molly.com

Wednesday 22 December 2004

THE MEDUSA LOOK

THE MEDUSA LOOK could easily describe the new molly.com design-in-progress. As you’ll see, it’s just the home page for now, and I’m still fiddling with styles. Special thanks to Patrick Lauke who worked with me to design this - and probably would have been happier had I left some of the cooler enhancements in.

Some of the things I’ve been playing with are:

  • Fiddling with fonts (but don’t we always)
  • He had developed a great look for the poll, which is disabled until I swing a fix for a script some fine human was hacking into
  • Similarly, a more manageable approach to the blogroll was in place, but I’m leaving it as is
  • I made the bullets smaller and orange instead of blue
  • I changed the color of the date header

Otherwise, Patrick did an awesome job coming up with the sideways logo, which I love (although some folks have balked at it, what do you think?); and the photo treatment in the top right, which I also love.

Are those snakes coming out of my hair? Ya think it’s a subliminal Medusa thing going on? Consider:

Medusa means “sovereign female wisdom” . . . Medusa was originally an aspect of the goddess Athene from Libya where she was the Serpent-Goddess of the Libyan Amazons. In her images, her hair sometimes resembles dread locks, showing her origins in Africa. There she had a hidden, dangerous face. It was inscribed that no one could possibly lift her veil, and that to look upon her face was to glimpse ones own death as she saw your future . . . Medusa has historically been seen as the archetype of the nasty mother, however she is far more complex.

Yeah, definitely Medusa, and not much subliminal going on when I think about it!

Filed under:   standards, blogging, web design and development
Posted by:   Molly | 4:50 pm |

51 Responses to “THE MEDUSA LOOK”

  1. paul haine Says:

    Nice - I like the sideways logo in particular. Will sideways text be the craze of 2005?

  2. Jeff Says:

    Very nice! I like it alot, especially the header. Wonderfully done, especially the sideways text. The blogroll definitately needs a redesign though imho. I think perhaps there could be a page where you listed them all, and then simply the best on all pages.

  3. Turnip Says:

    Your site is looking great, Medusa ;-) . The header is very cool.

    If it were me, I’d make the font a tenny bit bigger, but that’s just me; I’m a big fan of big fonts.

  4. nikkiana Says:

    Rockin new layout… Now I want to redesign… Sigh. So much work.

  5. Jeff Croft Says:

    Lookin’ good, Molly! I like the color scheme a lot, and the photo treatment is nice! The sideways text in the logotype definitely works for me, but I think I might have preferred it flipped (with the M and the bottom and the top of the tet facing the left) — but who knows!

    Great job, Molly and Patrick. :)

  6. ben Says:

    I *heart* the new look. I wish I had something more constructive, but I’m about to drop into Crisis Mode on a project… at any rate, well done.

  7. Dave M Says:

    I think Paul is on to something: sideways is the new orange.

  8. Rob Mientjes Says:

    Nice! I came here and was shocked - Molly left? But no, splendid design. Simple once more, but now with a bit of colour. I like it.

  9. Kitta Says:

    Love it, the photo treatment looks great.

    I wanted to ask you how you are getting your blogroll to show ‘freshest to mushiest’, are you using blogrolling? I tried to get my links to do the same in WordPress, but weblogs.com was going up and down at the time and nothing was updating. :o /

  10. patrick h. lauke Says:

    bloody hell…i was going to chase you up about it in the new year, to see if there was anything i could do to get the redesign going again…so it’s a nice surprise to see it finally live. as soon as i saw the title of your post in my rss aggregator, i knew!
    great to finally see this up - if there’s any more tweaks etc you’d like, just give me a shout :)

  11. Christine Says:

    Wow, I go away for a couple of months and what happens, everything has changed! I like it actually.

    If there were to be any change that I would make, if it were mine, would be to make the code font a tad larger. (eg, alt attribute) It is a wee bit tiny for these old eyes of 38. ;-| I would also allow previewing of comments for those like me who has horrible typists working for them. :-D

    Otherwise, very spiffy looking!

  12. bruce Says:

    It looks great Molly. Lovely and clean. If you ever want a GeoCities re-working done as an alternate stylesheet, let me know!

  13. Andy Budd Says:

    What a Vamp :-)

    Great new look for 2005. Hats off.

    btw That’s one mighty long blogroll you got there, with one or two obvious omissions ;-)

  14. Amit Karmakar Says:

    Lookin good Molly and Patrick! Well done.

