For years I have been looking for the right design to build my site. Over the years I have played around with dozens of layouts, colors, themes, etc. to get just what I wanted. I could have purchased a “theme builder” and laid it out the way I wanted to, but those things were overly complex and WAY more fluff than I wanted to contend with. I finally built my own. It’s still not exactly what I want, but it’s a strong start and I’ll continue to iterate over it for the foreseeable future.

On the technical side behind the scenes, the site has been heavily optimized for speed on desktop, tablet, and mobile. This should make browsing around the site quick and easy.

Let me know in the comments what you think about the new design: the good, bad, and ugly.

Logo

For starters, a brand new logo. This has quite literally been a search that has taken months to figure out. I wanted the right icon to describe the site. It’s a Nordic compass and I found it quite fitting since life takes us in all directions.

Homepage

The new homepage shows the latest posts at the top with groups of posts by category as you scroll down. Its layout makes it easier to scroll through and find just what you want to read.

Sidebar

The sidebar has a list of all the articles / posts on the site. It’s optimized for speed. If you ‘re looking for something, simply type in the box at the top and it will begin filtering the posts based on your search.

Article / Post

The biggest overall changes come to the article / post page. The content is more contained and focused for easier reading. There is also the addition of the the “Lights On/Off” button in the top left corner of each article. Toggle this to get a more focused reading mode.

Dark Mode

Dark Mode is also a new feature that I have added to the site. This mode can be set per device and will stay every time you visit. You can toggle it on or off in the upper right corner of the site.