LeliaThomas.Com

Welcome to LeliaThomas.Com, the 2007 Version

Where to begin? Before you is the new version of this website. For anyone visiting for the first time, here’s a before and after comparison.

The first thing some people point out to me is that the two designs are somewhat similar. This is intentional. I went through many different design ideas for this website, but there were three factors that led me back to this “overall feel” that you see now. They were:

• Loading times. I wanted to continue to have a lightweight design that was functional, so browsing of the art gallery would not be doubly hard for users on slower internet connections. (Or for people like me, who just can’t be bothered with many useless bells and whistles on websites.)
• Good contrast–not too much, not too little. I have tested my artwork on many different backgrounds. The three colours/shades that continue to make my artwork stand out more appropriately are charcoal grey, earthy brown and khaki. White and black are sometimes too harsh in my opinion, taking away one’s focus of the artwork. These midtone-to-dark colours that I choose help minute colours pop and overbearing colours calm down, or so I feel.
• Accessible and usable. Many of the other trial designs I created looked good, but weren’t anywhere near as functional as what is up now or what what was up before. With the current design and the previous one, you could always count on the most important navigation being at the top–easy to get to. And sidebar information is obviously set apart. I believe you can really enjoy a beautiful site, but you’re more likely to stay on a more usable one. I’d like for you to stick around on mine.

For these reasons, keeping somewhat inline with my previous design only made sense to me. This time, though, I used Jonathan Snook’s Colour Contrast Checker on the content text (though not on all text–on purpose). The contrast between the background and the content text should be comfortable for most eyes.

What’s New: The Index

Obviously the index is where I made the most drastic changes. I wanted the immediate focus of this design to be on my art and writings. Because this is a “blogging world” we live in, a lot of people had gotten into the habit of coming to this website and looking straight at the journal. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but my journal was drowning out my artistic endeavors. I wanted to bring my artwork and writings to the forefront, but I also didn’t want to do that at the expense of wasting sidebar space or, in contrast, drowning out the journal.

So I decided to combine my visual and literary artwork, at least on the index. Now each written piece gets its own image thumbnail which will be run on the index chronologically, along with the visual work. To give people more variety, too, there are now seven thumbnails running at any given time, versus only three from the previous design.

All this, and very little space is taken up, thanks to reasonably-sized thumbnails and a structured header with navigation. In screen resolutions of 1024×768, the journal is still clearly visible and not far to scroll to. Users who are viewing things on 800×600 screen resolutions: I’m sorry. I’ve not catered to you this time, either. Evolve, plzkthx.

What’s New: Sublinks

What are sublinks? Sublinks are these things:

You will now see them on every page. They aren’t exactly vital to your browsing experience, but they might make it a bit easier around the journal. On pages and artwork, you will have different sublinks. Most of the sublinks also include the option to add a page to StumbleUpon. Some of you may find this odd. In a way, I do too. I use StumbleUpon, but only on occasion; however, quite a number of you have added this site and some of its subpages to your StumbleUpon account, and it has given me good traffic. I’d like to encourage that if I can!

What’s New: The Toolbox

The toolbox is something you’ll find on almost every page of this website. It includes the links to login/register here, stream music and subscribe to feeds.

Currently logging in and registering is not a vital part of your experience here, though apparently new user features will be in the next major release of WordPress, and I plan to put them to use, perhaps creating detailed user profiles for this website.

The option to stream music is just for fun. I’ve picked radio streams that I have enjoyed and think might add to your browsing experience. If you know of some other streams that are good and might go with browsing this site, feel free to tell me about them.

There are some new feeds to subscribe to, and they are all listed on the subscription page. I want to encourage the use of RSS feeds, as I really am only interested in your viewing the things here that do actually interest you. If that’s the journal, great; if not, and it’s the art, that’s fine, too. The content you’re served should be the content you choose, I think.

What’s New: Quotables!

This has to be my personally favorite, new feature. It occurred to me one day that I have so many hilarious conversations with friends and family that I shouldn’t keep the humour to myself, and so, Quotables have been born. Expect quite a few of these, but most will be kept short. If they begin to bug people, I will strip them from the main feed, but I actually think most will just enjoy the good laugh.

What’s New: About Information and Hire or Shop

I’ve once again revised the information on my about page, and I have also included a few frequently asked questions on it. A new and/or revised page is the Hire or Shop page, which is what it sounds like. It contains links to my resume and such, and also information about purchasing art products.

What’s New: Revised Posting Schedule

A semi-big change here is a revised posting schedule for 2007. It’s somewhat similar to the one I used in 2006, but with some additions and some subtractions. You can click on the thumbnail below to see the basic posting schedule (in this case for January). Some posts are date dependent, rather than day dependent, so some overlapping may occur, but I think this schedule will be more diverse and interesting for both you, the reader, and me, the writer.

What’s New: Creative Squared (C2) Forums

I have launched forums for this website, or, well, less for this website and more for creative people to congregate in. Artists and geeks will enjoy a single roof to gather under, I think.

