When I released tehCpeng.net V1 back in March 2008, I wasn’t really contented with the space in which I was limited to express my blog posts in both typography and imagery. At times when I put emphasis on my writing, I felt the font was just too small to really deliver any impact. Then there are times when I felt the photos were either too small or too big for the content — they just didn’t fit in.
It was then when I realised I needed a single-columned theme. My blog posts needed space.
During the last exam season, the ‘design ideas’ part of my brain started kicking into high gear. Something that never fails to happen every time I’m in the midst of exam stress. All sorts of ideas started flowing in and thus, resulted in Version Two today, a mishmash of most, if not all of the ideas that reached me in my routine morning shower.
And I fear, though I’d rather not acknowledge, that once I release this theme, something is gonna seem wrong about it and I’ll be brainstorming for new ideas to replace it before I even know it. But oh well. =)
So despite being just two months shy of tehCpeng.net Version One’s first birthday, I decided to rush Version Two out. I started working on the mockup on 30th December, 2008 — the day before I got my dSLR. The 500 pixel wide photos on my old theme didn’t do any justice to the photos I wanted to potray. So I took 6 days to complete the mockup before I started gobbling up another week for the coding.
While two weeks might sound like an eternity to design and code a website, the time I spent on Version Two was easily half of that I spent on Version One a year ago. =P
What’s New?
Everything.
Okay seriously, there a few changes you might want to know. I’ve:
- Increased the width for the photos to 600 pixels and also made use of WordPress’s new image caption stylings.
- Removed the sidebar and ditched most of its elements, retaining some at the footer.
- Hidden some content at the footer for the sake of simplicity. These are accessible via the ‘more?’ link at the bottom. Try it!
- Added gravatar support within the comments.
There also bits and pieces of shiny new stuff here and there that I’ll be leaving it to you to find out.
Notes.
As you might have noticed, my portfolio isn’t quite ready yet. I’m gonna postpone work on that while I iron out a few more quirks and bugs in the theme, which, if you look closely are still present as of now.
I’ve also haven’t really iron out browser compatitbility issues with the theme. As of now, I am fairly certain that everything should appear fine in at least Firefox 3, IE 8, Safari 3, Chrome 1.0 and Opera 9.6.
Enjoy!
wow. BIG.
i need to push my chair further a bit to read ur blog. LOL.
i like the header (or is it what it’s called?)
better than the previous cup of.. mud, er.. teh C peng i mean. LOL.
love you designs. nice.
Looks good, Ember. =) I do recognize the font in the header, and I love the way you’ve made it seemed like a coffee shop napkin. Gorgeous visuals.
Oh, and the gradient in the footer! Love that!
PS: You may want Sans Serif for the footer text — Serif doesn’t really read well at such a small size.
@wying, You’re not farsighted, are you? XD And yes that would be the header you’re talking about. Glad you liked ‘em! =D
@Eli James, That’s not surprising if you do follow any of those design resource blogs, Sketched Rockwell was featured quite a bit a while ago. =D
As for the footer text, you’re right. It does a appear much smaller in Opera and Chrome (I’m assuming you’re using either one of them?). Firefox and IE8 renders ‘small-caps’ a bit bigger though, which is what I’m seeing now. Gonna have to try to figure out a workaround soon!
*awe*
*speechless*
My god dude. Haha. You’re one talented guy. Ey, how much would you charge for a full layout? Perhaps we can discuss this eh? I’m clueless when it comes to CSS. I can tweak it a little to suit my taste, but I sure as hell can’t churn out quality layouts from scratch like you do. 🙂
@KiAm, Thanks! =)
@Fahriee, It isn’t all that hard. I started off with a little CSS tweaking here and there of other themes too. I’m not really available for freelance work right now but I can certainly help you with some CSS for your blog! =D
I just realised the stupidest thing I’ve ever done is to leave a wow-zer comment in the previous post without checking if there’s any update on your new theme release 😀 my bad!
