About 3 weeks ago Nate from Unique Blog Designs contacted me about giving my blog a little touch up. I was receptive of course 
. About 2 weeks ago (right before I left for SES) I implemented the changes.
So whats your feedback on the new design?
Now also I would like to hear your feedback on the comments? I switched from the Brians threaded comments to wordpress threaded comments and did some custom ajax stuff too… I really like the new comment system. Its a very easy barrier to entry for users to comment. What do you think?
Also if you have not heard Unique Blog Design is having a contest:
So go check that out too!
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2416 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
Images provided by ShutterStock
Knowing When to STFU 
Split Testing with a Genetic Algorithm 
Dialing In Your FaceBook Campaigns 
{ 114 comments… read them below or add one }
There’s to much white for my taste.
I like it!
Replies in replies don’t look so good (dark border, etc), and the gravatar thingy messes up the layout pretty badly..
And the textarea box seems to be some sort of pixel width instead of percentages, as in safari when i type too much the textarea (and the entire div) sscrolls to the right.
exactly the same thing happens to me in FF3.
Same with Google Chrome
The appear fine to me in FF, GC and IE.
I agree, the nested comments are a bitch… They look horrible but are defiantly easier to follow.
I still prefer the custom @name script I made for my site…
That’s what SHE said.
I like the new blog and the speed at which comments are posted. In comparison, John chow’s blog loads more slowly..
If this blog was red/orange…I’d have called it – Da boooommmbb
ok in safari, the quick reply to the first level (like this) is really messed up.
Its in blue because, i heard something about its much more easier for people to dive into the content and read it
It looks very nice… I love the colors.
Like it, especially the dates.
Yeah the dates are nice and wacky. I guess it’ll be too hard to have the text slanted as well but I think that’ll look better.
I like how the dates appear as well. And the info under the header is lookin’ nice, too!
A relative date (x minutes ago) would be better.
I like that… possible we could put that after the auhor
I second that – it sounds like it would be a great feature (and easy to implement too!
)
When replying though, some of the text disappears outside the reply box so I can’t actually see some of my text until it’s posted (I’m using FF3)
I third that.. like digg style. moreimmediate relevance
I think it is really nice. I like the white.
I agree. Color is good. He does not cause bad feelings.
Winners will be chosen Monday, September 1, 2008 through a random drawing.
Um, the UBD contenst was over – yesterday.
it looks much cleaner
lol i was thinking you did redesign in house
It’s nice, but the fixed width isn’t too nice…
your blog looks great, comments and all. I called UBD for a design, told them I was referred by shoemoney, said I had $2k to spend. Talked with a guy for 15 minutes who said he would email me a quote…. that was 10 days ago.
Hi ‘Cheap Used Cars’
This is Josh from Unique Blog Designs. When you called and spoke with someone it was most likely me. I sincerely apologize if my email did not make it through to you but I would me more than happy to discuss your blog design in detail.
Please give me a call toll free @ 870-619-4550 Thanks!
be*
Thanks Josh. I looked around in my Junk/Spam folder and didn’t find anything, but it doesn’t really matter. I found another design company and we are rolling live in a few days. I really like your guys designs its just to me in ‘internet time’ 10 days is an eternity, and then to wait 8 weeks after that just isn’t feasible.
Personally, I’m not a fan of the new design. It looks like it was quickly whipped up in a few hours. I much preferred the old look.
I’m with everyone else. I think it looks very professionally done.
Agreed Josh.
Too much white within here! A few more colors added in would have look it better.
Not totally bad though.
By the way, the comment box overflows off the side when the comments are nested too deeply!
Personally…I would change the navigation style in the header, too flat in my opinion…unless it was already like this before…haha – 2 second masterpiece
http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/9946/doitlikethisnl5.png
I think the makeover really cleaned the look up. UBD does a great job.
Check out my blog – http://creeperfeature.com – I think its purdy!
the design looks very clean, which i’m a fan of
The blog looks much better, I like how the date on each post is prominently displayed. The right nav bar looks much cleaner and more professional, the changes should be here to stay IMO.
