Time for Change
Feeling inspiration from others who’ve been redesigning, I finally decided it’s time to take this site’s design in a slightly new direction. I’ve been working on this one in the background for a while, whenever I’ve had spare time. The colors were inspired by a photo I took of the Brockton Point Lighthouse in Stanley Park while visiting Vancouver last year for the AIGA National Design Conference.
The column structure is basically the same, though I’ve shifted some of the content and navigation around. The redesign is still partially in progress, so bear with me while I continue to update pages throughout the site. All feedback is welcome. Love it? Hate it? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments for this entry.
Posted by doug at 12:30am
78 comments so far (Post your own)
*chortle*
Shouldn’t this entry be entitled ‘time to put on the flak jacket’?
Posted by Kristian on 31 mar 2004 at 10:54pm §
This is fantastic. I can’t stop laughing.
Posted by Ruth on 31 mar 2004 at 10:54pm §
Sharing the love with Dave (http://www.mezzoblue.com/) I see… wouldn’t have anything to do with it being the 1st day of April…
Posted by vlado on 31 mar 2004 at 10:55pm §
You both are sick.
I don’t know which site I’m reading anymore.
Talk about applied usability. Tsk tsk.
Posted by s t e f on 31 mar 2004 at 10:58pm §
very clever. one of the best CSS jokes ever. :)
Posted by Micah Goulart on 31 mar 2004 at 10:59pm §
Muhaha
Posted by Ischa Gast on 31 mar 2004 at 10:59pm §
exchanging the 2 sites is a really funny idea
congrats
Posted by Conspi on 31 mar 2004 at 11:01pm §
Please tell all of us that this is some sort of practical joke.
Posted by Chris M. Cooper on 31 mar 2004 at 11:07pm §
duh, i should have known. /bonk.
Posted by Chris M. Cooper on 31 mar 2004 at 11:09pm §
Hehe, I was confused for a moment, jumping back and forth between here and Mezzoblue. I kept thinking, “I know I’m tired, but wtf?!”
Posted by mjh on 31 mar 2004 at 11:22pm §
please..please tell me how to get the *stupid* grin of my face. I still have to talk to my clients today…
creativity rulez!!
Posted by -jw- on 31 mar 2004 at 11:23pm §
This is both brilliant and hilarious, and beats any April Fools’ stuff that’ll be posted on Slashdot today. You and Dave rock in both shared and separate ways.
Posted by Andrew Dupont on 31 mar 2004 at 11:24pm §
well, at least, you got the comment page look like mezzoblue too, but it’s a shame only doing it on the blog part :)
Posted by ephi on 31 mar 2004 at 11:25pm §
Niiiiiiiice …… I heard mezzoblue also redesigned recently …
Posted by Jordi on 31 mar 2004 at 11:26pm §
That’ll teach me to quit working into the wee hours too many months in a row.
Posted by France on 31 mar 2004 at 11:54pm §
Ack… Mr. Dave Bowman and Mr. Douglas Shea stealing each other’s design… what is the world coming too?!
Posted by Jonathan Stanley on 1 apr 2004 at 12:03am §
I would never imagine this from stopdesign!
Posted by GaBuBu on 1 apr 2004 at 12:07am §
looooool…
This is so funny…
Good one, really good one…
Posted by Subzero Blue on 1 apr 2004 at 12:11am §
Except for the 1st of April! I guess in 24 hours everything will be back to normal! :D
Posted by GaBuBu on 1 apr 2004 at 12:12am §
I was more than a little confused for a short while…
I only realised that this wasn’t Mezzoblue when I noticed the site was flickering like a maniac in IE6…
A nice April Fools :D
Posted by Michael Ward on 1 apr 2004 at 12:13am §
Awesome. Simply awesome. Best one I came across so far.
Posted by Dominik Droescher on 1 apr 2004 at 12:30am §
Great joke - your CSS hadn’t downloaded at the time I had to unplug and dash for the morning commute, so i saw it completely unstyled - but when I saw Dave Shea’s site I knew what you guys had done. I haven’t laughed out loud on the train for ages!
Posted by chrisp on 1 apr 2004 at 12:34am §
Should have seen this coming.
CSS: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Design theft is in an increasing problem
Posted by arjenvr on 1 apr 2004 at 12:51am §
You know, I think I prefer to see Dave’s content in Doug’s design and vice versa… All this time spent struggling to get it right and a swap solves all your problems!