Let the posting begin!

Conclusion

It took me about three months to create a design that I was satisfied with, but only three weeks to truly create it. That said, please report any oddities that you come across over the next little while. It would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, it should be noted that some small things around here still need cleaning up. I want to cut down my stylesheet’s size (12kb), definitely, which won’t be an issue, but I’ve also got to figure out some workarounds for IE to render small things properly. Give me a little time!

Enjoy the site and its new features. I will be pumping out a lot more content this year, I feel. Here’s to hoping 2007 continues to be productive! Also, wish me luck! I’m going to start applying for a few design jobs around Melbourne.

Comments ordered from oldest to newest.

Edrei

I really like it. You’ve taken the basic two column and come up with something people would actually click on and use.

One thing though, in your single posts the “Popular Entries” and “Categories” lead me directly to the Main Index where I have to click them again to point me to the right direction. Also In your Single Posts, your “Archive” doesn’t lead me anywhere.

And are those meant to be small? It almost seems easy to miss. Then again, I don’t know if people regularly use it at all.

Still…I love how it looks. Got to love the fact you kept the same colour scheme more or less. :)

Lelia

Edrei, thanks for your kind words and for reporting the few problems you noticed! I appreciate it! I’ve looked at this for so long now that I knew I must have missed a few things–and I did! The bad linking up top should be fixed now. :)

As for the sublinks: I know they don’t stand out much. I made the sublinks with the intention of giving people navigation to certain “extras,” but only to things they don’t use much. I have always read on the Internet, when it comes to blogging, to keep an obvious list of your categories and archives, etc., but when viewing my click tracking results for the last six months, I discovered hardly anyone had used either. (Maybe 30 to 40 people of my thousands of viewers had clicked on a category or archive link in six months!) Realizing that, I thought it absurd to have the long lists of categories and archives that take up so much room in sidebars. I’ve kept the archive link a little more present, though, just in case.

Thanks again!

kav p

It looks fecking awesome. Hooray. :D

SkeptiC

I must say, this is great. I do love the top bar, and even more, the ‘art and writing’ area across the top. That definitely didn’t stand out nearly as much as it should have on the last one.
I also think that the music link is a perfect idea. Personally, I think no website or blog should be without some links to streaming content of some kind. Technology feeding technology.

Now my favorite….The Forums
That was an excellent idea. I love forums, and we’ll see how great that works out for you. Its great to be able to make fast little posts about things, and get all kinds of little tidbits of information from people in a forum setting. Forums add a whole new dimension, and a whole new set of people really.
I’ll be doing some browsing around.

kReEsTaL

Hello Lelia :) I’m regularly reading your RSS feed, even though I never comment. But today, since I would like to congratulate you for this awesome new site version! It’s beautiful and, indeed, very usable. You’re my hero for making great-looking, simple yet efficient websites. I’m too baroque! :-P

Again, your use of WordPress and ability to create a wonderful template is amazing. May I ask if you start from scratch or use a basic template that you transform then? I’ve some difficulties to handle WordPress themes to make them look exactly what I want them too. :’(

Thanks to you I discovered this publishing plateform which I’m very happy with. I’ll use it on my three sites from now on, it’s a blessing when you’re not a programmer.

Anyway, good luck with your projects, I’ll be around :)

Lelia

Kav: Of course this looks fecking awesome. :|

Skeptic: I’m so glad you like the new design, and yes, I’m excited about the forums as well. :) I feel once the membership takes off a bit, it can become a good place for creative and geeky people to hang out. Hope to see you around the forums!

Kreestal: It’s quite an honour to hear you call any of my work beautiful! I love your artwork!

As for my methods in creating this website…I’ve decided I will try to write some tutorials on certain things that I do this year. The problem now is figuring out how to narrow it down into various topics, so the posts won’t be too long. I’m working on that a bit now, when I have time. :)

Thanks again for your kind words!

Scott

I really like the new design. It retains what I believe to be your colors while refreshing the overall look and feel of the site. I did like your old header a little better, with the cliche tabs and all, although the new one is indeed nice.

In summary, I think your new design 0wns me. Well done! :-)

Lelia

Thanks so much, Scott! Means a lot from you! :)

LorriM

I am reporting an oddity….it is YOU. :)

Thanks for stopping by. :)

I love the new clothes!

Lelia

Glad you like the new design, Lorri!

And, hehe, is it oddity or oddball?

Tori

Hey Leila, all I can say is WOW, you’ve made a lot of great improvements. :) Good luck on the job hunt!

Lelia

Thanks, Tori! I’m glad you like this design! :) And thanks for the well wishing. Think I’ll need it!

Footsteps in the Mirror

[...] thing, it’s just one of those things that happens without you looking. Taking a leaf out of Lelia’s introduction to her own layout, I’ll break down my reasons for designing the layout the way it is now. First [...]

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i am digging the new look for your website