Looks great, love the clean look. In all browsers it looks the same but in IE7 it’s rendering the article and comment titles weird on my Vista machine. Not sure if it’s just me or everyone on IE7.
get off that IE7…
It looks fine to me in all browsers including IE7
some nice changes – but I like the simplicity of the old theme a lot better.
i would say the former for me looked a lil more better.. But then this theme is better too… The commenting system is superb and overall a clean look… btw, i hope nate would contact me too and say they would redo my blogs theme, is that possible? LOL
and also now the three subheaders are only showing in frontpage which i think is great
I personally like it, I like white and simplistic themes. Very nice.
Not a big deal, but in Firefox 3, with AdBlock enabled, your top menu buttons float up towards the top when the banner’s not there for spacing.
Turn adblock off :p
I probably wouldn’t like half the sites I visit if I saw all the ads and pop-ups they were throwing at me.
I just found another flaw while typing that last sentence. The text in this box is overflowing several characters off the right side, so you can’t see what you’re typing until you enter enough for it to return to the next line. I’m guessing it’s because of the nesting somehow.
I just copied & pasted this from Notepad because I couldn’t see everything I was typing.
you are a GENIOUS!!! love u man..
Well spotted! That’s a very good blog designs.
I like the top part, but I think that the body was better before. Both, your old and new version are screwed up a little on the bottom (right before latest radio show box) in IE6 and shoemoney logo at the bottom goes over the text. Minor things here and there, but overall it looks pretty good.
It looks neat and professional but I liked your old theme more.
Same here, this one loads just as slow lol
Using IE7 The top level nav is funky looking. The “dsclaimer” tab is one level below the other tabs.
Ohhh love the new commenting. Very easy!
Easy but messy. I would rewrite the AJAX so that the form to comment it pops up in an AJAX window instead of displacing the content. Making the main content div a little wider would also help the nested comments.
Looks really nice will be saving up for future designs!
The theme is better than the older one. Great.
Much simpler and cheaper looking
I totally dig the design. In fact, i had planned to call ubd today but was unable due to work. I like what they have done at some other sites within their portfolio and feel that they are competant in what they are doing. Simple design, functionality, and smooth feel. Very nice and attention to detail.
In other words… generic….
I liked the previous logo, current one is smaller..
i second it
Love our UBD designed blog! Great investment. We also have some similar features that are a big improvement like your comments. Glad you got an upgrade before BlogWorld.
I like it
Looks less like a UBD cookie cutter job.
In fairness they seem to be doing better at the ‘unique’ part of their name, slowly.
I like the look. Nice and crisp and clear. I like neat and orderly and this new design has an orderly look about it. It appeals to my former military bearing…haha. Very nice……. I say keep it.
New design looks good, I’m digging the cleaner, tighter feel. UBD rocks another one.
I like it because it looks cleaner. The previous design looked cluttered. I agree with David on that it doesn’t look like your typical UBD layout.
like the above comments i assumed the design was in house. Then again it would be silly to waste time and resources on a redesign when the old one was fine.
But then i really do like the new look. Very clean, professional.
The commenting system, especially the ajax is a nice touch. Overall the site is looking good
Just need to write more stuff, so when i refresh the page 30 times a day i get fresh reading material
Keep up the good work SM and UBD.
I’m really sorry for spamming. I couldn’t reply or edit my above message.
Noticed a mistype is all on the ajax div after submitting. It shows ‘wait a comment’ instead of wait a minute or wait 60 seconds
Sorry silly things like this bug me
Already commented on your new design in another post – it looks really good and the comment system is just perfect.
Looks great. I liked the previous design better. Could it simply be that you have to scroll down moret??
Either way, I will keep coming back.
Shoemoney-
My only complaint about the new design, for some reason when the page loads on my iPhone the white background of the page is the last thing to load. So I can’t start reading any content until the page loads completely and the white background is added.
