I am a minimalist at heart. A friend of mine describes the decor of N's and my house as "Shinto-Shaker meets Bollywood." Translation: we abhor clutter, but love color (especially in pillows and rugs).
Over the 6 months that I've been publishing "in praise of sardines," I've been growing increasingly queasy as I've watched my "blog roll" and other links in the left-hand column grow faster than the ivy that attacks our backyard fence. It was time for drastic measures.
So far, this is what I've done. I've reduced IPOS from 3 to 2 columns. I moved my links (which includes many of you, my readers) to their very own "links" page. You can get to this page any time by clicking on "My Links and Blog Roll," located under my picture in the right-hand column. With more room, I am able to continue to divide my blog roll by region and add the names and locations of each blog's author.
Just as too many ingredients can muddy the taste of a dish, I have stripped away the superfluous and little used garnishes of my blog. Gone are the calender, the lists of recent posts and comments, and the translation tool. In the future, I hope to tidy up my categories and recipes, too. Feel free to leave any suggestions about these changes in the comments section of this post.
I hope you like the improvements as much as I do! It's not much, but for me - a simple Luddite cook more comfortable with a mortar and pestle than a Cuisinart (let alone a keyboard!) - it's a huge accomplishment. Ultimately, my goal is to increase your pleasure as you peruse the stories, recipes and photos that I plan to share with you in the coming year!
this looks great - i'm going to try to create a links/blogroll this weekend - i've been way too busy otherwise. i like your use of orange!
Posted by: radish | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 04:00 AM
Love your blog! I'm a mad indian food and movie fan.
My house could be described much the same way...Or as I like to call it Scandinavian Masala...
Posted by: Diane | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 06:07 AM
Brett, FWIW, it does look cleaner, but at my resolution of 1280x1024, this change actually makes the text harder to read, because wide collums are hard for the eyes to track. At that resolution the main column ends up being like 8 inches wide. Even at 1024x768, by far the most common resolution, it's a little uncomfortable. Maybe you should consider setting the overall witdth to be a fixed value that matches the size of the fish graphic and center everything?
BTW I'm very honored to be on your blogroll, no matter where it is.
Posted by: johng | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 09:27 AM
Looking good! Less is more. I would suggest thinking about drop down menus for certain items like archives. I'm doing a redesign too, with new banner, hopefully it will be done in a few weeks.
Posted by: Amy | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 10:48 AM
radish, your site is so beautiful! It makes me think I should really ask for more help from my techie friends to bring my blog up to snuff. Good luck on the blog roll. A necessary, but tedious task.
Diane, I love the sound of Scandanavian Masala. Are you talking 1960s Scandanavian (Knoll, Saarinen) or Ikea?
johng, thank you for your advice. I never look at my website on anything but my little iBook, so I'm always curious how it appears on other computers. I had actually been planning to switch from a "fluid" to a fixed (maybe 500 pixel) main column, so I'm glad to hear that it will improve readability. You're right that wide columns are hard on the eyes. I never thought about that.
Amy, I love the dropdown menus on your site! That's definitely in my plans, if I can get it to work. I also want to tinker with my banner a bit.
Posted by: Brett | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 01:01 PM
Brett, I think it looks great now!
Sorry to be nitpicky, but if you could change the border on the left collumn from this:
border-left: 2px solid #99CC66
to this:
border-left: 1px solid #99CC66
Then I think it would be perfect
Posted by: johng | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 08:13 PM
Happy new year, Brett - the new look of your site is really cool, I'm looking forward to more of your gorgeous posts and pictures! Oh, and maybe a "Shinto-Shaker meets Bollywood" shot too... :)
Posted by: keiko | Friday, January 06, 2006 at 08:35 PM
1960's scandinavian look-alike mostly. No ikea except their wonderful kitchen storage jars, which seem to be mating and multiplying in my pantry (lovely for spices, dals etc).
I love your blog!!! Great new look too.
Posted by: Diane | Saturday, January 07, 2006 at 09:02 AM
I like the new look of your blog.:)Looks good.
Wishing you a very happy New Year.
I have you linked to my blog.Check out my food blog at http://indiacuisine.blogspot.com
Posted by: sailu | Sunday, January 08, 2006 at 07:19 AM
I am ALL ABOUT THE "KISS" motto...Keep It Simple Stupid :) I love the new layout! And have no problem with the wider columns like someone above. Say wha?? Two columns is the way to go. I think typepad formatting is great but sometimes there's just to much mumbojumbo that as you said is superfluous.
Posted by: mona | Monday, January 09, 2006 at 09:39 AM