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.
Update: The design referred to in this entry is now permanently archived on two static pages: Home page, Entry page.
82 comments
Kristian 5 years ago
*chortle*
Shouldn’t this entry be entitled ‘time to put on the flak jacket’?
Ruth 5 years ago
This is fantastic. I can’t stop laughing.
vlado 5 years ago
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…
s t e f 5 years ago
You both are sick.
I don’t know which site I’m reading anymore.
Talk about applied usability. Tsk tsk.
Micah Goulart 5 years ago
very clever. one of the best CSS jokes ever. :)
Ischa Gast 5 years ago
Muhaha
Conspi 5 years ago
exchanging the 2 sites is a really funny idea
congrats
Chris M. Cooper 5 years ago
Please tell all of us that this is some sort of practical joke.
Chris M. Cooper 5 years ago
duh, i should have known. /bonk.
mjh 5 years ago
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?!”
-jw- 5 years ago
please..please tell me how to get the *stupid* grin of my face. I still have to talk to my clients today…
creativity rulez!!
Andrew Dupont 5 years ago
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.
ephi 5 years ago
well, at least, you got the comment page look like mezzoblue too, but it’s a shame only doing it on the blog part :)
Jordi 5 years ago
Niiiiiiiice …… I heard mezzoblue also redesigned recently …
France 5 years ago
That’ll teach me to quit working into the wee hours too many months in a row.
Jonathan Stanley 5 years ago
Ack… Mr. Dave Bowman and Mr. Douglas Shea stealing each other’s design… what is the world coming too?!
GaBuBu 5 years ago
I would never imagine this from stopdesign!
Subzero Blue 5 years ago
looooool…
This is so funny…
Good one, really good one…
GaBuBu 5 years ago
Except for the 1st of April! I guess in 24 hours everything will be back to normal! :D
Michael Ward 5 years ago
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
Dominik Droescher 5 years ago
Awesome. Simply awesome. Best one I came across so far.
chrisp 5 years ago
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!
arjenvr 5 years ago
Should have seen this coming.
CSS: The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Design theft is in an increasing problem
LintHuman 5 years ago
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.
jinesh 5 years ago
3 words - OH MY GOD! :)
dnr 5 years ago
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Pete F. 5 years ago
Superb.
Cam 5 years ago
Classic!
Rimantas 5 years ago
Absolutely best.
Jesper 5 years ago
This correspondent is impressed. This correspendent also refers to himself in third person.
David Barrett 5 years ago
Frickin’ genius. Good work.
ray 5 years ago
friggin hilarious!
Ben de Groot 5 years ago
Brilliant! Kudos to you and Dave!
Richard Earney 5 years ago
heh heh!
took a millisecond, but I got there
Filosof 5 years ago
super!
Mike P. 5 years ago
Nice work Doug. It’s great that you were able to get some inspiration on your trip to Vancouver; it’s a beautiful city!
mini-d 5 years ago
LOL. Really good one for today.
David B 5 years ago
Amazing… truly amazing! Nice work boys!
Joe Kaczmarek 5 years ago
I love it!
Kris Leslie 5 years ago
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.
Philip Murphy 5 years ago
OK that was SOME April Fool joke!!!
Well done!!! Had me in stitches when I finally copped on to it…
Shaun Inman 5 years ago
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>
ben 5 years ago
Stop!
Thief!
::grin::
Faruk Ates 5 years ago
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? :)
karsh 5 years ago
Poisson d’Avril. ;)
Malarkey 5 years ago
Comrades,
That has got to be the funniest thing I have seen (since I looked in the mirror this morning!)
Patrick H. Lauke 5 years ago
heh…cute idea…
Chris Vincent 5 years ago
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.
Ryan Brill 5 years ago
You guys are awesome. This is just too funny!
Stew 5 years ago
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!
Robert Wellock 5 years ago
Well, it bet my April Fools Joke…
August Trometer 5 years ago
Very well done. It’s like website schizophrenia!
Alistair 5 years ago
I can only hope this is a AFDJ, because if it isn’t.. then I am just shocked to hell.
Josh Williams 5 years ago
Spotless mind, heh… this is pretty deviant, don’t you think Doug? : )
pea 5 years ago
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.
Phil Baines 5 years ago
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.
Mike 5 years ago
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!
Keith 5 years ago
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.
Zelnox 5 years ago
^_^
forgetfoo 5 years ago
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!
Andrea Piernock 5 years ago
Classic, just classic. I saw Dave’s site first, then started laughing, them came here and laughed some more.
beto 5 years ago
LOL! Best April Fool’s in a while!
afrael 5 years ago
both of you rule ;-)
Linda 5 years ago
You’re both too funny! I really needed a laugh today! Thanks. :D
marv 5 years ago
You two are crazy…but very original, I had a nice laugh.
Daedlus 5 years ago
AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! That’s got to be the funniest April Fool’s joke ever! I love it.
Keep it up Dave! Err….. Douglas!…. Errrr…… ?!?! Whoever!
woozy 5 years ago
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!
Ed Sharrer 5 years ago
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. :}
Tate 5 years ago
Oh right, April fools. Good one =D
blake 5 years ago
Beautifully orchestrated. *Hats off*
supercrisis 5 years ago
Simply brilliant. This is the best thing on the Internet today.
Carole Guevin 5 years ago
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
Brian 5 years ago
HAHAHA. Oh god, that photo just frickn’ topped it.
Panagiotis Galatis 5 years ago
Ooops, and I fell for it! DOH!! LOL!! It was funny and inspired though :D
Joey 5 years ago
wow, that threw me for a loop for a bit….im still spinning!!! oh noo!
Phil Baines 5 years ago
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. :)
Yannick 5 years ago
LMAO. I was like wth is going on!!!
I’m still laughing…
Renato Carvalho 5 years ago
uhauhauahauhauhauahauhauhaua…..Very Good!!!
Sage 5 years ago
Best April Fool’s joke EVER. Seriously, you guys kick ass!
olli 5 years ago
Nice joke with CSS.
Cameron Barrett 5 years ago
On April 1, 2001 I was inspired to redesign as well. Reload this link to see how I was inspired.
renish 5 years ago
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!