Refresh

This was not a planned change. One moment I was looking at the latest Blogger templates on etsy and the next I was downloading one of them and then editing my HTML. Welcome then to the new look buynowbloglater.com! :)

If I have to rationalise the change I would give you three reasons:

1) To be more responsive - so much of my traffic comes from Smartphone visitors and although the old Blogger way was functional, it did degrade the experience.

2) To feel refreshed - ever buy workout clothes to motivate you to get off your arse? Well I think template buying also motivates blogging.

3) To reduce the clutter - I have long hated the visual noise that emanates from the sidebar. I always end up packing too much functionality and signposting there and it ends up looking cluttered and messy. A one-column template is therefore a neater solution and I have tried to integrate the elements that used to sit on the right in different ways - by placing the Instagram feed in the footer and by adding a Wishlist page in the primary navigation for example. Hopefully it feels a little cleaner.

Now I mainly wanted to write this post as a warning. I haven't made all the changes I need to yet and it is likely that over the next week things might look a bit iffy and not render perfectly. I'll be working on it :)

In the meantime I feel excited to get blogging again. That whole workout clothes analogy really is the truth.