It was quiet here over the last couple of weeks, right? On the one hand that was because I spent most of the time working on client projects - info on that will be revealed soon. On the other hand I also worked on a new version of Bartelme Design.
The last design was quite a success and I also liked it. However over the time I got tired looking at it. Additionally it was a bit overloaded and didn’t work well on smaller screens. And last but not least the different sections were hard to distinguish from each other - you know you couldn’t tell whether you were in the showroom or the journal section, without consulting the navigation. To tell the truth that’s not too bad, but I wanted to do better.
So the new version is actually not just a redesign of the old site, but a real realignment. The color scheme is quite similar to the old one to convey the typical “Bartelme” touch. However all other parts are quite distinct - not only from the old version but also from each other. I tried to regroup certain areas, emphasize more important areas and get rid of dead wood.
Well and that’s the result. Your feedback is much appreciated. Hope you enjoy :)
125 comments so far
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Martin Labuschin March 25, 2007 at 12:41 PM
Yay! Great work. Clean, tidy, blue. But the pattern in your body is a “style break”
Well, my assumptions on Still a bit blurry were correct :)
William Wilkinson March 25, 2007 at 12:48 PM
Dude. Nice.
Please release your previous design!
Stefan March 25, 2007 at 12:55 PM
Well done Wolfgang, a great redesign as always.
Simone March 25, 2007 at 12:56 PM
You’re always a great source of inspiration!
BenediktRB March 25, 2007 at 01:14 PM
I like those colors, and style is also cleaning and great. Good job!
Fabian March 25, 2007 at 01:16 PM
w00t! Didn’t expact that! Awesome work Wolfgang, stunning. Allthought i dont like the bold fonts, kinda hard to read on longer paragraphs i think. But everything else is soo perfectly done.
pumpkin March 25, 2007 at 01:18 PM
You did it again.
Julian Schrader March 25, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Very nice!
But commenting doesn’t work properly at the moment?
Julian Schrader March 25, 2007 at 01:31 PM
This time it worked—confusing.
Wolfgang March 25, 2007 at 01:32 PM
Hm which commenting issues are you talking about? Please let me know so that I can fix it.
Julian Schrader March 25, 2007 at 01:34 PM
Delete this test
Julian Schrader March 25, 2007 at 01:35 PM
I got a warning message—something like “Sorry, cannot accept your comment this time”.
Reinier Meenhorst March 25, 2007 at 01:43 PM
Sweet, very clean indeed. Minor complaint though, the logotype, dateline and the heading in the margin could be better aligned if you ask me.
Halil Köklü March 25, 2007 at 01:57 PM
Very nice design. I like this and the previous designs.
Matt March 25, 2007 at 02:00 PM
love your layout, very Mac-style
just two complains: 1) button “say it” is a bit lame (the shape is not smooth); 2) the blue gradient in text fields doesn’t fit. BTW overall is one of the best blog layout I’ve seen around.
Chriz March 25, 2007 at 02:12 PM
Nice an smooth – especially I like the rounded Button-hover.
In Journal Archive is a little display-bug. Long entries show up behind the date of the following entry (Safari + Firefox).
Matt March 25, 2007 at 02:29 PM
Excellent design. I love your use of the mac-style search box.
Chriz March 25, 2007 at 02:39 PM
I would like to see an optimised print.css, too. Without all those input fields an a nice solution for links, or do you have something else todo on Sundays? ;-)
Wolfgang March 25, 2007 at 02:44 PM
Haha :) The print stylesheets is already on my tasklist – but not today. I gonna spend the rest of the day with my wife.
matthew March 25, 2007 at 02:44 PM
Great, another very nice design. Well done.
Andrew March 25, 2007 at 04:18 PM
Hi
I don’t think I got to see the old design but I do really like one. Especially the icons you’ve used.
Christian March 25, 2007 at 04:28 PM
Wow! Really!
