Design Refresh and New Site Icon

The past month or so I have been working a new design job as a semi-long term contractor for design company. I’ve been working hourly so its easy for me to slip into the temptation to work all the time whenever I have a free hour from church or family.  This of course, leaves little time for fun and hobbies. So, I’ve intentionally tried to keep myself from working on paid design work until after 10:00 at night to leave room for hanging out with my wife, reading or working on a hobby.  Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while could probably guess that my blog serves as a hobby for me, and this includes the design aspect of it.  As my brother stated recently, my blog design changes more than the arrangement of my room did when I was growing up. 

Anyways, last night I had some fun refreshing my design and my styling and ended up totally revamping the header of the site.  

The header: One of the things I’ve felt for a while was that the black bar was unbalanced and the header was getting a little unorganized.  So I totally revamped it and simplified it.

New Icon: I added a new logo/icon to represent my theme of missional in suburbia.  Here’s a good test of its meaningfulness: Can you interpret its symbolism?  (Update: I’ve tweaked the icon a bit because it was so similar to another logo for a web hosting company.  I actually like what this one portrays more than the first one. I’ll be posting on why I chose this one soon).

No Picture of Me: I took away the picture of me. I’ve always thought it was helpful to see a picture of an author on the back of a book. For some reason this helpful as I read the book.  I was using that same approach for my blog but I’m up or a change.  If you really need to look at pictures of me, you can go to my facebook page or my twitter account.  On second thought, if you really need to look at some pictures of me, stop everything you are doing, call a counselor and get some help.

No more black bars: I ditched all the black bars that were on the site including the one in the header and the ones in the right sidebar.  I felt they were really “heavy” and enjoy the subtle feel of the grey. 

I would love to hear what you think or if you see anything that sticks out as unhelpful.  

I know that the site doesn’t render perfectly for Internet Explorer 6 but its definitely readable.  Consider this my encouragement for you upgrade already!