By now, I’m sure you can see Illuminated Mind has a brand new look. I’ve been working on this new design for the past few weeks, with a lot of coding help from Ryan (thanks man!). If you need web development expertise, Ryan is definitely the guy you want to hire.
To say I’m excited about the new design would be an understatement — it’s been a long time coming. The message and direction of Illuminated Mind has really outgrown the original design and brand. I think it’s about time that the medium matches the message.
Please let me know if you find any bugs or kinks, as I’m still working out some of the little details. And some minor details may still change in the next few days, but this new look is staying.
What’s under the hood
If you’re wondering what this new design was built with, it was created entirely within the new, totally badass Headway Theme for WordPress. It’s the first ever drag and drop theme. Customizing it has been easier for me than any other theme I’ve ever worked with. And yes, I’ve tried Thesis. Nothing can really compare with Headway.
So if you’re looking for a totally kickass theme that lets you easily create custom layouts in a drag and drop way, I highly recommend that you check it out. It has my full endorsement.
Let me know what you think
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new design and the new direction for Illuminated Mind. I think it definitely represents my message much better, as well as the entire community of unconventional individuals that frequent this space.
That’s all for now. I’m going to get back to work on The Zero Hour Workweek, that free ebook I promised you. Even more exciting stuff is on its way…
Jonathan, this looks totally sick. I liked your old look, but this one just takes the cake. I’ll be back for new articles soon. Down with conformity!
Gorgeous!
Looks great Jonathan, glad it turned out well! And hell yeah man, Headway is the most incredible theme I’ve ever seen for WP! Just came across it about a week ago—wish I would have known about it sooner! :)
Looks awesome. The edgier look definitely suits your renegade style.
Hi Jonathan, looks good. One small thing: The main content (“container” div) floats funny in my Firefox browser. I’m running FF 2.0.0.20 (old, I know) and the div is about 20 px too high, so it runs into your nav menu. I can provide a screenshot if it doesn’t make sense.
Jonathan, well done my friend. Now I can see what you have been working on all these weeks! It’s pretty cool. I must admit I am digging the logo on top.
Good for you! Looking forward to more…
PS I wish I had a drag & drop theme. Sometimes changes are a bitch!
bravissimo
Looks good Jonathon.
It’s good to see how much you have achieved since I started reading your blog earlier this year. Helps inspire me to continue down the road of self employment, life learning and rebellion!
Keep up the great work and the continual effort towards reclaiming your dreams as well as setting newer and bigger dreams to accomplish.
Looks great… love the logo!
Thanks guys, I’m glad you dig it. This has been my big project for the past few weeks.
What I’m really excited about is now I want to hang out here even more. I was getting tired of the old design and it made me not want to hang out as much.
Now I’m really excited for the stuff that’s coming next!
NICE! I wasn’t sure I was in the right place :-D
Looks great!
It looks great Jonathan. I was really looking forward to it after seeing your tweets about it. :)
It definitely reflects you new direction and ethos better. It’s still got the little illumination touch, but it’s a lot more in line with your voice.
Looking forward to your zero hour workweek ebook. ;)
Awesome.
I just got Thesis but this rips it, thanks for the heads up on this. Have got HW already, will be rolling it out across all my sites.
Tim
I’m not susually a fan of left sidebars, but you seem to have pulled it of well with this design. It’s looking good :)
Congratulations, Jonathan, the site looks fantastic! Looking forward to seeing where you go from here — it can only mean good things, I’m sure. Best of luck!
Jonathan:
The new site looks great! I just got Thesis and its been a little tough to customize – so for the time being, its going to be very clean and uncluttered. That being said, I don’t regret getting it. In any case, I look forward to reading your stuff and becoming a little less ordinary.
Very nice re-design. Headway looked pretty badass form the video I saw. I do adore thesis, once you understand some of the featuers it’s pretty cool. I would love to get my hands on headway though. I’m being patient though and going to throw that money into some canvas gallery wraps for my photography and go after the dream of selling my work as photographic art. 1 of a kind large canvas gallery wraps with certificate of authenticity. You’re a big reason I am making the moves I am today and taking action to live my dreams daily.
Great new look and still user-friendly – congrats. As alwasys, looking forward to the next post to put on my wall.
I am going to be honest and say that I prefer your previous design :-)
However, I believe that this can also be tweaked a bit :-0)
I know it will be difficult to gulp this down, specially since you have been working hard on this… Here’s my 2 cents..
The left side bar, somehow the top part hm… why is it so curvy?
