read? Otherwise, brilliant!
Absolutely stunning design, there is so much to learn from innovative powerhouses like you.
I love that NAVIGATE/SEARCH thing. You are simply a genius!
what a beauty.. Loving the simplicity as usual, the nav rocks! Nice work!
Really nice looking stuff. Love the redesign. Keep up the great work, and continue to push out new content. : )
gg! as always : )
All you got to do now is give away free iPods like Mike Davidson :-)
You are genius truly. It is wonderful！
Love the navigate/search pulldown…. oh and there is also a pullup! Wonderful simplicity in your design, the site is a pleasure to use.
I really dig the pulldowns and pullups. And the preview of the comments ! Damn, that looks just awesome !
Keep it up !
It looks great. Awesome job Shaun! I’m not sure if this was intended or not, but on Firefox in Windows, the entry date is overlapping the decender of the header tag. Didn’t know if you were aware of it or not.
Just hit a refresh and the date line is no longer overlapping. Must have been something with my box. Nevermind.
You’ve always had my respect.
Now you’ve gained twice as much :)
That navigation is truly amazing. I give it about 2 weeks until we see it ‘used’ on someone elses site.
Simply amazing. I saw the redesign in your old RSS Feed, then I saw it again in the Stylegala News. I love the Navigate/Search function, though it does seem too big on 1024 by 768.
And I love the main page. At first it looked really crumby, but once all the images finished loading it came together really well. good job and congrats
Shuan,
I’m not gonna go on and on about how much I want to lick your ass, but I will say that the redesign is comfortable, clean, inspiring, and greatly done..once again.
The navigation is interesting and cool but I too find the type too small. Resizing larger with Ctrl + Scroll Wheel in Firefox works OK though…
For what I’ve seen in my short life (34 now) this is: - so smooth - so innovative - so clear - much fun JUST PERFECT!
I’ll come back - just to relax my eyes, my brain, myself. All the best from Germany, ChRiS
Excellent redesign Shaun. Love the redundant navigation. A great touch and super slick!
Out of town for a few days and I come back to this? I’m leaving town more often. Lovely.
If Stan isn’t gonna eat your brain, then I’m doing it.
Looks great. Nice JS animation. But I don’t like the usability side of this navigate/search button.
Maybe I’m dumb, but I didn’t think of clicking on this navigate/search button before reading other comments here praising it.
When you are in the middle of a page, accessing the menu takes two steps: moving up (or down) and clicking the tab. Then, after waiting about one more second for the panel to appear, you can click on something in the menu. Having a big navigation panel is a good idea, but hiding basic navigation into it is not, in my opinion.
Also, did I mention the animation is a little sluggish on my 1.2�Ghz iBook? (with both Safari and Firefox) And your main page seems to crash Safari 1.2 when loading. (here is how I checked that.)
Don’t get me wrong, I like the redesign, but not the new navigation system (even if it looks cool). Oh, yes, there is one other annoying thing: I usually keep my browser window smaller than you main page, which makes me do some horizontal scrolling — or window resizing, at my choice. But since I’m going to follow what you say by RSS, it’s not that much of an inconvenient to me.
Hmm, guess my previous comment didn’t show up. Thats probably a good thing since I was a moron and had JS disabled in FF from testing on friday :)
“Its not a Mondayian detail MICHAEL” :)
sorry, couldn’t help myself. Now that JS has been enabled, GREAT work Shaun. Awesome stuff.
p.s. Now that I think about it, maybe my comment didn’t show up because I had JS disabled. If thats the case, there is a usability issue with that.
Nice layout and graphic appeal, but still way too small fonts. This is the only site where my first action is Ctrl +.
The type could be a little bit larger but the design is brilliant!
This only would have been better if this was my design.
Very nice design, Shaun! I like it…
The site is brilliant Shaun. I thought the last one was great, this one just blows my mind. And the header/footer nav/search is amazingly cool. Keep up the good work!
Bloody gorgeous!