  15. Talha Turan Says:

    This is better, Molly. It’s now easier to read, navigate and enjoy the site. No offense, I liked the old design but everything needs to be changed and everything that has been changed make people feel better :) Good luck.

  16. Jolo Says:

    Lookin’ pretty good. You have the supreme power. ;)

  17. Martin Lambert Says:

    I agree with all the accolades, but have one brief note - you’re not setting a background color for the body. Anyone who has their browser set to a default background other than white winds up with white boxes around your headers and whatnot. (I have mine set that way specifically so I can catch this mistake when I make it in my own designs.)

  18. Zelnox Says:

    The site feels more airy somehow. The medusa is really cool too. It’s like it shouts “_|_(-_-) beware spammers!” Hehehe. \(^0^)/

  19. Zelnox Says:

    I just noticed the hidden “skip to content”. That’s pretty swell too.

  20. joetn Says:

    U go, girl! As a storyteller/folklorist/musician/designer/artist I really appreciate the furthering of lore (Medusa, in this case) knowledge for my noggin. Thank you!

    Merry Christmas, Goddess!

  21. Reza Says:

    Great new look Molly, good and clean design, couple of small things I noticed (regarding the footer and your main menu) but I guess you are still working on it or maybe its just my browser :)

    Love the photo/Medusa.
    Happy Holidays :)

  22. Renato Targa Says:

    I think you forgot to set the background-color to white (if your browser’s default isn’t white, your blog will look strangely).

  23. Matt Burris Says:

    Very nifty! I give it two big toes up!

  24. Dante Evans Says:

    I was getting sick of all the Georgia. Not to say I like arial for body copy, but it looks nice. I love the delicious sidebar, how did you do that without sending one hot to del.icio.us per every page visit on this site?

  25. Matt Burris Says:

    anonymous: Email aren’t displayed on the site. It is used to prevent spammers and other malicious types from having an easy say in the comments.

  26. Dante Evans Says:

    The ‘Fun’ link at the top of the page is 404′ed.

  27. Jachin Says:

    Really like the Skip to Content link. Finally a solution that works for browsers with or without style :-)

  28. Burningbird » Real Link Stuff Says:

    […] ith the recipe, though, and create “Jug o Margarita” cookies instead. I like Molly’s new Medusa look. But then, she used green – I’m partial to green. And […]

  29. David Laakso Says:

    Nice. Very nice. A little tough on us older folks though. It’s not the font. Or is it?
    Best,
    David
    (1280 native LCD)

  30. ByteDreams Says:

    Patrick is my new hero. I just spent a good hour playing at his site. you should let him put up some of the fun stuff! could be quite interesting, and definately innovating!

  31. David Laakso Says:

    For what it’s worth, your right column is a no-show in XP_SP2_IE6.0 at 800 by 600. Actually it’s there, only you have to scroll right 130 pixels to see it.

  32. David Laakso Says:

    My mistake Molly, you’re fine at 800 by 600 in IE.
    Best,
    David

  33. David Laakso Says:

    Think I’ve got it– at least I was able to replicate it. In IE6.0 at 800 by 600 with text-size set at largest, the right column breaks 130 pixels right *when you post a comment*. I did not check to see if this also happens at other text-size settings, or screen resolutions.
    David

  34. ♥ XTHML | CSS | Webdesign | Photography | Jens Wedin » Bodyswtichers, html tags and stats ♥ Says:

    […] chy´s log Lachlan writes about HTML tags, Unicode guide part I and Unicode guide part II. Molly is redesigning, I really like the skip to content part in the top. Also very nice done wit […]

  35. Sian Says:

    I like it.

  36. Carthik Says:

    Neato! I love the new look. Not drastically differrent from the Molly.com I know, and yet, fresh as a lemon.

  37. Carmelyne Thompson Says:

    Nice color scheme. Without any offense intended or malice, but I’d have to question the mouse over effect on the top part where it would say “Skip to the content”. Let’s say I did click on it and suprisingly it’s anchored just a few lines below the top part. Was it just for kicks? :)

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  48. barbie Says:

    Nice. Very nice

  49. el factor humano » Archivo » Propósitos de Año Nuevo Says:

    […] Me gusta mucho ver el desarrollo de sitios y los trabajos en progreso, por citar a sólo algunos podemos ver que desde hace unos días Molly está trabajando en una nueva versión de su blog, también lo han hecho Paul Scrivens, y Dave Shea. […]

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