Comments on: ElliotJayStocks.com version 4

By: John Arnor G. Lom

John Arnor G. Lom — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Welcome back from the dark land of the linkless splash-screen!

Absolutely love it! Functional, different, minimalistic and grudgey at the same time…! (And someone using minty green without it being a ripoff of Shaun Inman?!)

Fully agree with your (borrowed) point of not letting progress stop to wait for Microsoft to catch up.

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:05:39 +0000

Thanks ever so much, John. I’m really glad you like it! Hope you’ve seen your link in the Blogroll, as well… :-)

I’m relieved to hear the minty green doesn’t look like a S.I. rip-off; it was worrying me! Viewed without the background-image, this site’s background-color (#191919) does make it look a little Mint-esque…

By: Marc George

Marc George — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 20:38:31 +0000

Good job Elliot. Love the look of the new site - kinda urban-romantic. Well done on getting it finished!

By: Francis Booth

Francis Booth — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 21:34:20 +0000

Wow - a truly fantastic personal site, the weeks of betaing (?!) have really paid off.

The extensive use of transparency is a particular favourite of mine, but the overall feel is a great example of your skill at juxtaposing clean form against “the mess”.

I thought that your portfolio was fantastic before the redesign, but it has duly stepped up another three rungs. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got in-store for the vault section.

Hmmm… I do feel my own site could perhaps do with a fresh lick of paint now. Watch this space! :)

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 23:18:21 +0000

Marc & Francis - thanks so much for the kind words. But thanks even more for helping beta-test this beast! I really appreciate your help.

By: Rob Jones

Rob Jones — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:02:13 +0000

I’ll tell you what… that’s a great site. Really pleased for you Elliot. The fixed background works really well with the image and amount of content makes me feel like I’m reading while walking on a pavement - surreal but great! What I am especially impressed with is the visibility of text and clarity of layout something that’s not easy to do with white text without hurting the eyes but again you’ve pulled that off. Oh and I love the little details like the blogroll favicons. I’m sure I’ll find more while I browse the site a while longer. Congratulations.. Love it.

By: Boz

Boz — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:15:41 +0000

This has been time well spent. Excellent design and textures. Just a great looking site!

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 10:09:01 +0000

Very well done. Everything just looks right. Consider yourself linked.

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:07:26 +0000

@ Rob,
@ Boz,
@ Paul:

Thanks so much, guys. I really appreciate the comments!

By: ikram_zidane

ikram_zidane — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 13:09:23 +0000

nice redesign..

for the em sizes, just set the body’s css rule for font size as 62.5% and then
1em = 1px
3em = 3px

By: Nick Cliffe

Nick Cliffe — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:53:30 +0000

Elliot, it’s such a wonderful site that I immediately posted it up to StumbleUpon.com so if you get inundated and your bandwidth charge goes up you know who to blame :o)

Do I get a prize for spotting the deliberate mistake??? You have given buyers of Second Leaf the choice of buying within the UK, or alternatively of buying within the UK!

I’m going to pour someting long and coool now and dream of Bonnie being at my feet again…

By: TextureKing

TextureKing — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:06:31 +0000

Elliot, the site looks great. It’s always great to see textures used with such effectiveness and really compliment a design.

Well done!

By: Rod

Rod — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:11:25 +0000

This theme is amazing, and would be better for usability if the content of the post had a transparent bg, like your admin comments :)

By: Bubs

Bubs — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 13:30:17 +0000

No problem for the post on my site :) I love your design!

I’ve always used ‘pt’ font sizes because I think they look nicer… but maybe I should read up on Accessibility related to fonts :)

By: Chucks

Chucks — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 18:58:10 +0000

Very inspirational design, thanks for sharing with the world

By: daveMoore

daveMoore — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 09:37:33 +0000

blimey. it’s geekzone but i love it :) your freedom of communication shines through yet again, mr stocks.
gorjus, gorjus, gorjus. i’m going to have to rethink all my ideas (so thanks for that!)
your passion is evident - kudos to you mate.
(and nice to see photos of our lovely hood - i’ll be checking into these when i pine….)
all best mate - d

By: rhys

rhys — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:45:15 +0000

from a completely non-technical perspective, the site looks great and there’s no need for an instruction manual to get to around it. it also has probably the best portfolio i’ve seen. you’re hired!

good job, old bean!

By: nghia

nghia — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:55:39 +0000

hi
i really like your site’s theme… can i download it and use for my WP blog?

if its not free, can i buy it from you?
thanks

By: Andy Beeching

Andy Beeching — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 18:47:56 +0000

Sterling stuff Elliot, this is a fantastic personal site. With the amount of work going in London atm I’m positive you’ll be inundated! I agree that Transcending CSS has some great content in it (not too mention it looks quite nice), and it’s nice to see it in practice here. Big fan of all the geeky details as well so keep it coming!