Other swaps in the pipeline, surely? How about Zeldman / useit.com? Microsoft / Apple?
Keep it up, fellas.
Posted by LintHuman on 1 apr 2004 at 1:13am §
3 words - OH MY GOD! :)
Posted by jinesh on 1 apr 2004 at 1:30am §
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Posted by dnr on 1 apr 2004 at 1:36am §
Superb.
Posted by Pete F. on 1 apr 2004 at 1:52am §
Classic!
Posted by Cam on 1 apr 2004 at 1:55am §
Absolutely best.
Posted by Rimantas on 1 apr 2004 at 2:18am §
This correspondent is impressed. This correspendent also refers to himself in third person.
Posted by Jesper on 1 apr 2004 at 2:35am §
Frickin’ genius. Good work.
Posted by David Barrett on 1 apr 2004 at 2:52am §
friggin hilarious!
Posted by ray on 1 apr 2004 at 3:02am §
Brilliant! Kudos to you and Dave!
Posted by Ben de Groot on 1 apr 2004 at 3:10am §
heh heh!
took a millisecond, but I got there
Posted by Richard Earney on 1 apr 2004 at 3:33am §
super!
Posted by Filosof on 1 apr 2004 at 3:46am §
Nice work Doug. It’s great that you were able to get some inspiration on your trip to Vancouver; it’s a beautiful city!
Posted by Mike P. on 1 apr 2004 at 3:48am §
LOL. Really good one for today.
Posted by mini-d on 1 apr 2004 at 3:48am §
Amazing… truly amazing! Nice work boys!
Posted by David B on 1 apr 2004 at 3:53am §
I love it!
Posted by Joe Kaczmarek on 1 apr 2004 at 4:11am §
Not to be getting off topic but when your site is viewed in high contrast mode in win2k your news feeds heading and time/date stamp overlap each other.
Back on subject - good design and I hope that you keep designing more frequently its good to check out quality sites as yours. Good day.
Posted by Kris Leslie on 1 apr 2004 at 4:13am §
OK that was SOME April Fool joke!!!
Well done!!! Had me in stitches when I finally copped on to it…
Posted by Philip Murphy on 1 apr 2004 at 4:25am §
Two spectacular redesigns in one day. Where do you guys find the time and inspiration to come up with these things? Nice photo too! </naïveté>
Posted by Shaun Inman on 1 apr 2004 at 4:37am §
Stop!
Thief!
::grin::
Posted by ben on 1 apr 2004 at 4:41am §
Best. Aprils fools joke. Evar.
I’m still laughing, I think this was done brilliantly well, good karma to both of you for this great joke!
However, I do wanna know… who came up with the idea? :)
Posted by Faruk Ates on 1 apr 2004 at 4:43am §
Poisson d’Avril. ;)
Posted by karsh on 1 apr 2004 at 4:45am §
Comrades,
That has got to be the funniest thing I have seen (since I looked in the mirror this morning!)
Posted by Malarkey on 1 apr 2004 at 4:58am §
heh…cute idea…
Posted by Patrick H. Lauke on 1 apr 2004 at 5:03am §
This is the best online April Fool’s joke I’ve seen since ResExcellence announced they would become a pay site. Thanks for the morning laugh.
Posted by Chris Vincent on 1 apr 2004 at 5:05am §
You guys are awesome. This is just too funny!
Posted by Ryan Brill on 1 apr 2004 at 5:29am §
Your an ass, I want to beat you with a stick! :P
Nah nice prank. Took me ages to work out what the hell was going on, thought it was my browser fucked up.
ARGH!
Posted by Stew on 1 apr 2004 at 5:39am §
Well, it bet my April Fools Joke…
Posted by Robert Wellock on 1 apr 2004 at 5:41am §
Very well done. It’s like website schizophrenia!
Posted by August Trometer on 1 apr 2004 at 6:01am §
I can only hope this is a AFDJ, because if it isn’t.. then I am just shocked to hell.
Posted by Alistair on 1 apr 2004 at 6:22am §
Spotless mind, heh… this is pretty deviant, don’t you think Doug? : )
Posted by Josh Williams on 1 apr 2004 at 6:34am §
too funny. i knew there were going to be a lot of april fool’s day gags on the net today and yet i still did a double take when the site loaded.
just beautiful.
