Category: Design

From the nice folks who brought you “The Old Technology Giveaway” (me) comes a new contest, with useful prizes!

Presenting: Sidebar Redesign

Objectives: Redesign and enhance the sidebar for this site (SuperfluousBanter), in keeping with the existing look and feel.

Prizes: The Grand Prize winner will receive 10 TypePad 20% Lifetime Discount codes, as well as your name credited in the “About” page of this site, a link to your site in the “External” column, and a credit in this site’s source. First Runner Up and Second Runner Up will each receive 5 TypePad 20% Lifetime Discount codes.

Requirements: If you plan to submit a working demo, it should validate as XHTML 1.0 (Transitional or Strict), and the CSS should validate and work properly in the following browsers: IE5/Mac, IE6/PC, Mozilla (and related browsers), Safari. All designs must work well in the 3 different color schemes of this site. Things I’d like are a recent comments list and a “currently enjoying” link list, but those are just ideas. Feel free to come up with ideas for its content as well (this is also an opportunity to shape a small part of the regular content of this site). Do not feel obligated to fit your design into the current sidebar dimensions: there is no restriction on size, but it should fit visually with the rest of the site design and layout.

Submissions: Post a link to your entry in the Comments of this post, in one of the following formats: JPG, GIF, PNG, PSD, or an actual working demo of your design.

Deadline: The TypePad 20% Lifetime Discount codes expire November 30th, 2003, so we will receive entries through 11:59pm EST on August 31th, 2003. The winners will be announced on or before September 30th, 2003. This will give the winners enough time to figure out how they will use their spoils.

More prizes may be added before the contest is over, and I’m certainly open to donations to the prize pool.

Questions? Email me.

I’ve made some changes to the Comments layout on each individual entry page (you may need to refresh the page, reload the style sheets, or clear your browser cache if you can’t see the changes).

Now the Post details for each comment are listed above the comment, which makes much more sense, and I’ve also added an icon to each comment, adding to the branding of the site. The icon is placed as a background image with CSS, rather than cluttering up the page with tons of <img> tags.

The entire comment area (save the comment form) is now set apart from the rest of the page with a light background color and border, and some padding.

At least, that’s what Zeldman says today about my CSS Zen Garden submission, Not So Minimal. It’s nice to know smart people think highly of my work…

It’s official: My first (well, second really; see below) entry to Dave Shea’s CSS Zen Garden has been accepted: Not So Minimal

My original submission was deemed too minimal for Dave’s anti-minimal policy — I don’t disagree with this judgement, though I still believe minimal design is as valid a style as any other. “Not So Minimal” is the result of a few extra hours spent with my original design, adding some color and the obvious abstract image composite for the header.

I’m working now on a few more designs, this time with different goals (more fluid designs, less grid-like layouts, etc.) — they should be ready in a few weeks (work permitting), and we’ll see how they fare once submitted.

I’ve been inspired by Douglas Bowman’s submission to the CSS Zen Garden — Golden Mean is an excellent example of what can be done with CSS and some good design skills (not that the other selections are terrible, quite the contrary; however, Douglas’ entry is absolutely stunning in my opinion).

I had been holding off putting a design together for the Garden, primarily because I’m already putting too many hours into non-profit projects (hmm, my bank account balance only has 3 digits before the .00 — is that bad?), but now I’m determined to put my skills to work — I can’t outdesign Mr. Bowman, but I’ll do my best to contribute to the project and its purpose.

I’ll post updates when the design is complete.