And I don’t even have to resize my browser window …! ;)
Koyder March 25, 2007 at 04:28 PM
There are many designs on the Web that are professional and all, but few are as inspiring and fresh as this one. Congratulations on an excellent redesign!
What are you waiting for, Apple? Hire this guy!
Jamie J March 25, 2007 at 05:03 PM
Woow, i really like it. Well done!
Adrian March 25, 2007 at 05:12 PM
Beautiful job, keep up the great work!
Benjamin March 25, 2007 at 05:19 PM
Schönes Design, Wolfgang, bin schon länger ein treuer Leser deines Weblogs. Muss allerdings auch Martin im ersten Kommentar zustimmen, dass der Musterhintergrund einen kleinen Stilbruch darstellt. Ansonsten sauber gearbeitet.
Frenetik March 25, 2007 at 05:27 PM
Congrats for that new realignment. It clearer and neater now. The navigation is more agreable ! Congrats for all the work done. It’s well done !
Khaled Abou Alfa March 25, 2007 at 05:28 PM
I like it Wolfgang, just a quick one though on the main page the positioning of the 9rules logo seems too close to the bottom. I think it would sit better if it was on the same line as your logo rather than the bottom border. Other than that really like the tight feel of everything.
rob March 25, 2007 at 05:41 PM
Finally it looks like a common blog! Lol.
Yannic Walter March 25, 2007 at 06:08 PM
I like it.
Luke March 25, 2007 at 06:09 PM
Great design mate!
Teddy March 25, 2007 at 06:16 PM
I love the design and I’ve always enjoyed your work. Great job!
Alexander HAhn March 25, 2007 at 06:28 PM
Sehr schön, wie immer ;-)
ceejayoz March 25, 2007 at 07:54 PM
Looks very, very nice. Good work!
Sam March 25, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Beautiful design! Love what you’ve done to the place :)
Edward Scherf March 25, 2007 at 08:28 PM
Great work once again Bartelme. I can’t wait to see the next redesign/realign in 3 months :D
just kidding :P
Caleb March 25, 2007 at 09:26 PM
Wolfgang, great job! I love the new design!
Martin Labuschin March 25, 2007 at 09:39 PM
The reflection of your logo is incorrect. I think, the letters spacing is to close.
Sorry for my bad English.
Wolfgang March 25, 2007 at 09:55 PM
Yeah you guys are right :) Thanks for the hint.
maro March 25, 2007 at 10:19 PM
are you doing something else? Just redesigning own blog?!
Frank 'viperteq' Young March 25, 2007 at 11:51 PM
Dude, you are awesome. This is really nice. If I had 1/4th the skill that you, Bryan V. and Verle, have….man. Great job!!!!
RamonPage March 26, 2007 at 03:27 AM
I love your work, guy!
Congrats!
marc March 26, 2007 at 07:46 AM
Well done again!
Sean Hayford O'Leary March 26, 2007 at 08:23 AM
Wow it’s nice looking, but I was really fond of your old design.
I definitely like the layout of this better though, but what’s with the giant RSS links?
Rene March 26, 2007 at 11:23 AM
Nice redesign, Wolfgang. I like it.
Jan Meeus March 26, 2007 at 11:43 AM
You did it once again: very clean layout, good choice of typography. How do you find the time! :)
One note though: on your homepage – recent entries, try aligning the middle column entries with the left ones. But that’s probably already on your ‘to-do’ list.
l4ever March 26, 2007 at 12:14 PM
I LIKE THIS THEME…
CAN U SEND TO ME??
Wolfgang March 26, 2007 at 12:43 PM
Yeah aligning the mentioned column is already on my tasklist. If there are any other issues please let me know.
Alex Buga March 26, 2007 at 01:15 PM
You never stop to amaze me man.
Congrats on your new design!
ikram-zidane March 26, 2007 at 01:20 PM
nice redesign but i think the last/previous one was better..
ben² March 26, 2007 at 01:32 PM
Good job, i really like it !
juanpol March 26, 2007 at 01:34 PM
good job!
