Dustin Wilson

This one, like the last one that I did, is an experiment, but I believe it is a very successful experiment. This one is infinitely more simple than my previous design, and I much prefer it over the last one. My goal in the last one was to see how much of it I could change. This design's stylesheet is used together with the theme it is based upon, Early Bird, so it is more conformant to what has been done already in My Opera. So if new features are added I can add support for them in my theme without a massive amount of work. This one has completely different goals. I asked myself a question when I did this design:

Just what data is the most important data?

When I thought in those terms I knew that the sidebar had to go, but not away. I also broke that down into what I felt was the most important. The most important was the search, allowing people to search through my posts for something they're looking for, but just having one is a bit too simplistic. In the end it was more along the lines of what sideboxes do I view the most. The answer was simple. I look at the newest comments and the recent visitors the most. The rest consists of repetitive data in my opinion, data that can be retrieved elsewhere better. After all of that was decided it felt best to use a single column layout with the sidebar data at the bottom. To separate it from the main data it is opposite to the main data in appearance.

The design is mostly monochromatic like my previous one with the exception of the blue and orange hues of the hyperlinks. I felt I needed to use some color. The biggest problem I saw with my previous design was that the hyperlinks didn't stand out enough. Hyperlink colors can create problems as you don't want them to stand out too much so they read as part of a paragraph, but you don't want them to hide within the same text. I think I found a good middle ground here.

The header is different than the Shigeru Miyamoto illustration I had up there before. While I still like ol' Shiggy I think I made the mistake of labeling who it was, and I think even if the name wasn't there it would have still been recognizable. That poses a problem because while I might discuss Nintendo-related material here my log doesn't focus on Nintendo. This illustration is of Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI, one of my most favorite games. She's not an instantly recognizable figure so I think it's quite safe.

Well I'm quite tired as it's 00:32 right now where I live, so I'll shut up and go to bed.