Well, MarkMushakian.com 4.0 is done and live… but you can probably see that .

I’m really very happy about this new design, because there’s nothing about it that I’m UNhappy with.  As I mentioned when I first talked about a redesign, the previous version was an over-zealous attempt to escape the old B/W, so this time I was able to just focus on refinement and purpose.  I did repeat some of the color scheme, and the actual blog entry layout is pretty much the same, but it’s all been enhanced.  This 4.0 layout is cleaner, simpler, and loads faster (a high priority), and there are no “I’ll fix it later” issues… so I’ve completed everything that I set out to do.

I’ll get into more detail below, but before I do, I want to mention that if, by chance, you do come across something that seems broken… please let me know .  Now, what’s new and why’d I change what I changed?  Read on…

The first thing I’d love to point out to you is our new speed.  That was one of the major factors in my wanting a new design, and a big part of how I accomplished that is by excising my gratuitous imagery.  Random Beauty is no longer topped by a flowery banner, but a crisp and simple CSS-only title.  The many background images that filled my previous design are gone.  In all ways (design-wise and technical) I worked hard to keep this site as light and quick as possible – and I’m proud that I’ve done so.  Heck, I barely even used extended entries much anymore, because I didn’t like the load-time, so this one point is my personal favorite .  I’ve cleaned up and shortened my back-end coding immensely, I no longer load any extra fonts, and the whole thing is as light as I could make it.  Of course, a plain-text website isn’t much to look at, so I was just as interested on a cohesive and flattering design.

That’s where the line came in.  I knew that I had to lessen my use of images to lighten up my design, as I’ve now done with other sites, so I came across this concept of a retro, 60′s-era design concept: the line.  You may have already noticed a white line running through the site, and I was careful in setting up the design so that it never breaks.  No matter if you’re in archives, single entries, categories, or anywhere else presently on the site… the white line never breaks.  Consider it a non-intrusive concept of design.  My previous site design was based around an idea of a room in my house, but that was me fitting the content into the design… not, as it should be, the other way around.  The continuity of the line connects every element on the page – an idea I really liked from the very beginning and worked very hard to ensure worked.  Of course, the most important part is that I’m not tied to it.  It works for now, but I have an idea of how to present my movies and animations all in one place (next on my big to-do list), with a page design that will most likely ignore everything you see now except for the header and footer of the site – and that’s okay with me .

I did ax another element with this design, apart from just the images – and that’s the social section.  I still have links to all of my external profiles in the Contact section, but I wasn’t able to find a way to keep them displayed on the main page without increasing load-time, so they’re gone.

And I’m okay with that, too .

You CAN still find my calendar displayed somewhere on this site, though… and for that, you’ll have to find the Menu button in the top right corner of the site.  Unlike my last design, however, this Menu actually has content in it .  Since this has always been (and probably always will be) mainly a blog site, my other pages have never been an important focus, but I will be adding to the Menu whenever I can.  I already have the simple Calendar page, as well as an About page that I thought was a bit overdue.. and there’s definitely more to come.  That’s why the speed of this site was so key to me… if it moves quick and looks nice, I’ll be more likely to add pages to the site, instead of concerning myself with little design annoyances.  It’s made me happy, because everything just… works.

Random Beauty has moved to what I feel is a better location, as well, right below the first post of every page.  It kinda fits the concept of its own title better, too: you’re reading along and then, suddenly, RANDOM BEAUTY!  I contemplated changing the title to The Spanish Inquisition (since nobody ever expects it), but thought that would be taking it a bit far .  Also, this lets you read long entries without any sexy sidebar distraction (animated or otherwise).. though I’ve still left the hide/show feature in place if you click on the Random Beauty banner.

Speaking of the sidebar, everything on the right side is now related just to this site (besides the contact section).  I’ve moved my blogroll links to the bottom of the site, in the footer.  This started off as a design issue, because by re-centering my blog, I no longer had room for the wide link section of my previous design, and I really didn’t want a massively long list crammed into the sidebar (or gimped by using drop-down menus), but I think it works well for other reasons.  I use my own site to visit a number of these links, so now all I have to do to get to them is push End on my keyboard, and it takes me right to the bottom of the page.  Also in the footer is a new feature I was able to add into the extra horizontal space: Random Entries.  Much like Random Beauty (I’m just a random kinda guy), every page load will show 3 different posts from the archives.  This site is nearly 4 years old, and I’ve written a lot in that time… so I think it’s nice to give some of those past entries a chance to be seen again – or, by newer visitors, for the first time.

