Nominated when pants are down
Oh? Birds, Google Alert and Technorati, tell me that my blog is nominated for the best designed award. Now, why doesn’t this please me?
Before I get to that, I’d like to take a grateful bow for those who took the time to nominate my blog and to those that have already voted for me.
A good design is that which uses web standards as its basics. They may be quirky, but a sincere effort towards achieving those, is a genuine telling that such a design deserves attention and recognition for the effort. So yes, I am a standards fanatic. I usually preach by practice. Unfortunately though, this isn’t one of those times. Here are my reasons why you should not be voting for my blog for the best designed award:
- My blog does not validate. I screwed-up my layout sometime last month, and I haven’t had the time to even locate it, let alone fix it. (And if you tell me, it isn’t a big deal, then you must be new around here.)
- It’s really bad on Mobile phones. My Sony Ericsson’s partial XHTML support renders it okay. But a fully compliant Nokia’s XHTML browser shows horizontal scroll bars, loads full images and takes the wind out of the device. In short, my design is a crap on a cellphone (I simply haven’t designed for it, but believe me, it matters today).
- Flickr images don’t load in the middle east because Flickr is banned there (but it is still my fault for choosing it to be part of the layout). And because of a stupid layout that I have, it slows down my content load times. Inexcusable. I should be streaming my own pics. (Sounds insane, but look at Photomatt.)
- My header image is not a background. Sacrilage on devices that are low on resources and standards compliance.
So, there you have it. Skip mine, go ahead look at better designs or designers. I like all of Chugs designs, KarmaDude’s logo, Swaroop’s site and Meghalomania’s content. I wonder why The Indicast isn’t on the list. (They don’t validate either, but neither did mine.)
I kinda like your design and I don’t read the other nominated blogs…So, my vote has gone for you
Cheers,
Feb 13, 07 at 17:02HP
Hi Chetan,
I know how tough as hell it is to validate. I admire simplicity in webdesign and that is the reason I voted for you.
Good luck to you.
Feb 13, 07 at 17:35To HP, Vulturo: [Chetan bows with gratitude].
Feb 13, 07 at 17:41Chetan,
Amongst all of them nominated, I find yours the best as it focuses a lot on content than just design and that is basically the essence of it. As far as validation is concerned, I don’t think that needs to be too much of a criteria to judge. Good luck!
There’s a lot of new found vigor in me to redesign my site and blog more often. And thanks for the tag, will post an update soon. {just been busy as hell!}
Feb 13, 07 at 17:51Adel, your site looks cool already. It’s much better than mine. And that makes me wonder why aren’t you on the list?
Feb 13, 07 at 17:59Simplicity rules. I try to keep it simple but cannot do without my bells and whistles
If it is the Indibloggies, trust me none of the factors you mention will matter. First impressions are all that matter.
You are being too hard on yourself. Must be the only anti-campaign in the Indibloggies
Feb 13, 07 at 21:39Chetan,
Good to know that you liked our design. BTW, the t-shirt shop is up. Check it out…
Aditya
Feb 14, 07 at 12:31No, I think I am not. Really. This is like playing Golf. You don’t compete with others. You play your own game and get better with practice. Now, if you deliberate a bogey when you could do a birdie, that’s bad. And that’s what I am talking about.
The most annoying thing is the render on cellphone. I hate it, but I’m yet to get off my lazy *rse to do something about it.
Feb 14, 07 at 16:51Well…then I guess you will be voting for “Me”.
Feb 15, 07 at 08:23Oh, absolutely
.
Feb 15, 07 at 09:41