The New Site Design

I’ve finally finished the redesign of Making it Lovely!

Well, that’s not entirely true. There are a million and one little tweaks and additions that I’d still like to make, but the changes are ones that don’t impact the overall look and function, so I can add them in over the next few days/weeks.

I do all of my own designing and coding (I used to offer web design as Smart & Lovely), and this time around I built these themes off of Standard Theme for WordPress. It’s been been great to work with. I made a lot of changes visually, and a few changes to the core PHP files, but for the most part it gave me the structure I needed. And as for the pretty? I have Moglea to thank for the custom floral illustrations in the header, and I used a couple of elements from Pugly Pixel as well (the glitter and the honeycomb). The background floral pattern is a licensed image, and the logo and all the rest were done by yours truly.

Hold up, did I say themes in that previous paragraph? Plural? Yep. Remember the whole minimal vs. maximal debate I’d been having in regard to the new design? Jessica left a comment suggesting both with a theme switcher, and that was a genius idea. I’d forgotten that was even a possibility! So the default is the “Lovely” theme, full of pattern, but if it’s a bit much (and it may be), you could choose the “Minimal” theme instead. You can switch between the two themes at the top right, next to the social media links. Everyone wins! *

* Well, everyone will win. Eventually. It’s a bit buggy right now (I’m working on it), but you should be able to switch between the two themes with a hard refresh.

So what’s still to come? More organization of categories on the backend, making the design responsive (resizing to fit smaller screens for the 7% of you that need to scroll left to right a little on the site as it is now), more post layouts for different types of content, fine tuning the sidebar, perhaps adding to the footer, some changes to the social sharing options, and on and on. Good stuff, but not essential to launching. And I’ve been dying to launch, so it feels good to push on ahead, right on schedule.

And now, onward! Onward with bigger pictures, interesting new layouts, and different post formats. Onward with a select few new contributors (soon)! Onward with more content, and more awesomeness. And thank you for your patience as I’ve devoted myself to all of this design work lately. Hopefully you’ll love the new look and everything to come as much as I do.

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78 comments

  • Congratulations! Love seeing your new logotype up top! Looks good. I’m gonna stick with the maximal. That’s how I roll too.

  • It looks incredible! What a beautiful space to come and visit. Thank you for putting all the hard work and energy into it! I’d love to learn more about how you learned about coding, etc, and if you took classes or taught yourself, or have and tips for people who want to customize their site more (I know that’s not exactly what you blog about, but your site is so gorgeous, I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how you do it! :) ).

  • jessica

    Hooray! Love it, so happy my suggestion worked out. I love the maximal, it’s so you!

  • Nicole, I simply love your blog redesign. It’s so very pretty.

  • Mary S

    Hmmm, I am on google Chrome and the the theme change does not work for me – it’s maximal regardless of what I choose.
    Also, since I’m providing feed back, the pink color you’ve chosen for some of the headers -the ‘Leave a Reply’ above is one example – is so faint it’s barely visible.
    I just checked on Firefox and the the theme change works there, but the colors of the header are just slightly better.

    That said, I like the design change!

  • Gorgeous. I love, love, love the background. The colors are nice as well.

  • I originally voted for minimal but I was so wrong. I’m totally in love with the maximal version. That’s going to be my default!

  • April

    LOVE IT!!!!

  • Sasha

    Lovely indeed! You did an awesome job!

  • Oddly I can only get the theme button to work when I am in comments…

  • OMG. your blog is LOVELY and the max/minimal options are perfect!!

  • TieDye64

    You’re so clever! This is really fabulous. Adore the header and the honeycombs. Honeycomb circles for the little comments icons is really cute, too.

  • Congrats, Nicole! Love the two options! I’m in the middle of my own site re-design, yours is giving me even more ideas! :)

  • Josephine

    So fresh, it’s a pleasure to read! Well done you! Also, snaps for allowing a choice in theme ;-)

  • Holy wow, this is absolutely gorgeous!! You KNOW I’m gonna have to click through every time now!

  • I simply love the design/s. Well done!

  • This whole blog redesign is just absolutely wonderful and well lovely! The floral illustration is so striking and modern. Just love it all. Oh I accidentally highlighted a word and I was so excited to see pink! Such a cool detail and when you take in everything together it is the perfect bit of color.

  • Oh, yes, Nicole, it’ is LOVELY!

  • I think it is lovely! I love the floral illustration and the licensed floral on the sides. Very pretty! Excited to see the other updates that you have in store.

  • It’s kick ass Nicole. Love that the reader can customize the view based on their preference. I’m a minimal girl myself, but the lovely pattern is just that. Well done!

  • As a fellow web designer (and one the 7% who has looked at the site on a small screen device), I’m super psyched that you’re thinking about making your site responsive. I hope it turns out to be a fun project. Best of luck!

    I’m a fan of the new design too!