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:49:48 +0000

Thank you so much for all of your comments, everyone! I really really appreciate all this feedback.

@ Nghia & everyone who’s asked this via e-mail: No, I’m afraid the site’s Wordpress theme will not be made publically available.

By: Ryan Shelton

Ryan Shelton — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:17:58 +0000

Beautiful looking site and great work in your portfolio Elliot!

By: Erika

Erika — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 15:24:57 +0000

Hey, great site! Amazing design. Congrats!

By: Joseph

Joseph — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:45:01 +0000

Really nice site you’ve got going here. I’ve been reading Andy’s book as well. Very nice work.

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:58:04 +0000

@ Ryan, Erika, and Joseph: thank you!!!

The support for the new site has been extremely humbling and I appreciate all of the comments and e-mails people have left me.

Thank you to everyone who’s posted the site on CSS or web design galleries, their own sites, blogs, digg pages, del.icio.us pages, ma.gnolia pages… it’s been utterly overwhelming. Also thank you to those of you who spotted typos!

By: Sherwin Techico

Sherwin Techico — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 09:05:46 +0000

via CSSBeauty:

GJ Elliot! Couldn’t wait till May 1st eh?! =)

By: Patrick Mullin

Patrick Mullin — Wed, 09 May 2007 20:36:02 +0000

This is a great site. My favorite part was opening IE , plopping this URL in, and seeing that beautiful banner in the top right corner. I feel like you should make that into a wordpress plugin. I’d use it for sure.

Good Stuff!

By: Elliot Jay Stocks » Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke

Elliot Jay Stocks » Transcending CSS by Andy Clarke — Thu, 10 May 2007 11:45:40 +0000

[…] use of these techniques (and general ‘ethos’), and you can read more about it in this blog article (although I must admit I’ve yet to use anything from the CSS3 specification - I […]

By: Dominik Lenk

Dominik Lenk — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:44:14 +0000

This is an awesome site… I only just discovered it and I must say that I was blown away by the ‘dark, moody’ feeling. Nice.
I read through your requirements for this site, and was surprised that quite a few are similar to the ones I had for mine. In fact we came up with a similar grid system… Nice to see that my first attempt at my own site is not completely a shot into the blue.

Oh and even if the background is weighty, keeeeeep it…

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Fri, 11 May 2007 14:02:23 +0000

@ Sherwin: It was tempting to wait until the Reboot, but the site was burning a hole in my pocket… Plus it was not just a CSS ‘reboot’ per se; it was a complete from-the-ground-up build.

@ Patrick: Thanks! I don’t think I’ll be making this into a Wordpress plugin, but I do plan on writing a tutorial on it soon… Do you get Computer Arts magazine in Chicago?

@ Dominik: Thanks for the kind words, and for putting the link(s) on your own site!

By: Tarandon

Tarandon — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:50:26 +0000

Okay, I’m going to complain about something here, and it’s probably only because I stare at a computer screen for 12 hours a day.
I have a hard time picking out the text from the grey textures of the background image. Except of course on your comments, because the contrast is increased by the semitransparent background on the div.

Overall the site looks great, but I’m just having a hard time reading some of the articles. I can plod through it by my eyes get strained in the end.

And no, I don’t need glasses if that’s what you’re thinking.

Great work, on the site. I intend to visit again in the future. Ctrl+B

By: cpbocjqnoq

cpbocjqnoq — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 09:16:06 +0000

Hello! Good Site! Thank you!

By: Elliot Jay Stocks

Elliot Jay Stocks — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:16:44 +0000

@ Tarandon: Thanks for the constructive criticism. My personal opinion is that although there’s an inescapable trade-off between textured backgrounds and legible text, the balance here is fairly even. However, I admit that there is room for improvement on the legibility, and this’ll be something I address with the next version.

By: Robert Rodrigues

Robert Rodrigues — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:38:35 +0000

WoW, your site is awesome man…., all of great info… and also convince me to use wordpress…

By: adelle

adelle — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:08:09 +0000

I think your website is designed very eloquintly. I admire how your always trying to up the site before your even completed with the first version! Im trying to learn css…but im a print/designer/art director at heart. Is there some tutorial or something I could read on how to impliment a wordpress blog in my own site just like you did here?

Anyways..Ive got you book marked! Keep up the amazing design / web work.

By: adelle

adelle — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:05:31 +0000

i love the background textures as well.

By: Jesse Vlasveld

Jesse Vlasveld — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:52:44 +0000

My compliments on the design Elliot, it’s brilliant.
I’ve been reading trough you’re articles a bit, and found some interesting reads (liking the starker’s theme as wordpress foundation).
I’m going to try out the Tiger Admin you recommended right away!