The Look of the Site

In the latest iteration of the look of Chomer.com and it’s blog, I was pretty satisfied. Now I feel a subtle discontent that is steadily growing. For one thing, the blog doesn’t render perfectly (I need to delve deeper into the CSS HTML machinations of WordPress). Even if I did get that straightened out, it’s just not quite what I’m looking for.

For starters, I want something that has a cleaner look. A bit more professional. But I also want it to be beautiful. A site that if someone appreciates beauty, they will come to the site just to look at it regardless of the content. I know, that sounds crazy, but I want something that I would just want to look at. A web site that is Art. Something you might think about putting in an art museum.

Of course that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to have content, and good content at that, but I want to strike that perfect blend of beauty and content.

It would be nice if the site layout/look were COMPLETELY separate from the content. Not just as far as files i.e. CSS, but something more dynamic, something where I can change the look on the fly and see what it will look like before I apply it. No, I’m not talking about canned blog Themes.

In the past I’ve kind of done a random, gut feel build-as-I-go type of design. I’m planning on doing some more thorough research on this subject. I do what to look at allot of blog themes, and allot of different web sites to see their page layouts/styles. I want to note down the ones that I find appealing.

There is a need to focus in on color. I am striving for a calm, relaxed, sort of zen feeling to the site.

Some of the ideas I want to do I’ve not seen anywhere. Many of these ideas I’ve partially proved as technically feasible. What I DON’T want to do is take a great idea and implement it in a sloppy manner.

Allot of thought needs to go into how the navigation works on the site. How the pages are laid out.

I’m also thinking about using my Renegade web framework on my own site. This would give it some credibility as well as improve the overall user experience on Chomer.com.

Do you have any ideas, do you know of any examples I might like? Point them out to me. Any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.