Even though you might not have noticed it, I've been messing with the code behind my blog for months. I'm always moving pixels around. I think I play around with the code more than I actually write. Several months ago I decided to completely redo it in order to take advantage of some of the updates blogger made to the back-end. At the end of the exercise I wanted my blog to look identical to what it did before.
Shortly after spending all that time to re-create the aesthetic, I started to become dissatisfied with that very look. I felt constricted by the borders. The sidebar was ugly. The backgrounds and gradients were unnecessary and distracting. I wanted to make it clean. I wanted it to be pleasing to look at and easy to read. I wanted it to be simple.
I hit the reset button and I started from scratch again. But this time I got things looking like I wanted a lot more quickly. It is much more basic. I did save my old code that I had spent so much time meticulously crafting. It is in a text file that I will keep for reference. I'm really pleased with the way the "new look" turned out. I don't think I'll ever dust the old code off again unless I need to look something up.
I hope you all like the update as much as I do. I feel more free to write now. I'm also going to (try to) force myself not to touch the code for at least a few months. I took the most basic stock template and made a few tweaks, simple as that. Now I just need to post.
Filed Under: Blogger, code, Design