Ricky March 26, 2007 at 01:50 PM
Nice design!
The only thing that I don’t like is the input forms. :/
Marc Santos March 26, 2007 at 03:55 PM
I use Safari (yeah, boo me), so I appreciate the new design—vey efficient use of space.
digitalsoft March 26, 2007 at 04:04 PM
Wow! love this new design, infact love all your designs :D well done! keep um coming though ;)
Martin March 26, 2007 at 04:54 PM
Mir gefällt dieses Design bedeutend besser als dein altes, auch wenn ihm dieser gewisse Touch “von etwas ganz besonderem” fehlt.
Daher prophezeie ich dir, dass du in weniger als 3 Monaten wieder einen Umbau vollzogen hast. :-)
louis March 26, 2007 at 05:39 PM
I love the new design, its so slick.
But I must say your portfolio is very hard to navigate. You can not access all the projects (have to refresh the page to get new ones to show up) and you have to hit back after reading one entry. Your work is so nice I would realy like to be able to easily access all of them, not random ones.
Wolfgang March 26, 2007 at 05:58 PM
You’re right – the showroom is not “feature complete” yet. Still working on this section…
Andy March 26, 2007 at 06:23 PM
Great work, Wolfgang!
Simple, but very stylish and readable.
Jonathan Hedrén March 26, 2007 at 06:47 PM
Great work! The only drawback I can see is the scalability and the fixed width.
Bubs March 26, 2007 at 07:09 PM
As always, the design is gorgeous!
I love how the headings in the blog entry are floated to the left of the text… very innovative.
Keep up the amazing work (I know you will!)
Viking KARWUR March 26, 2007 at 07:17 PM
Cool… It’s nice… Congratulations…
Keep up the great work… success for you…
Pati @-;-- March 26, 2007 at 09:36 PM
I like the realign. I still fell I’m visiting you here, and
although it didn’t bother me the fact that all your site’s pages were similarI think it’s a plus the new concept. It’s clean, versatile and practical.However, there is something in the journal that reminds me a WP template :(
Anshul March 26, 2007 at 11:05 PM
Cool new design, but still the previous one was better. Good stuff nonetheless
Cristiano Rastelli March 26, 2007 at 11:39 PM
Absolutely great design. Maybe the patter applied ad background over the blue background has a strange contrast, maybe a little more or a little less would be better.
José Carlos March 27, 2007 at 12:52 AM
Really fantastic design you’ve got here!
Very clean and simple, and beautiful too.
Scott Halstvedt March 27, 2007 at 01:01 AM
Hmm…. hard decision. I would have to say I loved your old design, it had something other sites did not. The more horizontal aspect ratio and the flexibility of the last design looked amazing on my 24” widescreen… This new one seems to be too much of a departure from that unique style and a return to the style every other site has adopted. But hey, it’s your website, right? :)
Still lovin’ the smooth graphics though, one could stare at that new post icon for days. Keep it up.
Hardlinks Media March 27, 2007 at 04:25 AM
Great work! nice
James David March 27, 2007 at 06:01 AM
Hey, great design, you also need to add your fav.ico :) it reset itself.
Marko March 27, 2007 at 08:18 AM
Nice work Wolfgang, cool detailes!
Firman Firdaus March 27, 2007 at 10:15 AM
clean and tidy. great design. release the old one please…
Qawwalian March 27, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Very Beautiful and esthetic work
Steve Avery March 27, 2007 at 03:01 PM
Awesome as always…! You truly are inspirational and inspiring. Great work. Keep it up…
Thilo March 27, 2007 at 03:44 PM
I dont’ like that you page don’t scale like http://www.yaml.de!
Too much color.
Chris March 27, 2007 at 07:50 PM
You are amazing. Every new design you come out with is very well done. I like this latest version quite a bit.