This new design is both visual and practical.  I really love the bold simplicity of the design – a few basic colors, only two major fonts used, and plenty of white-space.  I love the rounded corners and the concept of connecting my site with a singular element.  I love the little visual details that a man like me who loves details would appreciate – that the Friends’ links use the colors of the sites they link to or that hovering over the heart or thumbs-up image in the Links section gives you the title and explanation of that section.

Of course, I’m an artist, so while my love of these visual elements may (and probably will) shift and change, my love of the new practicality of this design ain’t goin’ nowhere.  The fact that it’s quicker to load, easy to add to, or even simpler to use… those things are pretty invaluable to me.

But enough of my talking.. scroll down to leave a comment and let me know what you think, and then down just a bit further to see which Random Beauty you ended up with.

Like a sexy fortune cookie .

P.S. – I just got Jennifer Aniston wearing nothing but a tie and a smile.  How about you?

Just a quick little note to let ya know that I’ve finally solved an issue here that I’ve been working on for the past few days… something I’ve been considering since the re-design.

For those of you who find the animated Random Beauty images distracting while you’re trying to read a long entry, or if you maybe don’t want so many BOOBS on your screen while you’re at work, you can now click on the Random Beauty banner to hide (and then show) the current picture of the lovely lady.  Hope it’s helpful .

Also, I’ve made a recent change that (hopefully) sped up the site load-time a little bit for you.  I’m working on some other things behind the scenes to (again, hopefully) see if I can improve it even more.

Also, new smileys!

…and maybe even more!

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been making some minor changes to my site.  Cleaning up code and getting rid of visual elements I decided to stop using after the redesign.  I’m sure most of it went unnoticed, but as of today I’ve made a few bigger changes I’d like to draw your attention to.

1. This actually went live on my site a few days ago, but it’s worth a mention.  Since adding my Random Beauty section during the redesign, I’ve always wanted to enable the ability for you to see the full-size version of those pictures.  I couldn’t get it to work well before the launch of the new design, so I’ve been trying to get at it ever since.  It’s finally working, as is the ability to hover your mouse over the picture to see the gal’s name, so check it out.

In the backlog of things I’m working on is the ability to hide Random Beauty with a simple button-click, namely for the sometimes-distracting GIF’s.  I’ll let you know…

2. On a whim, late last night (technically, very early this morning), I started using Intense Debate for my comment system on here – and I rather like it.  All of your comments/replies are still there, and it looks like everything imported nicely.  Hopefully, by this evening, you should be able to sign in and comment with your Facebook account, as well, but you don’t have to.  In fact, you don’t have to use any of the new features, and still comment as you always have… but I’m glad to have them, just in case.  There are some technical reasons for the change, but I won’t get into that… just wanted you to know why it looks all funny and there are frightening new options in the comment area .

And speaking of “comment area”, one my favorite new features is the ability to leave and read comments on a post from the front page.  There’s also a pop-out feature, like I had on an old version of my site, but I think this is a pretty slick presentation.  Go ahead and give it a whirl by clicking on the Comments link while on the main page to see what I mean.

3. This change isn’t quite the same as the others, but it’s a fun new feature.  In the Contact Me section under the shelf that I stand on, you’ll see a little white box to “Chat with Mark Mushakian”.  That connects directly to my Google Talk account, so whenever I’m online that’ll pop up a little window for me to chat with a guest.  It’s mainly for strangers I don’t already chat directly with, but a fun feature to have regardless.

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As always, if anything isn’t working… please let me know.  I have other things I’m working on, and I’ll be designing the new comments, but if something definitely doesn’t work for you – I may not know unless you tell me .

What am I up to in the latest shelf pose over there?  Well, let’s just say I’m very, very excited about a new game featuring the return of that beautiful bald man in the picture above and the trailer below.

I’ve had a mobile version of this site, off and on, since the switch to WordPress, but I’ve finally settled on something that works and, I think, is really clean.  I haven’t really done much to customize it, but it’s quick and simple.  I only wanted to mention it, because I’m not planning on changing it anytime soon, so let me know if there are any problems.