The revamping of Chronically Vintage

This past Thursday was an especially busy one for me, though I rarely ventured further than the living room sofa. You see, that day - as I discussed in this post on the topic - I decided that as this blog is now three years old, it was time that I bought it its first pair of patent leather shoes.

Or at least gave a thorough makeover, blogs, after all, having surprisingly little use for shoes.

It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the old template and design of this blog (after all, it had worked well for the past three years), it's just that I felt like I wanted the look of this blog to better express what it is that I say and do here (especially since I started posting more of my vintage outfit photos this year). By that I mean I wanted a template/background in neutral hues, with a wider post body area, a more streamlined (and clickable - at long last!) header, and a navigation bar with a few select pages at the top of the template.

Though I don't usually classify my tastes as being minimalist on the fashion, crafting, or home decor front, when it comes to blog and website design, more often then not I find myself pulled rather strongly to paired down, simple designs that let the author's words and the images they mingle throughout their posts to be the star of the show.

Generally speaking, I'm not one for blogs that look like mangled MySpace Pages or that have ten mile long sidebars. I don't like don't like overcrowding or too much flash. I want to see what it is the person whose work I chose to read is saying.

Think about a single rose in a delicate vase on a table covered in pale white linen verses a sprawling rosebush with dozens of flowers on it. Both can be beautiful, but your eye will naturally be drawn more to the lone rose on a soft background. It's eye-catching because it's streamlined and very aesthetically pleasing.

It seems the older I get, the more I try to veer away from lengthy sidebars. It's one thing if that's where a person opts to put sponsorships and thus it becomes substantially large, but just filling sidebars up with scores of links, images, lists, quotes, notes, and sometimes even music playlists can all too quickly make them seem overcrowded and possibly even distract readers from being able to focus on your posts themselves - not to mention make finding more important elements like a blog's archives challenging.

To that extent I was delighted to finally be able to move my blog link section to a dedicated link page all its own (which has the added advantage of allowing me to better categorize the links I include, instead of just listing them all alphabetically in one giant assembly of blogs). I also scrapped some other sections that were no longer in keeping with the style I'm going for here, and am at long last happy with how my sidebar looks.

In addition to editing the sidebar and implementing a new (customized) template, I've also created a few static pages (such as an about page), to help visitors and friends quickly find out more about this site, connect with me elsewhere, or get in contact via email. I'm in the process of working on a FAQ page, which will include some of the most frequently asked questions on various topics that I routinely receive. I hope to have that page up within the next couple of weeks or so (I'll likely edit and add to it as time goes on and other questions appear often enough to warrant inclusion).

 

{I mulled over the colours I was going to use for the site’s new look for quite  a while – weeks, if not months, I’d say. Time and time again my instincts veered towards a serene palette of neutral shades that would be unlikely to clash with the vintage photos and images used within blog posts, and so I decided to go with my gut and apply three of those very hues to the new and improved Chronically Vintage. 1950s paint ad via paul.malon on Flickr.}

 

I love the palette of gentle grey, clean white, and classic navy that's now adorning this site, and feel that they are colours that channel a subtle vintage vibe (grey and white, for example, call to mind old school B&W photographs), while also doing a very nice job of not overpowering the posts or images that the site is filled with.

I was up for about 30 hours straight on Thursday (onto Friday), but even as I feel into bed (the sun long up), I had to fight off the feelings of excitement and happiness that were washing over me in the heels of the site's snazzy new makeover.

While I certainly wouldn't say that the site now looks radically different, it's clearly not the same blog it was when this week started. There's a tiny bit of tweaking still to be done here and there, but overall Chronically Vintage now has the look and feel that I suspect it will retain for a long time to come.

I hope that you like these changes as much as I do, and would love to hear what you think of the new look and feel of Chronically Vintage.