The day has finally come. After months of planning, prepping, and pulling 8 hour nights after the 8 hour day job, the new site is up and running. Built on XHTML, PHP and CSS I feel that this site is leaner and meaner than its predecessor. For CSS Reboot, the site not only got a visual makeover, but also a complete overhaul under the hood. Powered by PHP and WordPress, I have upgraded the site with many new features and still have a few more tricks up my sleeve that I haven’t yet had time to implement. Below is a list of improvements that I have made to the site thus far.

Better branding.

As a web designer with a bachelor’s degree in Marketing, I realize that branding is an important part of any company’s online presence. However, branding is not a logo. Branding is not a fancy new typeface. Branding is about how a company impacts its audience, what feelings your web experience conjures up when people visit your site. With the site relaunch comes the opportunity to improve on 45royale’s brand and I will be working on that quite a bit.

Newest content on the top.

I felt that in the previous design the content wasn’t featured enough and the site lacked focus. I had to be honest with myself and came to the conclusion that the most recent information should be on the top and allow the reader to filter down as they feel necessary.

Easier to find the content you are looking for.

These days content is king. If a user can’t find what they are looking for, they will quickly move on to another site that has their content better managed. To make sure my readers stick around and can find what they need, I have re-vamped the ‘archives’ section allowing users to search for content without having to reload their page every time. Quick, easy and relevant searching.

More effective tagging.

Also in the archives section, you will find a tag cloud that has the most popular tags that are used to catagorize posts, sidenotes and other information.

New and improved footer.

Often neglected, my new footer houses the shorter posts I write, affectionately called ‘Sidenotes‘. Also, I have a section on the right side for ‘Stuff that I think is interesting‘. These are drawn from stories out there on the web that I think are of value and want to share.

Those are some of the more obvious additions to the site’s new functionality. As I said, more will be added in the weeks to come. Any comments, feedback or bug reports are much appreciated. For now, I will take a breather and enjoy seeing what others have accomplished with their standards-based designs. I will post my opinions and ‘Top 5′ from the CSS Reboot later this week.

The day has finally come. After months of planning, prepping, and pulling 8 hour nights after the 8 hour day job, the new site is up and running. Built on XHTML, PHP and CSS I feel that this site is leaner and meaner than its predecessor.