New Look at Fat Pitch Financials
You might have noticed a new look at Fat Pitch Financials this week. I just put some of the finishing touches on this major redesign of the site. Hopefully my work on the site didn’t disrupt any of your visits to Fat Pitch Financials this week. I believe the site was only unavailable for a few minutes here and there as I was updating files.
I was inspired to make this major change for three reasons. First, I just joined the InvestingChannel financial media network. Their ad placements on my site required a new layout to be effective. InvestingChannel will be selling the graphical ads on my site and providing other services. I’ll have more to say about them shortly.
Second, I needed to upgrade Wordpress, the software that runs this blog, for security reasons. I was behind on software updates and this particular update was going to cause some compatibility issues with my old theme.
Finally, the old layout was getting rather cluttered and bloated. For those of you that might not remember, the old Fat Pitch Financials design is pictured below:
Old Fat Pitch Financials design
I attempted to preserve some of the colors and banding of the old design when I set out on this project. The new and improved Fat Pitch Financials layout is pictured below:
New Fat Pitch Financials design
The main features of this new design include the following:
- Main content on the left to improve readability
- More readable typography
- Clean menu bar that includes a convenient search box
- A split right column to improve readability and navigation
- Less advertising clutter, at least for now
- Comic style comment bubbles with Gravatar enhanced author pictures
- Three column footer to provide more compact link display
- Faster loading times
I’d love to hear what you think of the new design. I’m still tweaking a few details so I can incorporate any suggestions you might have.
George,
Great job. I like it. There is a nice simple clean flow to it.
The site is looking very nice. Not busy at all and easy on the eyes.
George, congratulations on your great new design. And I’m interested in what you’ll be telling us about the InvestingChannel news network in the future. I’m not familiar with them, but I count myself among those trusting your informed opinion on most things.
George, Nice job with the new design. Clean and Focused. Bud
Thanks for the feedback on the new theme everyone. I’m glad it seems like most of you find this new look to be a big improvement. Be sure to register at Gravatar.com to have your own avatar image appear when you comment on Fat Pitch Financials. I’m also looking into grabbing avatars from MyBlogLog as well, but I’m still working on that.
@John I plan on writing about InvestingChannel next week. For now, I still don’t have a strong opinion on them, but I am honored that you trust my opinion.
George,
I think it’s great! I love the new look :) . Way to go!
George: The new template looks great!
Best Wishes,
D4L