  • Rock on, Nicole! The new design brought to life looks FANTASTIC.

  • Ashley

    Hi Nicole,

    Will there ever be an option to go back to the old theme? The new design is very pretty, but I do prefer the old one quite a bit.

  • Congrats Nicole! I’m sure this was no small feat!

  • absolutely amazing Nicole. So fancy yet still so whimsical and pretty. I recognized the glitter header right away from PP. Bravo lady!

  • Oh my gosh Nicole, you make everything lovely. Actually you made this beautiful! I am luuuuving the flowers at the top with your name all glittery. You are so talented.

  • the theme switching is a cool trick!

    one thing i noticed, though, is that the page had to have a forced refresh (ctr-r) after changing the theme selection before it went into effect — just clicking on it didn’t get the job done.

  • The new site is fantastic. But I vote for a different photo of you. You have a great face, but this particular angle does not do it justice. Just my two cents.

  • Pretty! I like the maximal. The minimal feels barren after viewing lovely.

  • It looks brilliant Nicole – really looking forward to your new features! Well done!

  • Kristin

    redesign looks really fab!! – go take a break and play with those kids :) You really do deserve a break after the past few years!~!

  • Love the new site redesign — amazing!!!

  • Congrats on all your hard work, this looks AMAZING! :)

  • Definitely loving the minimal look! Congrats!

  • Love it Nicole! It feels so fresh and new but consistent with your brand. And the font for comments is so cute!! Well done!

  • Love it, especially the new header and background flowers.

    I’m excited to check out the Standard Theme, too. I’m in the process of customizing an existing WordPress theme and it’s just not as flexible as I’d like.

  • I especially like the 5 categories you chose to highlight (My home, Projects, etc.). I can’t remember if these were the same ones you used to have, but it now looks so clean and uncluttered that my eye is drawn to them and I know I’ll check them out more frequently.

    • A

      I had about 13,000 categories before. I still have some organization to do in that regard, but narrowing them down to a main five is a good thing, I think!

  • christel

    Very nice, congratulations!

  • You are AMAZING!

    I am partial to honeycomb myself for personal reasons and I love love love the choice of two themes!!

    You’re one cool chick!

    xo
    Jill

  • Freaking love it!!! I love the maximal theme, so lovely and gorgeous.

  • I really, really love the new design. I am viewing it in the “lovely” version and it is so pretty and easy to read and navigate. It may be maximal, but it certainly isn’t cluttered.

  • It looks positively gorgeous over here!! LOVE it all!
    Jo-Anna

  • Really nice job, the new header is lovely!

  • I especially love the bling in your logo! So fun. xo

  • Love your site! How do you make the pinned board with all the photos? Love this

  • Now that I have experienced the minimal and lovely design I have to say I’m over the moon for lovely!

  • Amazing is all that needs to be said!

  • This looks fabulous! I look forward to reading all of your inspiring blogs!

  • Amazing job Nicole! It looks so pretty. I love it!

  • It looks gorgeous! Love the details, colors and of course the glitter! :)

  • It’s beautiful! This is the only site re-design I’ve seen in the past year or so that I actually really, really liked.

    I’m in firefox, though, and though I’m clicking to see the other site design, nothing changes. It defaulted to minimal for me…I can’t see the “lovely”.

  • I thought it was lovely before and even better now. Can’t wait for more new loveliness to enjoy.

  • ooooh…the bar has been reset. I love this! The toggle feature is above and beyond, wow. And you have pink highlighting like Jules -LOVE that!

    Totally worth the time and effort! Great job!

  • I love the redesign! It looks great! Such a cute a design and so whimsical! Adore!

  • Love it! The minimal theme was the default for me when I came to the page (which is what I prefer) but leaving a comment was a little confusing since I didn’t see the boxes to enter your info. I just clicked around until I was able to type. :)

    • A

      Ah, the comment boxes are a little faint. I’ll be tweaking a lot of things like that over the next few days.

  • I LOVE the lovely version!!! The flower-patterned background really seals the deal for me.

    (I’m a little sad to hear that you’re taking on contributors. I know you’re a very busy lady, but I enjoy your voice the best!)

    Great work :)
    Jill

  • I love it !

  • I love the new site design – you are so talented!!

  • I’m speechless that you did this yourself. One talented lady…looks FAB.

  • Lauren

    Looks great! I personally like the Lovely theme. Thanks for including both flavors!

  • looks GREAT! love the new themes! xxoo

  • I love the idea of multiple themes, but if I HAD to choose I’d go for the Lovely design. It’s just so darn lovely :)

  • Nicole, you made it lovely! ;)

  • LOVE love love the new themes. great job nicole!

  • looks great nicole! LOVE the new header.

  • It looks gorgeous! I love the new design! Great job Nicole!

  • Jenny at Spry On The Wall

    It looks beautiful!

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