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It’s been a long time since I’ve changed themes here at Her Realm. It’s been even longer since I made one myself. The previous theme was premade, and it served me well. However, I got an idea in my head, and it actually came to fruition. This layout actually progressed in a natural and easy way. The changes in HTML and CSS since I last made a layout made me squee in a nerdy way. It’s so much easier to do some things.

Quite a few hours went into this layout, although it might look quite simple. I spent 45 minutes looking for one specific shade of green, for example. In the end, I’m quite pleased with it. I think it even fits my content better.

As I updated pages, I fixed a few broken links, re-organized the sections and updated information–especially information about me. There are still a few quirks. For example, I need to fix up the 404 page.

Unfortunately, if you’re viewing this on a mobile device, you don’t get to see the new layout. HTML5 just isn’t mobile friendly, it seems.

The resources used include Peacock palette, Retro flower brushes and Bulb social media icons.

I know I’m late with this one, especially considering that I had a sneak preview a few weeks ago but the new Google layout sucks (These people all agree). You may not have stumbled across it yet. It seems like it hasn’t completely been rolled out yet. Truth be told, you may not even have noticed it but I have and every single change is ridiculous.

Permanent search options in the left sidebar

I guess you could turn on these options before but I never did because they are useless. The options are supposed to be relevant to your search term but they already existed at the top of the page. The left sidebar just takes up room and when ads also display on the right, the content space is minuscule.

Different search bar and button styles.

The new style is very angular and stylized in such a way that it blends in awkwardly, even though the search bars are larger than they were before. It took me a while to even realize there still is a search bar on the bottom.

New logo

The new logo has some subtle colour alterations as well as a more muted bevel and drop shadow effect. It’s supposed to look smoother but instead looks like something someone thought would look good 15 years ago. This is especially odd because Google’s old logo certainly wasn’t “modern.”

Rearranged results

Maybe I’d be okay with every other change if the results appeared the same but they don’t. If you’re the type of person who skipped over the ads above your actual results, you could be missing the most relevant links. Plus,media (video, images, Twitter) and news content is not featured like it used to me. This forces you to click a link on the left (or top). Adding extra clicks is frustrating to me.

No division between search and results

There used to be a horizontal, blue bar which ran right under the search bar to separate the content. I don’t know why is feels so crucial to have the bar there but, without it, Google seems like a half-assed attempt at design from a middle schooler.

I’m also not entirely sure, but it seems as though the results are displayed in a much smaller font, too.

But I’d like to leave you with this comment I stumbled upon because it’s so very fitting:

I think it looks good and it’s very efficient. I’m a big fan of whitespace and the new sidebar provides plenty of it! I also like duplication so if a meteor ever smashes into my house and takes out the top of my monitor, I’ll still have this sweet sidebar with the exact same links ready to go. And did you see those bright, blazing, colorful icons next to the links? Wow…now that’s some eye candy! I’m hoping in future releases, they’ll expand the sidebar further to the right and give the user an option of hiding the search results to show more sidebar. That would be awesome.

I’ve been spending more time aruond review blogs and the mommy review community in specific. It’s got some very unique traits that don’t transfer over to the blogosphere, for better or worse. There’s definitely more of a sense of community than the blogosphere overall. There’s more interaction and perhaps some of that is very shallow and is only dependent on giveaways and other superfluous content but even shallow interaction is more than some folks will ever see.

There’s also a lot of linkage going on in a way that reminds me of what it was like to have a blog 5 years ago. No, make that more like 10 years ago. It’s not a bad thing. For one, it boosts interaction and exposure and, for another, it helps Google PageRank which is something a lot of people are looking for when it comes to sponsoring items or paying for advertising. Linking is just another way in which the community is supportive.

And I don’t have anything bad to say about the principle of the thing; it’s just that the way people actually do it really isn’t helping. I know one of the reasons is because a lot of review blogs are Blogger hosted and there’s no good way to deal with linking blogs with buttons but… I’ve come across one too many pages which dozens and dozens of randomly sized buttons linking to others. To put it plainly: it looks like crap. If you do it, take a step back. It looks horrible and you are diminishing the value of your site. It’s the simple truth. If your content ends and the viewer has to scroll more than once because of a sidebar full of mismatched buttons, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

My suggestion? Bring back the button wall: a grid of neatly arranged, same-sized buttons all on one page. Hell, done well, it could even be added to a footer and look better than it does on most sites.

Of course, in order for this to work we have to go back to a standard sized button. It seems like 88×31 has seen its hey-day so 125×125 pixels is probably the solution; most people are already using it. Everyone else can just get on board.

Of course, Blogger doesn’t allow people to easily add pages so people have to work out it by creating posts (usually several years in the past so they don’t show up in recent archives) and then linking to it like a page. It’s not the prettiest solution but it is one solution.

And you know what else? It just might help PageRank to only have a few of your preferred links on the front page. Linking to tons of sites on every page can actually lower your PR. Moving all your links to a different page will not only make your blog look better but could potentially raise your rank. Not too shabby, eh? I didn’t think so.

Now get to it!

On a serious note, I really think this is an ideal solution to the cluttered sidebars I have seen recently and I wouldn’t mind if folks took the initiative to spread this post.