Bitten By Design » Update

Sneak Peek: The upcoming new site design for BittenByDesign.com!

Nick — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 03:36:21 +0000

Over the last six months, I have been working on a new updated look and feel to the website. It is slowly coming together, and as the saying goes ‘the cobblers children are the last to get shoes’ it is very much the case for designers who do additional work after hours and have children.

As you can see in the sneak peek poster, it is a big departure from the gloomy greys of the current site and although I had hoped to run a May Reboot about it, I was swamped with work and the May Reboot passed me by. It didn’t help matters that I am determined to run the site with some custom plugins, and not having the time to build the plugins has meant that it has gone on the backburner whilst other paid projects have taken the limelight.

My intention is to include an improved look to ease reading, to incorporate social media better, and to have some dynamic elements scattered through the site so as to keep the viewers attention for that much longer.

Of course once the site is chopped and coded, I will have no excuse to not work on the ebook I have been slowly working on for more than a year and a half. I may get another designer in to lay it out and save myself for the final revisions and actually have a weekend without working for once!

Any feedback or initial comments would be appreciated, as this has been my little project for far too long and needs a fresh set of eyes to look over it to see where it could be improved.

If it turns out to be popular, I may even be willing to give away a slightly more basic version to people via this website or through smashingmagazine.com. Check back in future to see if it gets enough response to elevate it to a public release!

A Random Selection of Posts from the site

Further fun with desk toys

Nick — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:53:43 +0000

Just another note on the little desk toy for passing co-workers to spot.

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Messing with co-workers minds…

Nick — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:41:18 +0000

Just a follow on from the photo before Easter. This time he hasn’t coughed up his lungs, he has dropped his guts! And yes, this sits on the shelf at my desk for any passerby to see…

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Poking fun at co-workers 101

Nick — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:35:30 +0000

Okay, with everyone being sick this season, I thought this was a great pic that pokes fun at anyone with the lingering cough that is doing the rounds. Yes, those are his lungs that he has coughed up. Next month I think he might have to drop his guts!

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The pending Bitten By Design redesign launch!

Nick — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:49:15 +0000

After reviewing several client websites, I have had a chance to review my own as part of a ‘spring clean’ and now the preliminary layout for the brand new site design is almost ready to go into coding. It has been a long procedure reviewing the site statistics and traffic flow, but the new design should make it easier to get to what you want even faster!
I am looking to launch the site at the start of the new year, so I have lots of work to get done in the meantime!
If anyone has any suggestions, let me know and I will add them into the design before the launch. I am thinking a countdown clock on the site might get me more motivated to hit my self imposed deadline!

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No more IE6

Nick — Sat, 22 May 2010 02:05:26 +0000

The time has come to officially announce that I will not be adding stylesheet support for IE6 into the websites I am designing. Basically it comes down to offering the best user experience for the visitors to a site whilst working within the project budget limitations. I would much rather spend the difference on additional testing and further features over creating an additional stylesheet for a browser that is no longer supported by it’s creator. Most designers and developers have already joined the IE6 is dead movement but after having just generated two complex ecommerce websites to fit within a clients criteria of being fully compliant in all browsers (right back to the one they are still using), I believe any site user is better served with a more considered design that looks to future browsing developments in the HTML standards rather than attempt to force a band-aid solution for older browsers that are no longer compliant or supported by their developers.

Don’t get me wrong I can build sites that appear as close as possible in IE6 to other browsers but it will be an additional cost and an option that I will suggest is not the best expenditure of the project budget when we could be looking at an HTML email template being designed in addition to the website instead, or even the balance of funds going toward a targetted adwords campaign promoting the website itself upon launch.

I am sure it won’t be long before I am announcing the same thing for IE7!

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May 1 Reboot 2010

Nick — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:50:18 +0000

The next reboot is just around the corner and I am considering what needs doing to refresh my site to give it a fresh and functional look
for the coming year.

In fact building a mobile device option into my websites theme seems to be the first step. Now that I have my iPhone, all the usability issues for websites on the iPhone are easily tested. Just look around at any graphic or web designer and invariably they will have or plan to get an iPhone. This is my primary mobile viewer, so putting something nicer than the default interface together may just be the ticket to stand out a bit more.

The next thing is to make the site design wordpress 3 ready, there is plenty of write ups to the changes and how to implement them.

So, making everything stable and ready for mobile devices it comes down to updating the look of the site and I am tempted to switch to a fluid layout and look at building the layout so it functions well at any width. With computer monitor sizes getting ever wider the fixed format of my site is going to be something I feel will hold it back later on. It could be that I know it will be a full year till the next overhaul and who knows what will happen in six to eight months. Not that I am suggesting you will be viewing the Internet on your 3D TV from the comfort of your lounge in six months, but I do want to have adaptibility built in sooner rather than later.

This site has had a bit of progression in design and functionality since it was launched. Invariably the changes have been invisible to
users, but has helped clean up a lot of unnecessary information and options within the site making it easier to navigate.

My goal for the site itself is to try and maintain the branding style but bring a fresh look and design in without pushing it too far away from what it currently is and confuse return visitors with a completely different look and format.

We will see how I go! Reboot 2010 here we come!

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Getting super spammed

Nick — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:22:21 +0000

It seems some of my posts are ranking well in the google results and as a result I am seeing a huge posting of spam comments. In response I am locking out comments on some of the pages that are affected. This will hopefully clear up some of my time as I normally have to manually approve every comment on the site.
Please note: repeated bulk spamming the same comment across every post on the site will get your IP banned from viewing the site.

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May 1st Reboot is online!

Nick — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:34:46 +0000

So here we are at May, and the site has had a new theme makeover based on chaoticsoul so if the feedback is positive, I will keep it, otherwise I may build a different theme for the site and see how that is received.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s new site designs!

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May 1st Reboot 2009

Nick — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:11:15 +0000

Although the normal Reboot community is quiet this year, I am planning on doing my own website reboot this year.

So from April 1 to May 1, I will be working on a new site design, to launch on the 1st of May.