After many weeks of hellish labor, Perishable Press is redesigned with some significant changes to the main structure of the site. Before the 2011 renovation, the site operated from a subdirectory WordPress installation in the following location:

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New design in effect at Perishable Press. It’s sort of a hybrid between some of the things I like about the Quintessential theme and some of the best parts of the subsequent Requiem theme. So this new theme is named Serious because it represents a renewed commitment to design, blogging, and everything I love about working on the Web. While I have everything fresh in my mind, here are some of the highlights of the latest incarnation of Perishable Press..

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Happy Halloween!

This year, I thought it would be fun to dress up my site with one of its very first themes. The Lithium theme remains one of my favorites, despite some of the scary code used in a few of the template files. Even so, despite its relative simplicty, this theme features some great little details, and even features some stylish quicktags in the comments area. Incidentally, the Perishable Press logo was designed specifically for the Lithium theme way back in 2006.

So enjoy this blast from the past! Hopefully it doesn’t scare anyone too badly..

Note: Thanks to Chris Coyier for the spooky Halloween-theme idea :)

Another note: To use a different theme, check out the theme library.

Yet another fine reason to celebrate the current Quintessential theme design here at Perishable Press is graciously provided by the fine folks at CSS Perk. CSS Perk features a growing collection of superior CSS-designed websites, and is always a great source of inspiration and ideas for new design projects.

Seeing my current theme showcased at CSS Perk is very inspiring, and a super-cool way to celebrate my upcoming April-9th birthday. Many thanks to the awesome peeps at CSS Perk for sharing Perishable Press with their audience — it is greatly appreciated! :)

So what are you waiting for! Go check it out and kick this old hard-working dog a few stars! ;)

Due to popular demand, I will be switching the site’s default theme back to the colorful Quintessential theme (opens new tab or window). Many people simply felt that the extreme minimalism of the new Requiem theme (opens new tab or window) was just too “plain” or otherwise difficult to navigate due to the single-column design. So, after giving it a go and receiving some excellent feedback, Perishable Press will be rolling with the Quintessential theme — at least for now.. ;)

Those of you who prefer the straightforward usability and minimalist design aesthetic of the new Requiem theme may continue to use it during your visits to Perishable Press. Either click here for Requiem (opens new tab or window), or otherwise scroll down to the footer of the default Quintessential theme to the “Switch Themes” links. Additionally, for the more adventurous surfers out there, you may choose to skin the site with any of my 18 available themes.

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As you may know, Perishable Press was redesigned only several months ago. As much as I enjoy the transparent imagery of the Quintessential theme (opens new window or tab), I find it too distracting and complicated for everyday use.

So I have redesigned, yet again. The new theme is called “Requiem” (opens new window or tab) and is return to my minimalist roots (opens new window or tab). There is something calming and yet energizing about working with a streamlined, no-fuss interface, especially when you are extremely busy. The new theme was completed in December of last year, and I have been using it behind the scenes ever since.

Now I want to know what you think about the new design. Is it an improvement over the previous, more colorful theme? I will be taking your feedback into consideration when deciding whether or not to keep the new “Requiem” theme as the default. Let me know your thoughts! Thanks :)

Go here for a complete list of available themes.

Yay! Perishable Press is now featured at one of my favorite CSS-design showcase sites, Divine CSS! Divine CSS features a mouth-watering collection of CSS and Flash-based website designs, and is always a great source of inspiration and ideas for new projects. Seeing my current theme (Quintessential) showcased at Divine CSS is very inspiring, and a nice way to celebrate the (relatively) new design. Many thanks to the fine folks at Divine CSS for sharing my site with their audience — it is greatly appreciated! :)

So what are you waiting for! Go check it out (while it’s still on the front page) and kick this old hard-working dog a few stars! ;)

Quick announcement that I will be posting an article featuring a diverse screenshot gallery of the new design. To accomplish this, I need screenshots from as many different operating systems and browsers as possible. Currently, I have access to the following browsers:

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New design in effect at Perishable Press. With this 17th incarnation of the site, I drew heavily upon psychedelic influences, spiked it with the essence of the previous dark minimalist theme, and mixed in a healthy dose of cutting-edge JavaScript and PHP functionality.

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After announcing my intention to redesign Perishable Press, I received some great feedback addressing everything from site architecture and navigation to appearance and usability. As the conversations continue, I want to spend some time thinking about usability, navigation, columns and sidebars. The current minimalist design features a single column layout with no sidebars. Content is located prominently front and center, with all navigational links appearing in either the oversized “footer” area or at the end of each individual post. As several people have pointed out, such navigational strategy (or lack thereof) discourages visitors from digging deeper into the site. Apparently, the pile of links at the bottom of each page — the menu, as I like to call it — requires far too much effort to decipher. I mean, really, just because it all makes perfect sense to me, doesn’t mean that everyone else will “get it” too.

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I want to redesign Perishable Press. The current design was released around a year ago, and has received numerous compliments and criticisms. Compliments tend to focus on the theme’s minimalist sensibilities, while criticism is generally directed at the design’s poor usability. Personally, I find the “grey-on-black” color scheme to be very inspiring. Others, however, have difficulties reading the content, and that’s not good.

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As you may observe, the WordPress installation that powers Perishable Press is located in a subdirectory named press. This configuration was intentional, as I wanted to have the option to easily install and maintain multiple versions of WordPress in variously named subdirectories. As much as I enjoy this flexibility, many would argue the SEO-related benefits of installing WordPress in your site’s root directory, or at least making it appear that way by using WordPress’ easily customizable “Blog Address” options setting.

For example, say you have WordPress installed in a subdirectory called “gibbonz”, but you want your blog’s home page to exist at http://your-domain.tld/ and not http://your-domain.tld/gibbonz, as would be the case by default. To make this happen, you have several choices, including this method, which I summarize here, assuming the “gibbonz” scenario outlined in the preceding discussion:

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Finally, after many grueling weeks of relentless determination and tedious repetition, I am pleased to announce the return of the entire collection of Perishable Press themes. Enabling users to change the appearance and functionality of the site, the fifteen unique themes were dismantled several months ago for the ongoing Perishable Press site renovation. Since then, links referring to the removed themes had been redirected to a temporary “Labs” subdomain (labs.perishablepress.com), which featured various installations of WordPress populated with “lorem ipsum” filler text. Although this was suitable as a temporary fix for those interested in exploring the different themes, full theme renovation and restoration remained an ongoing task that finally (finally!) reached its conclusion late last week.

Each and every theme has been painstakingly evaluated, optimized, improved, and tested. During the process, many structural, organizational, and presentational improvements were made. Each theme now operates independently, requiring no files (images, scripts, etc.) beyond those contained within the theme directory itself. Further, each theme has been integrated into a sitewide error-logging process whereby all errors (PHP, 404, htaccess, etc.) are logged in a centralized location and appended with plenty of theme-specific information. Thus, if someone begins to experience issues with one of these newly restored themes, I will be the first to know. This is important as people begin to use the themes under different circumstances (operating systems, user agents, extensions, etc.). I tested as much as possible to ensure universal functionality, but must admit a significant reliance and dependence on Web Standards throughout the restoration process. Thus, if something breaks on Internet Explorer, I won’t be surprised ;) So, without further ado, here is a summary of each newly renovated theme — feel free to check ‘em out!

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