Your Terms Tools, recent writing.. the background image… what is it meant to be?
I can’t remember what the site looked like before, as I’m an RSS reader. But i did hope over to see the new look, and I think it’s fantastic. Even though I can’t do a good before & after, I say good work – the site looks great.
Hi Jonathan – I love the colors and the style – classy. Just have one problem – I’m left handed and prefer reading text on that side – so a sidebar on the right works for me – but I may be a minority so ignore that :) – Good luck with the writing – looking forward to a lot more.
Warm regards
Corinne
Very clean and easy to maneuver; love the look and yes the message and the method are
congruent. Bravo.
Itd be nice if there wasn’t the “join” banner at the top, I had to look around before finding the blog portion.
I like the design Jonathan. The only things I would like is the date of the post (better if in the bottom of the article) and maybe the ‘posted by’ signature at the top.
It looks sexy as f**k :)
I love it, looks so much better than the last design. Also the slogan and motto are really cool.
Congratulations Jonothan:)
Keep posting great stuff!
Hey man.
You know in the side bar where you have the text ‘Your Term Tools’ and ‘Recent Writing’? The one’s that are on the gray-ish background? Well, personally I feel as if the text is too low on the images — it would look better if it were centred.
Btw, I’m running FF 3.0.something. It could look different in IE, but for my heart health, I decided not to open IE to check.
; ]
PS Love this site. <3 <3
Forgot to mention that I love the new banner. I love the sort of dirty look. Could probably write an essay about it’s symbolism. ; ]
Slick. It’ll take some time getting used to the left side bars, but I like the rebellion. *thumbs up*
looks good
but in the header should it really be like this: “don’t read this website if you want ordinary”?
I’m missing a noun here – something like “life” maybe:-)
I have to agree with Shamelle, so some constructive criticism: My first impression was “why is this blob on the left here, and what are the white blobs under the headings”. Also the left justified top menu feels unbalanced with the left side bar as it is — perhaps shifting it right some or right justifying it would work better. The header feels a little flat and could use some more work to help the various parts stand out a little more. Other than that, the rest looks great!
Love the the new website layout. I like how the black margin on the left hand side makes your body copy much more readable than it had been before. It’s simple, clean and makes your content the star of the show, as it should be.
Keep up the good work!
LOVE the new look man. Congrats!
*Jared
Totally gorgeous!! Okay, now I’m kinda envious that you made it look totally awesome. *grins*
Jonathan: Since all the hyper-intentional blog author gratification has already been given, I’ll offer the “tough love” comment:
The content column feels unnatural aligned on the right side. Perhaps this is part of being un-ordinary?
The “don’t read this website” poster on the right side of the banner is too large. It draws the eye away from your logo and has the effect of a pretentious delivery (e.g. “I’m so different, I’m telling you so!”) Perhaps a much smaller version, one that is almost undetectable at first glance, would have a greater effect? I think less would be more here.
I’m with Oscar with regard to the post date and the “posted by” signature. Without these, your new readers will not know that your content is recent or who you are without some additional research.
With all this said, my blog design is squarely in the first half of this decade and needs some work, too.
Above all, I wouldn’t care if your content were delivered in a brown paper sack. I would read it because its all about the content! You’re a great writer!
Cheers…
Kent
Looks great. All you need now is a .ico file for the URL and you’ve got it locked up!
Wow, awesome new design Jonathan! I really like it a lot. I’ve never heard of headway, but I looked at the website and it looks awesome. My wife’s been needing a re-design on her site, I might look into it.
Anyway, your theme goes really well with your website’s direction–good luck with all of your future endeavors! It sounds like you have a lot going on right now, but through your writing and your posts it’s very easy to see that you’re enjoying every bit of it.
Keep up the awesome work!
Correction: I should have said “favicon.ico”.
I really dig the new look. I must admit, I really liked the blue illuminated skull profile with the dragonfly… it was a fun favicon. *sigh*
Looking forward to all the new things you’re about to birth!
BIG love to you,
Mis
Very nice design! The site manages to be eye-catching but remains pleasant to look at and browse through. I agree with Kent though: The logo deserves more attention. I like the “don’t read this” angle of the banner, though.
Cheers,
Shane
Not a big fan, but hey, change is good. I’ll get used to it.
This article has give a very much inspiration to many people about Illuminated Mind Gets a New Look so that we can get a new good idea in mind to create a new opportunities for getting success in our business. You have enlightened many people with such the good advice and keeping us for not to easily give when we face an obstacle in the success way.
Great regards,
Laura