This afternoon, Brad and I decided it might be appropriate to revamp the look of An und für sich. One of our primary goals was to find a three-column template that would enable us both to provide links to our shared items from Google Reader, hopefully enhancing the usefulness of the site. Given that WordPress does not allow users to tinker with certain features of the templates without paying a fee, and given that many of the templates inexplicably do not display the author’s name for each post, our options were limited, and the current template seems like the least bad. The loss of our motto is of course grievous, but it will be preserved on the comment page.
In the spirit of benevolent oligarchy, we invite your feedback on this decision, with the caveat that we are unlikely to take any suggestions.
An und für sich 
Oh change! Scary! Couldn’t we all chip in to get the CSS editing option, as it is only a few dollars I remember.
There’s some kind of ugly overlap of different items at the top.
Ben, I think I’ve solved that problem for now, assuming your window isn’t absurdly narrow.
Alex, The editing option wouldn’t be expensive, but what about the value of all the time I’d spend tinkering with the CSS if it were an option?
I had the same problem with the top– I don’t know if there’s anything much to do about that except make sure that the page titles aren’t too long (maybe take off the date & location of the Laruelle conference, for instance).
And the blue is sort of ugly. But I can see the draw of the three-column template. It’s certainly helpful.
The blue is a fixable problem. I’ve got Brad on the case. Hopefully you can refresh and the Laruelle thing won’t be causing a traffic jam.
Ah, perfect all around.
I’m going to be honest: I hate it. Your previous them is probably my favorite of all time.
Success!
What happened to your quotation at the top left? Doesn’t feel quite the same without it.
It’s rather utilitarian; the blog equivalent of a Soviet housing block.
Dudes! No! Where is our tag?!
This whole thing is just a big fail. Revert!
Yeah, it kinda sucks. But this site always looked like shit anyway. We all come for the content…
No. There is too much going on. I loved the old template for its clarity. You should at least be able to collapse the categories into a drop-box, get rid of the blue, and use a smaller font for the sidebar content.
For such radical-minded people, you lot are certainly conservative when it comes to your blog-design.
If we make the categories a drop-down as-is, it would poke into the content. Otherwise, we’d have to move the categories into the left column, producing a scroll-bar. (Either side, the length of the drop-down would be the length of our wordiest category.)
How do you like the new re-foregrounding of the motto?
It’s too informative, too educational this way…
I never looked at the template much before (RSS reader and all that). Everything’s good and clear. The only complaint I have is more because I just dislike three-column designs, but that’s my own crotchety old opinion.
Alright, I am satisfied now that the tag is back. I came up with one drunkenly walking to my accommodation last night, “We need more, not less, abortions!” In the cold light of day I’m glad I didn’t go with it. It made sense within the context of the discussion I am sure.
Can we shot of the shared items, or move them down the right side-bar? They seem to take up a great deal of space, maybe they could even be moved to a seperate page if this is possible.
So you’re saying that you want us to remove the feature that was one of the main motivations behind the redesign in the first place? Smooth.
Sorry, responded when I had only cast an eye over the post…
Commenting without reading the post is poor form — perhaps forgivable for a non-substantive post, but still deeply problematic.
That actually brings up a good point, though — the addition of your shared items is nice.
I stand in solidarity with Alex’s idiosyncratic comment tactics.
I like the inclusion of the motto and the shortened shared items. However, I must admit that I’m missing the ugly green a little bit.
The colors, at the very least, will certainly be a work in progress. I spent but two minutes changing them yesterday. More boring hours will be upon me at work soon, surely.