A New Look

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I first started messing with a new look and theme towards the end of last year. Like most things in my life, I kept putting it off and tweaking bits and coming back to it. Now I have finally pulled the plug and hopefully you are looking at a much cleaner and ideally better Head In A Vice.

Along the way I made the mistake of showing people screenshots and telling them my ideas. When 9 people tell you it looks amazing, and then 1 person (normally my wife) says they don’t like it, that’s always the opinion that stuck in my mind. So I kept tweaking. And tweaking. And tweaking. Ultimately as long as I like it that’s all that matters. And I love it. It just took a long time to get here. This is version 473, and I guarantee people still won’t like it. But time has come to just embrace that and not worry.

Aside from real life people who I bored with images, I also was in touch with two of my most trusted readers, Eric & Chris. Eric would tell me it looked amazing, whatever I showed him. Even though I’m sure he didn’t mean it, he doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body and that’s why I love him. Chris on the other hand was more ruthless and would quite often tell me what was ‘shit‘ or ‘old school‘. Me and him no longer speak…………

I knew that the new look had to be a responsive theme. Meaning that whatever device it was viewed on, the page would adapt and make it easy to read. Since statistics say there will be more phones than people within 12 months, and I know a lot of people view sites on phones and iPad’s for example, a responsive theme was a must. Also my good friend Wordschat would go mental if I didn’t, he sure does hate themes that aren’t responsive.

superhero_screenshot_0_1344907496I also had a check list of things that my old site didn’t have that this new one must. Most importantly I felt that the fact I didn’t have a sidebar on posts needed to be rectified. The old theme wouldn’t allow it, but this one does and I hopefully can showcase and tempt people into clicking more things and seeing more pages. Everything you see on the side of the post is clickable. I will be sharing some old reviews from the archives that you may have missed. A big movie poster should hopefully tempt people to check them out! All the social media things we need these days are on there, and exciting/boring things like the Top 10 most viewed posts etc. I even have little images for my pages for those too lazy to scroll back up to the top. All the pages have been updated, with Face Off scores and Project: De Niro finally getting Silver Linings Playbook added to it. Guest Contributors all have a little bio photo, and they do great work so please check that out. Hell, check all the pages out, you may find some good stuff there! My hope ultimately is just to get people sticking around a little longer and seeing things they normally wouldn’t notice on here.

He hates me thanking him, but the reason I accepted the so-called constructive criticism from Chris was because he was kind enough to design some stuff for my new look. My gravatar, the main header image and a little Hollywood glamour on the ‘about me‘ page were all designed by him, but rather than thanking him I’m going to do some promotion instead. Along with Eric, Chris has a little project called ‘The Bloggers Cut‘ in which they show how a film should have gone down. The image below will take you to their newest entry, The Expendables 3, so please go check it out and try to find my very glamorous cameo in it.

bloggerscutex3_01

I hate criticism, I struggle to accept it and therefore please just say nice things about the new look! Or say nothing. But I hope you find it easy to navigate, and as much as I loved my old ‘Drive Neon Pink‘ inspired look, the cleaner approach is part of the more sophisticated Tyson. I know people don’t like full pages of writing or the wide approach. Personally I love it, and was finally convinced when Eric went for something similar. Images look so much cooler when they are large in my opinion, hence why LOVE is one of my featured reviews from the archives. Click the movie poster and see for yourself, Space sure does look beautiful!

If you do find something that you hate, or isn’t working, please let me know. I will likely delete your comment and block you but we shall see. I’m still tweaking things behind the scenes, so fonts and headings may change slightly, and images on old reviews may look a little iffy, but this has been a long time in the making and will all be fixed over the weekend. I know not many people make a post announcing a new theme, but hey, I like to be different! Thanks as always for reading, and as well as a new film in the Promoting Horror project, and the biggest Face Off so far coming in the next few days, I might even review some films for myself and stop relying on guest posts! Stay classy folks! :)

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120 thoughts on “A New Look”

  1. Much better. Less cluttered, easier to read, better graphics display. I change formats often. You don’t have to marry a format, you know. As long as the basic arrangement of elements is the same from template to template, you can test and play with changing literally with the click of your mouse. It doesn’t have to be arduous, honest! Looks great. Nice and airy.

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  2. I liked the old look better, can you switch back? LOL JK. I did that to Nick today too, felt it was only fair. Speaking of Nick, you gotta let him know how you pulled this off so quickly. :lol: D’Oh!!

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  3. Wow man, love the new look! Very clean and smooth, much better than the old one (which wasn’t even bad in its own right). I’d be lying if I’m not a little jealous now. ;)

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  4. Hey mi amigo!!! I know you’ve sent this to me in screen shots a few times but this REALLY LOOKS GREAT!! Very nice to you (and mi otro amigo, Chris!!). Looks FANTASTIC!! I like this a lot better than the white writing on black background. This is much easier to read!! And it looks SLICK!! I’m glad you finally took the jump – this looks WICKED-FRESH!!! VERY NICE!!! Talk to you soon and thanks for the shameless plug(s)!!! : )

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    • Thanks buddy, appreciate you always keeping my spirits up!! I remember reading somewhere how people struggle with white writing on black so I knew I would always change that. Glad you like it, it means a lot. And you are more than welcome for the plug, thanks for including me in it, my phone is ringing off the hook! :)

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    • I hoped you would smile! Thanks buddy, and I do appreciate ALL the criticism and emails, it was worth it from my point of view. Not sure what you got out of it but Paris this year yeah? :)

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      • Yup, looking forward to coming out and staying at your house for a couple weeks before we head on down to Paris. Appreciate the hospitality! :)

        Looks great man, two big design reveals today, you and Nick.