Oh woww, I love the navigation. I’m amazed that durring the summer slothdown (okay maybe it’s just me who can’t get anythihng done in the summer, you’re able to get up a new design.
I have to side with Michel Fortin about the usability concern of the navigation slide-down (at least partially). I think even a tweak like removing animation effect would help tremendously with its tactile feel.
And please bump your font size a notch or two! I had difficulty reading what I am typing :)
These two little buggers aside, kudos man! Keep pushing the envelope.
Simply beautiful, absolutly love this new redesign, along with your work on mint and previous designs really can learn alot from your designs. Lovely job
Shaun, your site is simply stunning. Thanks for always keeping the bar high so we have something to aim for. Seriously, you’ve been an inspiration for EVER and just when I think it can’t look better, you go and do this. Holy shite.
Very nice, but it breaks the ‘Home’ key (now jumps to the bottom of the page instead of the top, presumably due to your navigation witchery).
I just wanted to be the 50th person to make a comment.
Nice work dude.
Sweet merciful heavens… this is some sweet stuff. Awesome work (though I wouldn’t mind if the text was a wee bit bigger).
Sigh… now I’m feeling all inadequate and stuff…
Wow… So nice. Now I just can’t wait for Mint!
Don’t you people get it? The small type is an implicit mechanism to filter out all non-designers from reading the site. It’s a nice touch. I’m thinking about doing something similar: using really big words all over my site… to keep the idiots away.
stunning.
Hm. That’s really very cool. Is this on all gallery sites yet? It takes me back to the olden days, when Flash was revolutionary and oh-so graphic. You did that, but then with web standards and no real Flash. My. Hats off.
WOW! This is one helluva design dude! Completely different from the former but the animation and other wholegrain goodness rock! Great job shaun!
Nice look Shaun, it’s very tidy :)
I must admit however that I really don’t like the new navigation. Sure it looks fantastic,but as far as usability goes it’s a step backward. Everything is now an extra click away, and as short a time as it is to watch the scroll, it’s annoying in the same way most animated Flash navigation is annoying. I want at the links -instantly-. Not after a click and a wait for some animation. Sure, it’s technically great. Doesn’t float my boat though, in fact it annoys me.
Shaun, I absolutely love it! It’s truly fantastic, I spent the last 30 mins just staring at it and exploring. The menu I really like, yeah people are saying it’s a step back in usability, but I think it rocks. One problem though, I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, but I want your new feed, when I go to get your feed I get an error.
I want all the feeds (naturally) so I leave the form as is and click subscribe, I get an error. Not sure what to do, really want the feed though lol.
Typical, just typical. now it’s all working well and good. Sorry about that!
OOOH! Blimey! I’ve just found the navigate/search button! Thats a well hidden gem! Like it.
Nice. Very nice.
Kind of reminds me of a new iPod, all shiny and cool. Good work Shaun.
I’d like to add that I like the smallish font. I’ve always been partial to smaller fonts, it’s not hard for me to read and I’m not even wearing my glasses.
javascript & design goodness at it’s best. yum yum.
Just wanted to say that this is a nice, refreshing, redesign. Keep up the good work.
I am simply, and utterly, in awe. There are those that follow, and some that just can’t help but lead. You, my dear sir, are a master.
Very good design but I find the text size FAR too small, it really is painful to look at , the huge expance of white and text color being grey doesn’t help either.
Just checked my bloglines feed… then boom! A lot of articles and feeds got updated!
I closed bloglines just to go and see your site - directly!
I’m in awe!
Very nice work on the re-design!
You must have some kind of brain wave transpoder reading all my thoughts. I’ve been working on the drop down navigation, like 10.4’s dashboard, for a while now. You beat me to the punch!
All right Shaun, we get it. I think we’ve ALL had enough of your html/javaScript/CSS trickery. How do you expect us to keep up with you, huh?
I hate to be all negative and stuff, but to be honest I preferred the old one. This one has too much glaring white, and I don’t like the navigation much at all - too big and clunky.
Mind blowing, man. Great work.
very nice, diggin this alot man……
~hat tip
Great work, Shaun. I’m in love with the flyout navigation!