Posted by pea on 1 apr 2004 at 6:46am §
Argh! my head!
I can’t cope with all this bouncing back and forth. I feel like I have watched to much cricket. Must stop taking these drugs, becuase I am seeing things.
Posted by Phil Baines on 1 apr 2004 at 6:49am §
Oh, s**t!!!!!!!!!
You know when I first double-clicked in from NetNewsWire, I didn’t get it. I thought I landed on stopdesign’s site by accident even though the link I was clicking on said mezzoblue.
Supa freakin’ cool guys, still provin’ to the community that y’all are the man!
Posted by Mike on 1 apr 2004 at 7:24am §
I think the best part is all the set up you guys did. You in your panel at SXSW and Dave on his site. Classic.
Posted by Keith on 1 apr 2004 at 7:24am §
^_^
Posted by Zelnox on 1 apr 2004 at 7:35am §
damn, took me a second to “get it”… co-workers looking at me with that strange look on their faces as i busted out laughing…. hahahahaha
*claps and cheers* Bravo! Bravo!
Posted by forgetfoo on 1 apr 2004 at 7:58am §
Classic, just classic. I saw Dave’s site first, then started laughing, them came here and laughed some more.
Posted by Andrea Piernock on 1 apr 2004 at 8:23am §
LOL! Best April Fool’s in a while!
Posted by beto on 1 apr 2004 at 8:24am §
both of you rule ;-)
Posted by afrael on 1 apr 2004 at 8:35am §
You’re both too funny! I really needed a laugh today! Thanks. :D
Posted by Linda on 1 apr 2004 at 8:47am §
You two are crazy…but very original, I had a nice laugh.
Posted by marv on 1 apr 2004 at 8:51am §
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That’s got to be the funniest April Fool’s joke ever! I love it.
Keep it up Dave! Err….. Douglas!…. Errrr…… ?!?! Whoever!
Posted by Daedlus on 1 apr 2004 at 8:53am §
very convincing, I actually had to view the comments before I got it. The reasoning and photograph on the front page made it very convincing!
Posted by woozy on 1 apr 2004 at 9:21am §
I have to admit, I visited this site first and bought it for a minute. I kept looking at it, thinking “um… err… this looks a lot like… certainly he knows…”
Hats off to you gents. But you honestly do need to tell us how/when you hatched the plan and which one of you came up with the idea. Certainly there had to be adult beverages involved. :}
Posted by Ed Sharrer on 1 apr 2004 at 9:26am §
Oh right, April fools. Good one =D
Posted by Tate on 1 apr 2004 at 9:54am §
Beautifully orchestrated. *Hats off*
Posted by blake on 1 apr 2004 at 10:20am §
Simply brilliant. This is the best thing on the Internet today.
Posted by supercrisis on 1 apr 2004 at 10:58am §
Oh Doug… what have I done… Sleep deprived and stressed and having to DO something before I leave for a conf… I checked your site… and had a FIT! I mean not only did I not get it… in the wee hours… but I shared with a colleague how completely… never mind! I fell for it.
Colleague DID write back to mention which date it is… More power to you(s)… back to the pile.
.c
Posted by Carole Guevin on 1 apr 2004 at 11:41am §
HAHAHA. Oh god, that photo just frickn’ topped it.
Posted by Brian on 1 apr 2004 at 12:40pm §
Ooops, and I fell for it! DOH!! LOL!! It was funny and inspired though :D
Posted by Panagiotis Galatis on 1 apr 2004 at 1:24pm §
wow, that threw me for a loop for a bit….im still spinning!!! oh noo!
Posted by Joey on 1 apr 2004 at 2:55pm §
Man, I wonder how dave feels about that photo? Are you implying that is how he got his inspiration? lol.
I wanna hear the story of the night you cames concieved this plan!!
p.s. the comment form is all messed up in firefox. :)
Posted by Phil Baines on 1 apr 2004 at 3:23pm §
LMAO. I was like wth is going on!!!
I’m still laughing…
Posted by Yannick on 1 apr 2004 at 4:30pm §
uhauhauahauhauhauahauhauhaua…..Very Good!!!
Posted by Renato Carvalho on 1 apr 2004 at 7:13pm §