To make the problem slightly worse, your article titles are blue now, which matches the blue of the body background. So while I’m waiting for the article background to load “white”, not only is the text of your articles nearly impossible to read, but I cannot see the titles of your articles since they are the same color as the body background.
I also agree with some of the others that it is getting a bit crowded for my tastes. The design that is.
Hell yeah. Get rid of the needless third column and stretch out the main content. Looking at these comments makes you dizzy lol
That cools great, I like it
This is definately loading much faster than before. Btw are there lesser number of graphics?
Hey, Great design and you can see the changes when navegating throught the website
It looks good to me.
The look is more attractive, the only problem is your picture, you are very ugly. Congratulations.. kk
Looks good! I think the shade of blue could be a BIT lighter.
I think the blog became look better. I like the new design. The truth, I am not a professional.
I still like the design. Though perhaps the bottom footer could be a bit closer to the bottom of the content, looks a bit odd floating there.
Seems to load a lot faster, but overall site is now “blocky”. Several of the ad blocks appear broken as well (could that be why loads faster??). Content section appears narrower, not sure if that’s just a matter of perception.
New design looks good, especially the footer is much more esthetic looking, header could have been better.
I really like the new design. Have to agree with Tyler though, the space between the content section and the footer is rather large.
Either a border or something needs to be put around the footer or it needs to be moved up to mesh with the content section.
I like the look – clean and easy to navigate.
i like the design changes and the commenting system is awesome. easy to reply to someone elses comment
They have some really good blog themes. Iam using their free one now
Looks great in firefox. I like the clean design where it is not all junked up and it is easy to read. A few blogs like John Chows have so many things towards the top such as advertising that you have to scroll down through junk forever just to see the post.
It looks good, uncluttered and easy on the eye. I like the threaded comments idea and actually use Brian’s threaded comments as the wordpress one doesn’t work with my theme. Still with a few tweeks I reckon its all good.
I think that the design should not interfere read the article. He does.
Custom comments might be a better idea for this site. And AJAX window over the content would be much better visually.
I noticed you changed it awhile back. I really like the light and blue blend, good work.
I was long ago visiting this blog, but didn’t notice the different. This new design anyway is a clean and “easy to eyes”.
Mh nice, but they ‘re not my style.
of course it’s way better than -uh- did you see that HP wp-themes?
uuuuuuugly >.<
I love your new design. Thinking of ordering one from them myself actually.. my blog looks kind of boring atm.
looks sharp, to the point, and simple
I like the new design a lot. It is a clean look and the color combination “pops” out at you. Good job UBD!
Oh, I also blogged about the UBD Contest. Check it out:
http://swishersweetie.blogspot.com/2008/08/happy-birthday-ubd-1-year-anniversary.html
Wendy
I like the new look. It is clean and the color “pop? out at you. Good job.
I like the new look. It still has the old theme feeling but just got a facelift. So I like that. I’m glad it wasn’t a major change.
I have to say though, the default avatar does prompt one to get themselves a proper one. The sheep with your logo is a bit corny, Lol!
I love i!
I like it also, well done.
i like this new cleaner look
Not a fan of the new design, much at all. The older version was far superior in terms of being engaging.
lovin the new design…very clean, and professional looking. the new threaded comment system is pretty cool too!
It looks nice but I’m not getting a consistent presentation.
In IE it looks fine, but in Firefox (which is what I usually use), the Disclaimer tab in the top navigation is wrapping around to a second row.
From an aesthetic perspective, this just kills it. But I suppose 85% of the world is surfing IE, so it’s no big deal…
I love the colours you’ve used, it draws you in. I like the latest stuff in the footer section, it’s now really easy to find exactly what you’re looking for.
Good job UBD as usual.
Personally not a big fan of their designs… They all look kind of generic to me. I would want something pretty exclusive if I was going to pay someone else for a custom theme.
These guys have unbelievable design .. !
I love it!
Thank you for your post. It sounds so well.