Had I not been at work all day I would have listed you sooner but developers don’t have graphic suites so I was kind of screwed there.
But this is one of the most addictive things I’ve seen in a while. I think instead of doing what I should have been doing all day I spent the majority of it trying to code those stealth menus without looking at your code.
All I have to say is you bastard, I was fine with the first. Then I added another to the mix and not only did I stay still, I think I went backwards from there. Excellent work all around as usual.
Just a little thing I like: instead of “archive link,” the permlink button says “continue reading.” As a Gnome-loving usability nut, I really like that.:)
And it sounds like I’m one of the few who like the whitespace at the top of the screen. I think I’m just flattered that Shaun Inman did something that looks vaguely similar to something I did about a year ago.
Once again, your superior web designing tastes shocks me.
Simply excellent! Fantastically innovational and just plain cool! You seem to be the ultimate web designer/developer! Skills like yours should be made illegal.
I like the small text, makes everything look really crisp, compact and neater. Considering the site audience, I’d estimate nearly all of thm know that ctrl + bumps up the text-size a notch, so I’m don’t see why it’s a big deal for some, it’s not like that particular keyboard shortcut takes a huge amount of effort.
Looking forwrd to Mint!
Shaun, I believe it’s “Goodlett” with two t’s.
Thanks again for burning up my ShortStat referrer log.
Great redesign, just enough to really refresh the site and wow us again with your skills. Love the navigate/search section at the top/bottom but like others I didn’t think to click it until I read about it.
I got an error when I tried the search first time, haven’t been able to repeat it though.
Simply an incredible redesign. I envy you and your talent. I only wish I could make sites that were as good as your work. (ass kissing not intended but always polite)
OMG yoooooooou make me sick!
Shaun, I’d like to just let you know— you were the only one whose website made me jealous.
You’ve upped the ante, and I happen to be coming back to the front page, just starting at it in envy…
It’s the attention to detail that really salts my cracker. For instance, in the forms the ability to click anywhere on the label to check a box is brilliant.
My GAWD?! Now you’ve really made me drool. Excellent redesign and definetely a greater challenge for me. :)
Good one on you Shaun, Cheers.
This is, what everybody is searching for: The one real design. Congratulation Shaun! I’m sure many people will “borrow” :)
Wow. Gorgeous.
Looks outstanding Shaun, the site is also much more easy to navigate.
the slide navigation - the js functions - can you use them?
about the site - the look and feel of the site - has been done too much allready - so try to be more adventureous when chosing colors. also it looks too metallic
The slide nav both top and bottomwise makes the surplus. I am a fan of sliding navs.
wow, shaun. i think you’ve accomplished here what andrei could not with his redesign of design by fire a while back. the new look of your site seems to tread the territory of print design a bit. it avoids the ‘boxy’ phenomenon in which some designs suffer from the fact that you can almost see the boxes the designer sketched out on paper when conceptualizing the layout. your site feels effortless, fresh and celebratory. it’s at once beautiful and completely usable. great work.
didn’t read all the comments, but i noticed a lot about the nav/search it’s one of the first things i noticed and it was obvious to click on. i found the usability from a ‘where is it?’ point of view good. font size, yeah, bit small on the res i’ve got, but with ff not a big deal. with the ability in browsers to change font size a bit, i don’tthink it’s as much of an issue, tho something to consider.
Is there anywhere I can check out the old version of your site? Does it happen to be anywhere?
Of course, check out: si7.shauninman.com
OMG its alive and still gray! I
damn, now everyone woul say i steal your nav. button look… /me stomps his foot…
but excellent job… kudos!
This is one of the best sites i’ve ever seen in my life. incredible..really really incredible..
Congratulations, Mr. Inman! You’ve done it again. I thought that the previous version was looking good, but the redesign really take my breath away.
Keep up the good work, and I’ll keep looking for updates, both of the layout and your other work.
The design is exteemly good. Great work
Very nice design, like all of your stuff! Keep going!