Job well done!
milos March 27, 2007 at 09:33 PM
I think this is your best work so far… fu*** great!
Roman March 27, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Bitte Wolgang, release das alte und dieses Theme ür Wordpress – danke !
Jimbo March 27, 2007 at 10:47 PM
Hi Wolfgang!
Like every Design before, this one is great!
As you said in the beginning, it is really much clearer than the old one.
So, keep on changing, because the design gets better and better!
I’m looking foreward the next relaunch ;-)
Foxhaund March 27, 2007 at 10:52 PM
It’s really beutiful.
Good work. Here. in Russia, we very like your works)
ChrizDee March 28, 2007 at 09:30 AM
Hi Wolfgang.
Wie immer ein richtig schönes Design. Nichts anderes war ja auch wirklich nicht zu erwarten. Ich persönlich fand das vorherige Design zwar noch ein bisschen schönes, aber sowas ist ja rein subjektiv.
In jedem Fall – Respekt!
Pascal March 28, 2007 at 09:33 AM
Hi Wolfgang. You really outdid yourself, yet again!
I also wanted to take this opportunity to mention that I just completed porting your now previous-previous theme to Mephisto. You can check out a live example a the Mephisto Theme Gallery
Also worth mentioning is that it is using Haml, a very cool way to write html with (so far) a ruby implementation.
Hope it meets your standard, if not, please let me know how I can improve it.
H Roberts March 28, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Very nice work! Clean and attractive, the colors work seamlessley. Keep it up!
kitune March 28, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Awesome and clean, congrats!
milo March 28, 2007 at 08:00 PM
Cllo new look, really slick, but why not as a fluid layout?
Jase March 28, 2007 at 08:30 PM
Excellent Design, everything fits in perfectly!.. just wondering are you going to release your old theme?
AsceticMonk March 28, 2007 at 09:39 PM
Personally, I like this new redesign. It is compact, clean and blueish. Blue is my favorite color!
Wolfgang March 28, 2007 at 11:09 PM
As for the old theme: hm… stay tuned :)
Jase March 29, 2007 at 08:24 AM
is Glued to this site
bob March 29, 2007 at 11:41 PM
green?
Olivier March 30, 2007 at 12:54 AM
Fab Work mate, a true inspiration…
Peter March 30, 2007 at 02:47 PM
Please , please, pretty please release your previous theme. It was so great , if it will be on WordPress probably the best of all times.
So i will be watching for any news from you.
Selcuk Sinan March 30, 2007 at 06:56 PM
Viel viel besser ;)
Charity March 30, 2007 at 08:40 PM
Hi Wolfgang. I’m a fairly new visitor, and I remember thinking how nice your previous design was when I first came to your site. This realign however, is beautiful. You definitely have a style all your own.
Chris March 31, 2007 at 04:38 PM
It’s awesome work~
Olivier April 02, 2007 at 12:44 AM
I like the little bubbles and the grass! nice addition ;)
Eric April 02, 2007 at 01:31 AM
Great site! I like how the background gradient is stationary and the way it contrasts the page.
Jeff Brown April 02, 2007 at 10:35 AM
There is no stone left unturned. I enjoy looking at your designs as you have tweaked and adjusted everything. You really are a very talented designer.
Wolfgang April 02, 2007 at 10:40 AM
Thanks for your kind words. As you can see the design is not finished yet (and probably never will, because it’s an ongoing process) and I’m still tweaking the one or the other section/part. Hope you enjoy.
Rene April 02, 2007 at 10:48 AM
It would be nice if I could jump to the chosen comment I have selected on the home page at the “recent comments” area.
What a sentence. :)
Wolfgang April 02, 2007 at 10:57 AM
Yes – you’re right. I gonna put it on my task list.
vaidotas April 02, 2007 at 09:18 PM
Hi! I have to say this one is very nice :) But i although liked the old design… So.. waiting the old one for expression engine as public right? :)
Wolfgang April 03, 2007 at 10:01 AM
@Rene: done. Clicking on a comment on the start page will directly lead you to the entry, not just to the related article.