Anyway I’ve got to say that I love the clean, new one-column style! I’ve always wanted something as simple as this but I couldn’t ditch the sidebar baggage. My sidebar has too many clutter to remove, I guess keeping them there will be the best compromise, heh.
I love earthy, warm colours you’ve used! I’m a big fan of this kind of colour scheme and it looks as if I’m dining at some vintage kopitiam sipping on a cup of tehcpeng… in a hot afternoon. Wooohooo!
p/s: The stars you’ve used in your theme reminds me of Converse shoes, lol!
@teddY, That’s totally okay, Teddy! =D I do that sometimes too..perhaps you were experiencing theme-shock! As in, whenever a friend of mine revamps his blog theme I’ll get a little disoriented the first time I visits his new look. =P
I agree! I think the toughest part of this layout is figure out what to keep and what not to keep in the sidebar. It was a great pain to ditch it completely too. In the end, I closed an eye and left it out of my mockup.
And I gotta LOL at that vivid imagination of yours! I didn’t really had that vintage kopitiam impression in mind when I designed this but hey, that’s a pretty good description — fits the look perfectly!
Anyhow, I’m glad you like the new look! Your layout was definitely part of my inspiration in creating Version Two. =D
I love the theme! Did you write it from scratch?
I’ve been thinking of designing a one column theme for my blog too but I have some information on the sidebar I always want to display that I don’t want to move to the footer. I just started designing a new layout last night but I’ll probably be tweaking it for months to come so I probably won’t be done for a while. Releasing a new WP theme is so time consuming!
@Katy, Hey there! I’m really glad you do, and yeah I coded its HTML + CSS base from scratch. Although I used Kubrick as a base for WordPress theming and salvaged some PHP stuff from other WordPress themes I’ve been using. I’m not much of a PHP guy, heh.
That’s usually the problem! I’ve been stuck to sidebars for years now..they’re so useful, but I intended to push the limits when designing this layout. Not that there aren’t any single columned themes around, it’s just that I had that dependence on sidebars like you!
And yeah, WordPress theming is really time consuming! But once you get the hang of it, you’ll start churning out themes in no time! I haven’t got till that stage though, for as you can see I’m still a slowpoke when it comes to WP themes. 😉
Just gorgeous. I love your work man.. You should start posting free wordpress themes online so that I can download and use em or FREE!! heheh
Well releasing a theme really isn’t that straightforward unfortunately. =( I won’t rule it out in the future though, when I get more familiar with PHP, hehe. Glad you liked the new look!
Came back to check: and woo yeah, sans-serif in the footer babeh! =)
I’m awaiting further photo-related posts. Preferably at sizes that fit the whole content body. That would be AWESOME.
*twiddles thumbs*
Actually it is still the good-old Georgia down there, only that now it’s in ‘uppercase’ instead of ‘small-caps’. =D It’s rendering all well in all browsers now though, thanks for the heads up.
Well I was thinking of leaving that full-width imagery goodness to my Photoblog instead. Its still in the pipeline, as i’m still debating to have one in contrast to this existing blog.
Hrmm. 😉
This is amazing! I felt the same as you when I made my first single-column blog design (the current one I still have up). Yours is absolutely awesome EXCEPT, you’re using the same background pattern in your header image as what I have in the header image of my new design (coming up later on). I hate you!
Rilla you copycat! Hah! ;D Seriously though, I wouldn’t be surprised. That pattern I used isn’t all that obscure, maybe only in my part of the blogosphere, which is why I didn’t mind using it despite seeing its usage in a few of other designer blogs. It’s still very nice for a background pattern no matter how often it is used, don’t you think? 😀
And did I hear a new design? I totally can’t wait for it! You current one is already really sweet and awesome! *crosses fingers*
Nice new theme! It looks warm and easy to read.
Btw, ember, I’ve finish with the blog links and I’d like to inform that your tehCpeng is now linked from my blog (It’s on the more blogroll link on the sidebar).
Thanks 🙂 Keep blogging!
Glad you liked it! 😀 And thanks a lot for the link! I’ll make it a point to update my links page with yours in it. Cheers.