Down the Road has a new look.
I liked the old look, but the WordPress template I was using had a number of difficulties and a few outright bugs. I grew tired of opening support cases with WordPress, and a couple weeks ago started looking for a new template.
Here’s hoping this new look is a smoother experience for me. And here’s hoping you find the layout and typography to be pleasing.
Cheers Jim, First impressions are a rather stark or hard font, doubtless will get accustomed to it …
ps You have a really good Christmas break :0)
Chris, I’m not 100% happy with the body font and may change it, but options are sort of limited, so who knows where this will end up!
Times New Roman, am I right? I am a big fan of this font for its businesslike readability. Despite the eye-rolls I get from my stylish middle child.
I have toyed with the idea of a change to my own site, wondering if it is too heavy on graphics. But I have not had the technical issues that you suffered with, so a redesign is about 478 items down my to do list.
No, this isn’t TNR. I can’t pick it out right now. In fact, if Jim answers back on the actual typeface I will probably beat my head against the wall for not recognizing it. But TNR was one of the first typefaces designed specifically to be ‘readable’, the arrangement of thicks and thins on the ascenders & descenders, and the spacing of the counters (the open spaces in letters like a, o, b, d, etc.). It was commissioned by the New York Times company at the end of the 19th or very early 20th century for their exclusive use. Not bad for remembering something I had been told in typography class back in the 1980’s! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, JP!
The body font it Minion Pro. The heading font is Fertigo Pro. Like I said to the first commenter, I’m not 100% happy with Minion Pro and might change it. It would be a lovely font for the body text in, say, a coffee-table book, but I’m not entirely satisfied with its screen readability.
Just getting back to this, but I rather like Minion Pro for the body copy. But there are fonts especially designed for on-screen reading. However, I have no idea if WP allows you to access them. The headline font is pretty cool and seems to work well on-screen as display (headline) text.
My choices are limited. There are 38 body fonts to choose from (plus the theme default font), and for headings you can use any of the body fonts plus a smattering of extra heading fonts (plus the theme default). I’m not actually crazy about any of the fonts! But Minion Pro seems okay enough. I do like the heading font for being interesting without being over the top.
Will you return your banner photo you had up before? It actually conveyed the sense of going “down the road”, IMO. Regardless, glad to see you’ve been able to resolve the technical issues and stay “on the air”… As this week, we’re headed into the homestretch of Christmas holiday, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I’m glad you asked that. This blog has evolved over the past 2-3 years away from being as road-trip heavy. It’s really now mostly about photography. Also, I’m starting to be known, a little, in some social media for my photographs. So I’m evolving the “branding” (lol! I have branding!) toward my name. I even considered scrapping the Down the Road name entirely and just calling this blog Jim Grey. I may yet do that somewhere …heh… down the road. A merry Christmas to you, too!
Not too keen on “Jim Grey” as a new name. If that stupid book/movie hadn’t come out, “Shades of Grey” would be well suited to many of your photos.
Blogs are increasingly going toward using just the author’s name, so I’d be in sync if I did it. I’m either keeping the current name or changing to use my given name. This is well enough known as Down the Road and as my blog that I think choosing any other name would just be confusing.
Then I’d keep Down the Road. I’ve come across very few with just the person’s name (and it seems rather narcissistic). :)
Holy cow, man, don’t you know that narcissism is what drives blogging? :-)
True, but you don’t have to shout it to the world. ;)
What a pity that in spite of your valiant efforts you couldn’t get the old template to behave itself, Jim. But I do like your new look! It’s quite minimalist, but it does put your content in center stage, where it belongs.
WordPress has been diligent in working with me, but there were simply some hard limitations in what they could do to fix, or help me work around, my template issues. I like this minimalist look and yes, I was going for center-stage content. I will probably always wish my old template could have been made to be trouble-free, but alas!
Lookin good
Thanks Bob!
Gee, I let a few days go by and you turn the place upside down. :) Quite a nice change! I like it! It’s very clean and legible and the font choices are stellar. The headings almost look like wet ink. I didn’t see anything wrong with the way it looked before but I think you’ve bumped up the classiness of the presentation. Hey, can you give mine a makeover? :D
Glad you like it! I didn’t really want a change – I wanted my old look to work well. But I got tired of forcing it, and now here we are.
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