Site Redesign and New Posting Schedule
Hi everyone. First, if you’re reading by RSS or email, please come over to the site so you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
As you can see, our new site design is now online. It’s been a long time in the making, and I’m really excited that it’s here. For the concept and execution of the project, I’m grateful to the amazing Reese Spykerman who works on location in Michigan and Malaysia. As I’ve said before, if you need a good web designer or ebook layout expert, send her a note.
There are a few more tweaks that are coming in the next few weeks, notably in how we display the categories, but this is the first public display of the AONC 2.0 that I’ve been hoping to have for a while.
Please note the following important information:
1. During my Annual Review I made the decision to continue my shift towards focusing even more on what I like to do. With that in mind, this year I am going to be a full-time writer. Wish me luck! (Actually, wish me hard work. That’s much better.)
2. The site will continue to remain completely free with no advertising.
3. Instead of ads, I’ll have a few new products coming out this year to support the project – first, the upcoming Travel Ninja guide, and then an extended series of webinars later in the spring.
4. I’m restructuring how often I write here – see below.
New Schedule: Monday and Thursday, Short Updates Other Days
My goal for 2008 was to publish new content every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I achieved that goal and published 122,281 words – more than an average book.
I didn’t miss a single day in the schedule, although from time to time I published at 11:57 p.m. A note for your own world domination plans: consistency is appreciated by people who join your small army.
In 2009, I am branching out a bit and trying to focus on higher-level writing. My new publishing schedule for the year will be Mondays and Thursdays.
I’ll still write about Life, Work, and Travel. I’ll still publish trip reports from everywhere I go – some of you will love them and some of you will skip them. No problem.
The focus of much of the writing, however, will be on information and strategies to help you rule and change the world in your own way. I want to earn your continued readership and ensure that your time reading the Art of Nonconformity is well spent.
You can see some examples of this focus in a few of the recent posts I’ve published here:
- How to Conduct Your Own Annual Review
- How to Buy a Round-the-World Plane Ticket
- The Art of Radical Exclusion
- 16 Great Books to Change the World
Some of these posts will be fairly long, so I want to give them more breathing room instead of moving on to a new major topic right away. I’ll also have shorter updates from time to time – trip photos, product updates, and so on. But for all practical reasons, come back every Monday and Thursday for the new content designed to help with your own unconventional life. Cool?
These improvements are the result of your feedback. I am tremendously grateful to each of you who take the time to read and participate. Thanks so much. It’s going to be a great year.
Keep rocking the universe,
Chris Guillebeau
P.S. Of course, I’d like to know what you think about the new design and content structure. Feel free to share your comments below, on Twitter, or by email.
(Please note there are a few things that are still a bit wonky with the structure – we hope to have that fixed within the next day or two.)
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42 Comments
Looking good, nice work on the redesign
Looks great! Good luck/hard work on the full-time writing!
I love it! The new look is really beautiful and striking. Thanks for asking us to come over and look at it; I’m glad I did.
I’m looking forward to all your new content, too. Happy new year!
What language is this in? Where’s the English?
Thanks guys! Glad you like it (at least those who have posted so far).
@Pizza,
Well, if it is showing up in another language, that is certainly one interesting browser problem. 🙂 What do you see?
It looks like a bunch of letters have been dropped from the text. We just added Microsoft Office to our Mac and for some reason several websites like yours are the same way. I’m on a different computer now as I’m troubleshooting and all’s fine on this PC.
Really nice redesign. The only thing I’d recommend is a hover text for the RSS image to clarify what it is.
Got it fixed. The site looks awesome, Chris!!
I couldn’t get the RSS feed to load at all, so I hopped over to read…
WOW!!!
It is definitely not your father’s blog, lol!! It looks great! I like the layout of everything… easy to see, easy to find, and wonderful to look at!
As you requested, I’ll wish you hard work 🙂
Go get ’em!!
I love the site design Chris. Can’t wait for new posts. 2009 will be an incredible year!
Great new look Chris – feel inspired to improve my design.
The recent posts have been fantastic and I look forward to many more. The new posting schedule is cool with me, more quality with less quantity (all killer with no filler) is a recipe for success.
All the best for this New Year. Are you planning on traveling to Australia this year?
Chris,
Great work. I love the fact that I can always dream of travelling the world while I read your posts because of the great background!
Danny
The masthead initially took a while to load but I guess once my firefox’s got it cached it should load as fast as your previous design.
The globe thing is really you!
🙂
Holy cats, Chris, this is a great new design! Can’t remember the last time I had this feeling of satisfaction/excitement upon seeing a new skin.
Box for my website url could be a teensy bit longer, but that’s ALL I’ve got in the way of quibbles.
Rock on. And Reese, just in case you’re lurking, GREAT job of reflecting this guy’s nonconformist DNA in his site!
Beautiful design. Best of luck with the full-time writing.
The Annual Review article was very helpful too. That’s an important step for individuals too not just businesses.
Looks great. Do I see a little Art of Manliness influence? I like that site too.
What’s up with this huge “submit comment” button? You could probably change that up a bit so it’s not so blurry. Otherwise, great job. I like how it doesn’t look like a blog.
Keep up the great work. I’m looking forward to the new posting schedule. I think I’ll like the more in-depth posts better as well. Thank you for everything.
Marshall Jones, Jr.
Hey guys – you are all so great! I am really excited about this (can you tell?) and I appreciate both the thumbs-up and the tips for further improvement.