      • Yeah, hope you like pub quizzes and cold weather. Look forward to educating your child on all things horror.

        Yeah, saw Nick has finally got it up and running, been out all day so not caught up on posts etc but will be checking his out asap. For a free theme Im happy with what has been done. And people loving your images! Feel free to put it on your CV :)

    • Thanks buddy. The old style was a cross between Drive and Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart colour schemes. 2 of my big loves. But something had to give, and this just seems so much cleaner and easier to read. Glad you like the logo. Chris knocked that up, and even though it’s locked away on my ‘about me’ page I felt it should get an airing here. It is brilliant and glad you agree. Much appreciated! :)

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  14. Dear Mr. Vice…a really cool new look! The left side widget is outstanding, especially the archive area with the posters. I guess I’ll have to keep coming back now!

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    • Cheers Todd!!! I love the posters, but I am undecided if it is clear enough they will take people to the reviews. And also whether I should have a different name for them. But hey thats just me talking out loud! Haha always love you visiting, you know that! :)

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      • Well if you figured it out….LOL I joke of course. I hope to mix them up every week or so and try and get some older stuff looked at! Cheers buddy

      • You know how much your respected around these parts. Hence why I’m patiently waiting for your Desert Island choices and your next guest review ;)

      • I have NOT forgotten the Desert Island list, I swear! I want to make sure it’s right, and say the right things…I’ll now make it one of my weekend projects. If I’m going to be stuck on an island, I want to make sure I have the best films with me!

        And a guest review…I’m invited back after Vertigo? Well then, I’ll have to take a look at that IMDb list of yours and see what looks good! Thanks Tyson!

      • Haha, you know theres no rush, I want it to be perfect! You only get one shot on this island :)

        And of course, I was hoping you would volunteer again but I wanted to give you a nudge! Your stuff went down great, and if you see anything else on the list (annoyingly messed up list, no idea why its stretched out, grrrr) let me know! Always love to feature your work :)

  18. Looks good! Your former layout looked good, as well. The “2010″ theme you had before was the other theme I was considering to use before I finally decided to go with the one I’m using now.

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    • I had Twenty Eleven. Twenty Ten & Twenty Twelve were both better I have found out now, as I mentioned Twenty Eleven just wouldnt let me have a sidebar show up on posts. So people coming and reading a review wouldn’t be tempted by stuff on the side like Im hoping they will be now!! I like your theme too, I trialled that for a while before opting for this. Cheers buddy :)

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  19. Love it Tyson! I liked before also but this definitely is a nice setup and those posters on the side will have me clicking away, although I already get your posts to my email..I’ll probably click again.. :)

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    • Thanks Kim!! That’s what I want to hear, hopefully some of the older reviews might have passed people by, and the big posters might tempt the extra click! Cheers :P

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  20. I like it. I love it. I want it. :( This is awesome dude! Definitely more friendly. Love the images and the over all feel. Looks very damn ass professional! I agree about the large images. I think images awesomizes a post so much more. And I like the wide too… just looks better. I wanna pick your brain!

    I know you’ve done a theme related post before for Question Time. But now that your new look is done, and you have no more secrets to hide from us, you should do a post sharing some of your experiences. I could really benefit from your sage wisdom.

    I would play around with my theme more often to get something perfect, (I’m not really happy with mine) but the problem is that I don’t have my own domain. And I can’t truly preview a theme I may like, without activating it, and rarely have the time to work on it for hours a day. I’m pretty sure I’d lose more readers if my site’s look drastically changed multiple times a week while I was just playing with it. I tried our advise before, but a dummy site doesn’t have all my posts, so I can’t really see how everything looks while I preview.

    Help Tyson!

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    • Making me blush here Shah!! Thanks buddy. Yeah my Question Times were all about market research and trying to help me. If you have any specific questions, feel free to send me an email and I’ll offer you anything I have. But basically I just messed around for months when this design was probably one of the first I worked on. I always came back to it. I like yours, you know that. But the ‘live preview’ is a cool feature. I did have a dummy site and I copied some of my reviews and images so I could see identically what it would look like when I activated. That way it looked like my own site, and it took a while to copy stuff over but was worth it in the end. Email me :P

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  29. Hi Tyson, yes the new look does look great on both the PC and cell phone. Thanks for the shout out. I wouldn’t have gone mental if it didn’t look great on mobile I’d just be less “responsive” to you good buddy. I noticed you dropped the visitor count. I really like the alphabetical listing. That would be hard and time consuming to change every title to category. Like your new Lamb badge. Darned if I can find the code the on the site to change mind to the goofy Lamb. So keep up the great work Tyson. I’m get more responsive the more people find my buttons :)

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    • Haha, but I know how you feel about responsive themes, and I agree. Got to look after people reading on other devices. Yeah took away the stat counter, since I always go on about stats and sharing I felt it looked out of place! The A-Z is so easy and takes up hardly any space. I hope people flick through and see something they missed first time round. Thanks buddy :)

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  35. I **LOVE** your new look!! Encapsulates your love of movies! I am still hoping to get to see the real Hollywood. Ironic that I haven’t made it to Mecca despite all my “Legend” encounters.

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