Can I get some critique on my site?

I'm throwing my blog into the mix.

This is what it currently looks like. I've gotten a number of compliments on it and I'm mostly happy with it, it being a simple blog. But I'm trying to make it look less bloggy, more magaziney, and have been slowly putting together a new design.

Here is the new look.

A couple of notes. 1) There are two designs that page, the home page design and the article page design--the two layouts are separated by the copyright footer--obviously, they won't both appear on the same page when I'm done. Just doing this for the design process. 2) Browser compatibility is focked with this mock, so use Firefox. I've got a more compatible version already, but it's much less complete. 3) The large image at the top of each page is unique to each article. The same photo will inevitably be duplicated in the post body in full, non-cropped form. I don't think the redundancy will look bad, but let me know if you disagree. 4) I'm aware that on the home page design, the "Other articles" white boxes don't line up with the images above them. This will be fixed.

Looks good! What are you using to allow your pictures to be viewed like that? the thing I'm using is slowwww, i dont like it. It looks just fine on safari BTW

I have been tweaking things about mine lately, i think it looks better now, but still havent rid myself of the wordpress plain i guess.

www.BrianMoreno.com

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Originally Posted by B-Ri

Looks good! What are you using to allow your pictures to be viewed like that? the thing I'm using is slowwww, i dont like it. It looks just fine on safari BTW

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It's a script called FancyZoom. It's a bit buggy--sometimes never loads the picture, sometimes displays wrong photo or stretches the photo to the wrong aspect ratio, but when it works I love it. I've looked for an equivalent without the bugs but there's nothing as nice--there's a JQuery version of the script that may be less buggy, but it's not as smooth.

Do people really want to know that you had a vitamin water for lunch?

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Originally Posted by Cowutopia

Do people really want to know that you had a vitamin water for lunch?

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Men see pastrami, women see Vitamin Water. It's a test.

Looks nice, but a bit too corporate-y. I would think mom's would something a little lighter in tone. Maybe some different colors and fonts? I dunno, good work though.

A'ight dawgs, it's pretty much done. Couldn't get the related posts plugin to work tonight so at the bottom of posts the "Keep reading" just points to categories instead of similar articles. Hoping to fix that soon. But everything else I'm pretty happy with. I was able to do everything I wanted with the redesign.

The gray text in the boxes at the bottom is hard to read.

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Originally Posted by K3V

The gray text in the boxes at the bottom is hard to read.

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Thanks for the feedback. I've checked it on a number of monitors and even my phone and the gray is perfectly readable. It is intentionally subtler than the darker text, though I certainly don't intend for it to be difficult to read. Anyone else find it tough to read?

Figured out the related posts plugin and even moved the blog to its own domain this weekend.

I wouldn't say it is difficult to read, but it is close. Perhaps just a little bit darker, but not too much, cause I see why you want it to be subtle and it works. Just maybe a tad bit darker.