Alex April 03, 2007 at 12:09 PM
好美的网站，不知道有没有SKIN提供下载
Jeff April 03, 2007 at 05:39 PM
Yeah looks nice. I like how each page has distinguishable sections.
James David April 04, 2007 at 04:39 AM
I like the bubbles and grass around the site.
Rene April 04, 2007 at 08:29 AM
Thanks, Wolfgang. It’s usefull. I’m just lazy to scroll down manually to read the last comment. ;)
Ash Haque April 04, 2007 at 09:12 AM
Another great looking design Wolfgang!
Federiko Aka The Killer April 04, 2007 at 10:09 PM
emphasis I want this template :P
Lisa April 09, 2007 at 09:21 AM
I love everything about your design!!!
Just a thought… would you mind if I incorporate the design on my website?
Daniel April 10, 2007 at 12:57 AM
Easy on the eye! Beautiful as always!
Jeannette April 11, 2007 at 09:07 PM
Very nice [ as always ].
Wolfgang April 12, 2007 at 08:56 AM
@ Lisa: Of course you can take my design as an inspiration for your website. However an exact copy is not appreciated.
Federiko Aka The Killer April 13, 2007 at 06:25 PM
Wolfgang, did you know where to download the “Dark Theme” that iLemoned was using a few days ago?
It was so lovely.
This is nice too, can’t I use it for my blog? Actually I’m using Fresh.
Marek April 16, 2007 at 11:13 PM
Great theme. I also would like to use it… where can we get it?
Very well done!
Wolfgang April 17, 2007 at 08:55 AM
Well this is a unique theme and not available to the public — maybe when I do a new one…
Federiko Aka The Killer April 17, 2007 at 03:20 PM
Damn, I love it :)
Between, you don’t know where to get the iLemoned theme’s, right?
Andreas April 19, 2007 at 04:24 PM
I know it’s a bit late, but i just had to say this new design absolutely rocks!
Extremely nice! So many beautiful details!
Keep up the good work!
Jenny April 22, 2007 at 05:40 PM
Beautiful design. I love it. I hope you do release it when you’re done w/it. I’d love to use it.
Marek April 23, 2007 at 07:09 AM
Wolfgang – did you get a new desing yet? ;-) … just kidding… I will wait patiently. Best regrads.
Cubix April 27, 2007 at 04:24 PM
I like the new design, but i liked the previous one better because of the unique appearance and liquid behavior.
alife April 28, 2007 at 01:38 PM
Hallo Wolfgang!
Anscheinend bin ich der Einzige, bei dem dieses Problem auftaucht, aber bei deiner Seite wird bei mir die Schrift sehr verpixelt dargestellt. Und zwar nur auf deiner, das ist mir vorher noch nie untergekommen.
Verwende Windows XP mit Firefox 2.0.0.3
Einen Screenshot findest du hier:
http://alife.lima-city.de/Ablagerung/bartelme_fehler.jpg
Mike May 04, 2007 at 10:45 PM
It´s a very nice design, I like it!
Rafael Masoni May 05, 2007 at 11:19 AM
That’s what I call design. Sweet to the eyes. Perfect.
Congratulations!
Matt May 09, 2007 at 08:50 PM
I love the design. Do you know of a good theming tutorial?
I’ve got a design done, and I know javascript, css and php, but the Wordpress libraries scare me something fierce; so much so that I always give up after attempting to put a design to theme.
Also, can you provide a list of plug ins you’re using to achieve certain sections of your blog (sidenotes, flickr roll, whatever else).
Anyhow, keep up the good work. Like many others, I’m inspired by your design work.
M.Isik May 22, 2007 at 12:22 AM
Simply perfect color play and a professional Design = Bartelme.at. Class of people….