If you’re a regular reader, I’m sure you can tell things have changed around here. I’ve upgraded to Wordpress 2.6.2 and loaded/modified a new website template. So I figured this would be a good opportunity to stroll down memory lane. Beware - this is going to be a bunch of nerdspeak.

The Churning started as a Blogger site, with black text on a red background. Very difficult to read. After a couple of months I moved everything over to Wordpress, where there is a seemingly infinite variety of templates. I chose a simple one and tweaked just about everything: the colors, the fonts, the header graphic, etc. That led to the first screenshot here.

That version of the site launched in spring 2005. The header featured the Philly skyline, with a blood red sky. Sorta morbid I guess. I took that picture in the evening, when the buildings are lit up, then tweaked it in Photoshop and added a logo. Early on, I thought I’d write more about philosophy, music, stories of personal turmoil, etc. But instead I was having more fun posting embarrassing stories and humor links. So the dark and gloomy look began to feel out of place.

Also - my first attempt was designed to allow readers to have 800 resolution without making the site look squished. The result of course, was a terribly skinny two-column blog with a ton of empty black space in the borders.

My next effort was a complete 180. Instead of using a massive jpg header, unique colors for each page section, and jpg images for every text header, I chose to go with white on black and a small gif header logo. And I created the header in Illustrator as a vector graphic in my own handwriting, to make it look a little more fun and silly than the previous site style.

And of course I began designing to allow a minimum of 1024 resolution. Anyone using 800 could still read the main column anyway. These screenshots were taken in 1280 so you can see the borders.

That black on white layout didn’t last long. It was way too boring and plain for my taste. This next design stuck around for a while. I spiced it up with a little more color and added a full header graphic. The background in this header is a macro zoom of a photo I took of the side of a Yuengling keg (hence the red stripe). I matched the red from the keg to add in the background color and h2/h3 font colors for the site.

Most of the basic layout remained the same, though I did add a few plugins to the right nav like Recent Comments and Top Commentators. Looking back, I still like the design, I just needed a change.

Which brings us to the current layout. I recently upgraded to Wordpress 2.6.2 - my first widget enabled Wordpress install (yeah, I was way behind the curve). That opened up a lot of opportunities for additional sidebar widgets like the ones I’m using now: the updated Recent Comments, an RSS feed, Archive Dropdown, and Users Online, etc. I’ve also enabled a few more plugins like Recent Posts, Similar Posts (on post pages, not Home), and Ad Rotator.

This new layout is based on BlackSplat by Sam. It’s more subdued than the last one, and I think it’s cleaner too. I kept the keg theme in the header graphic, but used a shot without the red stripe. The updated logo is now red again.

I also moved the upper nav buttons below the header, allowing the main page content to sit a little bit higher on the page. That change slightly increased the available real estate “above the fold“. You’ll also notice that this layout is slightly more complex than the basic two-column layout I had been using. There are two columns near the top of the page, and three columns below that area.

Behind the scenes, I have a couple other plugins running to optimize the site: All in One SEO Pack and WP Super Cache. These should help Google index the site more accurately and efficiently, while helping the site to load faster.

So now that I’m done updating the look and feel, I really need to start focusing on content again…