Oh how I love me a makeover.
With a trio of new books coming out in just a couple of months, it was high time I overhauled my website. I loved my girly pink home page, but it didn’t exactly fit Fox and Crow and Inch and Roly, you know? Thanks to Emily Carlin of Swank Web Style and my genius artist friend Chris Gugliotti, who drew the swoony bee illustrations you’ll see all around the site (including this little bookworm bee, whom I adore), my internet home base has a brand new look.
Unlike the big changes we made to the rest of the site, we kept the new blog design similar to the original. Mostly I wanted more room to stretch out in this text column. Now I’m itching to go back and resize all my photos. All. Ha! Seven and a half years’ worth, now. Methinks some of them will just have to stay small.
Tinkerer that I am, I’m sure I’ll be making lots little tweaks and adjustments over the next few weeks. (Especially to the sidebar. I have many plans for the sidebar.) If you spot anything wonky, do let me know. Emily did a check across many browsers, but sometimes things look different on different systems.
Whee!
MelanieB says:
Ooooh! Shiny!
The bees are so you. And I love the big wide swaths of text. Very easy on the eyes.
On June 26, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Natalie Winningham says:
How exciting! I do love the bees, especially the quill bee.
On June 26, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
That quill bee is just about my favorite thing EVER. π
On June 26, 2012 at 5:28 pm
Liza says:
looks fantastic, love that bee!
On June 26, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Lesley Austin says:
Ah me…it is so roomy and fresh here! Lovely job you all did together, Lissa.
The bees are delightful. All your visitors, old and new, will enjoy their time here, I am sure.
On June 26, 2012 at 6:26 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Thank you! Chris did the art and Emily the heavy lifting: all I did was point and say maybe like this?, how about here, let’s tweak that there, a little to the left, I like bees. π
On June 26, 2012 at 6:44 pm
tanita says:
It looks lovely! And I do love the bee.
On June 26, 2012 at 8:00 pm
scott says:
“I don’t mind the ferret, I do like the bee. All witches familiars’ are friendly to me.”
On June 26, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
THIS. Is why I married you. Forever and ever, my nibble, my nosh.
On June 27, 2012 at 4:52 am
sarah says:
I love it! So beautiful! I love the colours and the luxurious width. It all seems so calm, and yet with a touch of whimsy too. And has your typical generosity with that big “caught my eye” column.
I’ve always loved that photo of you in the sidebar. It makes you look exactly like someone who *should* write books for children.
On June 26, 2012 at 10:28 pm
Angela says:
Oh, Melissa! It’s so beautifully clean , yet full of personality! What a great job they did!
On June 27, 2012 at 12:39 am
Anne Marie says:
It looks terrific!
On June 27, 2012 at 3:27 am
Penny says:
I love it! So fresh and shiny. Bookworm bee is wonderful π
Congratulations on such a productive year all the way around. It’s been thrilling to watch!
On June 27, 2012 at 5:24 am
Melissa Wiley says:
Penny! Always a happy day to hear from you. And Angela, it gave me such a smile to mouse over your name and see your new blog address. Glad you’re back!
Sarah, sooo kind of you. π I got very squealy about the luxurious width of the sidebar—it’s like having room for my own little Tumblr of interesting reads right here on my blog. I’m gleeful over the possibilities…there’s all sorts of fun things I could do with that space. Actually, I’d love to hear from you guys about that—what would you like to see here?
On June 27, 2012 at 6:21 am
Hannah @ Lovely Woods says:
I love the look! It’s fresh and clean and whimsical with just the right pop of color on the homepage … wait a sec, are you *sure* you don’t like clothes shopping? Maybe you put all your fashion sense into web design. Yes, that must be it. π
On June 27, 2012 at 9:58 am
Melissa Wiley says:
@Hannah—yeah, let’s go with that! The thing about web design is: my blog doesn’t look different when I get home from the store. π
On June 27, 2012 at 11:23 am
Heather says:
I love the new layout, too, Melissa! I was going to suggest that you add your current reads to the sidebar, but I see that you’ve already done that! I do love the expanded caught my eye section, and I always come to your blog to read!
On June 27, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Heather, thank you! I’ve been tinkering with the sidebars all evening. I’m going to make a badge that links directly to my Booknotes and Rillabooks posts to go under each list.
Keep the sidebar suggestions coming, everyone. π I would love it to be filled with things you find genuinely useful.
On June 27, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Ellie says:
Oh *yes* on the booklog π Also, I see that you’ve got the twitter feed back, good good. It’s all coming together very nicely.
On June 28, 2012 at 9:11 am
Melissa Wiley says:
Oh, good, you can see the Twitter feed? For me it won’t show up on Firefox, even after clearing my cache. I can see it on Chrome, though. Weird! Glad it’s visible for you!
Thanks for cheering me on! π
On June 28, 2012 at 9:14 am
Ellie says:
I’ve got Safari. Aren’t the differences betwixt browsers strange?! I should of thought that those sorts of things (what shows up with which) would have been ironed out, or equalized, by now!
(btw, utterly random, sorry, but you all *did* have scarlet fever last year, year before, right?!? Am having a conversation with Mamacrow in one of my comboxes about literary characters with it, and then, I think!, there was you, who are literary, but not in quite the same way …)
On June 28, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Melissa Wiley says:
Scarlet fever: yes! Wonderboy had it around Christmas. The rest of us had strep throat, but with him it developed into the fullblown scarlet rash. Poor lad, he always gets the worst of every bug!
On June 28, 2012 at 4:39 pm