What do you think of the new website?
(If you’re reading this post through email, click here to see the new site.)
Going into the process, I knew I wanted something bright and cheery – but also whimsical yet modern, and youthful yet grown-up. (Contradictions galore.) It’s taken many months of hard work to get here, and I am so excited with how the design finally turned out! Perhaps one of my favorite parts of the new design is how organized it is:
For example, the new recipe page is incredible!
A picture of every recipe! Plus there’s a fancy slideshow on the homepage, and the sidebars are much less jumbled now. If you think I managed these feats by myself… you are giving me way too much credit. Allow me to introduce…
Julie Farber from Deluxe Designs.
Julie is amazing; I wish I knew half of what she knows about web design. Julie can design your entire site for you if you don’t want to worry about a thing. In my case, however, I preferred to be very involved, and she was ok with that, too! I drew up elaborate screen shots in Photoshop of exactly what I wanted—right down to the color scheme and layout—and Julie took it all from screen shot to real-time website without crashing anything, which I would certainly have done if I’d attempted it without help. She was patient and non-judgmental, while still offering sage web designer advice. (You can thank her for the fact that there are no giant polka dots on the top of the page: one of my not-so-bright ideas she talked me out of!)
And those beautifully-organized new photo pages I mentioned earlier? All Julie’s work. I can’t tell you how many things I asked for, while being almost positive she’d come back and tell me such things weren’t possible. Yet every time, she instead responded—quite quickly—she’d made the changes. In short, if you need design work for your food blog (or photography blog, company website, etc.), Julie is your girl! EDIT: Julie will give a 15%-off discount to anyone who mentions CCK in his/her inquiry.
Still to come:
1. The heart logo: The header that you see now is an interim thing, so don’t worry if you’re not big on the heart; it’s not staying! I am not big on it either. I’m a perfectionist and haven’t been able to come up with the perfect logo yet, so I quickly designed this shutterstock-esque heart logo to stand in. The rest of the new design was ready, and I just didn’t want to wait any longer!
2. We’ll probably be making more minor adjustments in the next few days, so give the site a little time to adjust. And Julie is working on perfecting the mobile version of the website as well.
I love it! It’s so organized and bright. But I do miss the purple background a bit. Maybe use a lavender instead of white?
I think it looks great! You definite hit the whimsical-adult-etc contradiction on the head! It looks a MILLION times more amazing than before 🙂
Is there a “comment” button on the main page I’m missing? I like that I can read the whole post on the main page, but then I have to open the post and re-scroll to the bottom to post. I might be a little abscent minded, because I forgot what I was going to post and had to re-read a little 😀
Hey Katie! Just so you know, I can’t see the header! It’s just plain white 🙁 Otherwise I love the new design 🙂
Hi Hailey (that’s my daughter’s name!),
Do you mind telling me what browser you are viewing Katie’s site on?
Sure! I use internet explorer 9 (64 bit) for PCs.
When I render the site in IE 9, the header appears just fine. I will continue to look into it but I wonder if you see it header now? I want to make sure everyone can see it!
I still can’t 🙁 I’ll try to let you know when/if it pops up!
I use IE 9 too and I can see it fine (I can see it fine in all browsers for that matter including safari)
I can’t see the header either in Safari 5.1.6
Updating to version 6.0.2 might help the Safari issue. I’ve rendered in all browsers and there do not appear to be any coding issues. But we’re not ignoring this…
I didn’t update my browser but it’s working now!
GREAT! We are thinking it might just be that things were loading particularly slow because of a big surge of traffic due to the new launch and that caused some small issues. I’m *still* looking into it just in case that is not the reason, but I’m glad to know it’s working again! Thank you for your update!
Sorry, that was from me 🙂
absolutely gorgeous! good job 🙂
I love the new design! Everything looks so clean, and I love that your name is chocolate covered!
Katie, I love it! I really love all the content you have on the home page without it looking too cluttered. That’s hard to do! I am impressed! But you never really cease to impress me!
The new site is gorgeous, Katie (and Julie!)! I actually love the chocolate-splatter-heart logo. 🙂
Hi CCK! Love the new site 🙂 But I’m wondering if some bits of posts are missing now…for example, I was just browsing oatmeal recipes (I’m addicted) and I noticed here that the “note” you mention in the recipe is nowhere to be found: https://lett-trim.today/2011/11/10/coconut-cookie-dough-oatmeal/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> Also in this one, you mention ‘flakes’ and everyone in the comments writes about kamut flakes, but I don’t see you talk about kamut anywhere in the post: https://lett-trim.today/2009/03/12/when-is-a-snickerdoodle-not-a-snickerdoodle/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Just thought I’d let you know! Love the new look!
Kati,
If you view Katie’s new oatmeal recipe page (https://lett-trim.today/category/oatmeal-recipes/%3C/a%3E%29 you will find the coconut cookie dough oatmeal recipe. You can now view recipes visually or you can search and should be able to find the recipes you are looking for.
I love the new look! It’s a huge improvement. 🙂
I love the new site! It is so beautiful!:) So clean and fun and yet grown-up! Great job both of you! You both have such great ideas:)
When I pull it up on the smart phone, I have to do a dramatic zoom out to see the full page. I *heart* how all the recipes have pictures:D! Oh but some pictures don’t really match? For example “Spring Green-Saag” recipe has a picture of ice cream? Hehe! It’s funny though:D I was a little bummed when I couldn’t scroll to look at all the recipes under one category and had to click for “Next Page”:/ Also I couldn’t find some things like the “Special Diet” page for the people with allergies and stuff.
But over all well done! It is marvelous:D <3 I love it!:)
Diedre,
We added the dietary needs link back to the recipe page for those who prefer this search and I have made it so that you can view up to 45 recipes on each category page (upped from 36), so this should help you 🙂
Yay! Cool!:D You’re awesome!;D
It looks amazing! I love the way your name is drenched in chocolate on the header:)
I will admit that i kind of miss all the pictures of chocolate on the header, but it looks so professional and awesome now that it doesn’t really matter!!! Amazing job!
This one is a winner 🙂
oh geez, haha, changing all those recipes to be printer friendly sounds like it will take a while! I love the new look though – very modern, clean and fun!
It looks good! Maybe I’m missing them, but I would like it if the posts were dated so we can see when you posted. I agree with other comments, the comment button is hard to find.
We hear you! 🙂 We’ve taken your comments into consideration and added the comment button at the bottom of posts on the homepage!
I love the new look of the website! Very cheerful as you said….I haven’t checked out the Recipe page yet – looking forward to that:)
It’s so great! Nice work!!