Tomorrow I’ll be going through and fixing some of the images and excerpts for the older posts. If you notice problems after the next day or two, let me know.
Also, if you’re using Internet Explorer, the site will not display as well as it does in Safari or Firefox. Just FYI. Thanks again and good night!
P.S. One more thing – there is a good backstory to this launch that I’ll tell you in full later. In short, it involves staying up until 2am on Instant Message with Reese – while I was stuck in Portland, Oregon due to inclement weather and sleeping in a guest room that belongs to J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly. It was appropriately crazy… and also fun.
OK, good night for real this time. Feel free to send more comments if you’re just now getting here.
Chris,
The new site looks great. It will take a little getting use to but the change is good. I love the achieve feature. Good luck on the full time writing carrier.
Would you be interested in forming some writers groups to share ideas for your books and ours on world domination? Team work gets more done. We could bounce ideas around to make all our books better. I am currently writing an ebook on 101 wealth principles. Need to create millionaires to give to world changing projects.
The writers mastermind groups could be a separate paid membership site for $1-5/mo. This could supplement your writing income and travel money. We would all benefits from sales of our own books and more travel for you to write about.
Dude, I love it. If I were to offer any input (since you mentioned you appreciate it) I’d say the header is a little on the GIANT side, but other than that it is sooo cool. Nice job.
Congrats on the fresh, new site identity, Chris. The pop-up window asking users to sign up for your newsletter is still a plain blue for me. I don’t know if that is intentional or if you’re currently working on that but it’s a bit off to me now that the main site is so different and warm. Other than that, nice change!
Hi everyone! Thanks for all your comments!
Yes, Shelley, I’m lurking a bit while I continue to tweak some things. Thanks for the heads up on the url area. I’ve updated the comment form–was one of those things I meant to get to, but Mr. Chris wanted to launch 😉
Morgan, thank you for your great idea on the rss icon hover. It’s been updated so that when you hover, it now says RSS.
As per many requests, the header has been made clickable. Good usability call, guys. Stay tuned for search functionality soon.
At some point, we’ll do some ‘decorative’ tweaks for IE7 users but most functionality should be there.
Hey Chris, this is a gorgeous new design with some pretty impressive functionality & tie-ins! Reese did an incredible job! Love it.
Distinctive and stylish, but in a neat and tasteful way, and the static world background reinforces the themes of world domination and world travel (and looks cool too). well done!
Being Australian, I also appreciate our great south land not being relegated to the edge. Not only that, but the dark vertical line coincides with the border between Western Australia and the rest of Aust, giving my home state some prominence … accidental I’m sure, but I like it.
Hi Chris – I really like the site – it “fits” my impression of you far better than the old one. It’s edgy and fun. Great job, and congratulations, too, on the new focus/schedule.
Betsy
Chris,
This new site design is really good. Amazing really.
This is one of the most unconventional (heehee) site redesigns I’ve seen — looks wonderful, like a funky book to delve into! Looks like I’ll be clicking through the e-mails to read on this pretty new page.
Looks amazing, Chris – fantastic work, Reese!
One thing I’d suggest is making your header image link to your home page. I kept wanting to click on it to get back to the main page.
Also, you’ve got an extra “h” in the “http” of your Writing link but maybe you’ve seen that already.
Anyway, congrats on the redesign. . . it’s always nice to have them finished isn’t it? 🙂
The background seems a bit “worldly”…….I like that!
WOW! It’s great! I think I will begin to read your post from your site instead of my rss reader.
Wish you success with your new focus
Oh my! Absolutely Fabulous and all that. Very inspiring and a little intimidating — I can only aspire to having a site that looks so nice. Maybe I can use my picture of Boomer as a background…
Keep up the excellent work.
Though I LOVE your site, I rarely post comments. However, I had to take a few minutes to let you know I really like the new design. It’s striking and definitely makes a statement. I feel like it better represents who you are and what you do. I am looking forward to the new content, as always, but just know I’ll keep reading as long as you keep writing!
ALthough I liked the cleanness of your last design, I love the texture of this one. It’s very referential to what you are about. Oh, the places you can go with it. 😉 Congrats on the launch.
I changed my posting schedule too as a result of my year end review. Thanks again for suggesting the measurable metrics. That alone showed me ways to realign some activities to achieve the results I am after. Thanks again and Happy New Year.
Great redesign. Congrats and can’t wait for the year ahead!
Nice redesign, but what happened to New Zealand in the background?
I like that you have a blog schedule – something I have been bad at doing but plan to do better this year.
New design looks great! Good color contrast, love the header and topnav, and the map background looks really sharp.
Glad you got out of Portland all right – Jodie and I got trapped there for a couple of days as well. Luckily we also had friends to crash with, and they were gracious enough to let us stay that longer than the original 1 night – we spent the time baking, watching movies and catching up.
The design is gorgeous. (:
Congrats to you and the lovely Reese! It’s a bold and exciting redesign, just like the one you’ve done of your life plan. Can’t wait to see what you do this year!
Nice job on the redesign – you get a design that fits your lifestyle, but still managed to put things in the right places and keep it organized enough to be usable.
The site redesign looks great – I have only been checking your posts out for a
few weeks and I have really enjoyed your writing – ummmm…wishing you ‘lots of hard work’ in 2009 (+ some luck).
Wow Chris, love the redesign, it’s amazing.
Great design . . . You STILL have my attention!
I found your site a few weeks back and didn’t know the old design…But one of the first things I loved was the new design. Keep up the good work. Thanks Chris
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