Unless you’re reading via RSS, welcome to Unsung’s new livery!

I dreaded even attempting the redesign, but as I was adding full-text search to the blog, I realized the previous simple frame couldn’t accommodate it – no matter what I did, the search felt bolted on. I suppressed my PM side, decided to scope creep, and the 500th postiversary provided a good arbitrary deadline. (This is post №492, so hopefully I’m not jinxing it.)

One trick helped me. I decided to start the redesign coworking from a friend’s startup in a cool Chicago building, for the first time ever, hoping that the new surroundings will inspire me. It worked!

Functionality

The main impetus for the redesign was to recognize the blog’s growing body of work and make Unsung more evergreen, and something one could revisit in the future as a resource. Here’s what I did:

• There is now a “Random post” link – I’m hoping it becomes a delightful little way to poke around.
• There is also a search that can help you find an older post or navigate the site in a different way.
• The sitemap shows all the tags, now with light commentary.
• Posts that are in a series are now connected through navigation:

I also added a way to follow and comment on the blog posts on Mastodon and Bluesky, on top of existing RSS and weekly email digest.

Visuals and interactions

The first edition of Unsung was the default Montaigne styling (just so I could focus on writing and establishing a routine), and the second edition borrowed a lot from the design of my main site, Aresluna:

For this first proper design of Unsung, I wanted something more distinct, something that wouldn’t feel too “computer retro,” and something that steered clear of the preeminent AI aesthetic.

The fonts I chose:

• The body font is David J. Ross’s Warbler,
• The sans serif working hard (and occasionally having fun) is David J. Ross’s Bild,
• The logo font that you will see pop-up occasionally elsewhere is Neonoir by Phospho Type foundry, with some modifications.

The color – well, didn’t you see me yearning for something evergreen above?

Just kidding. I liked this factory green in a few places I spotted it recently, and I thought it felt appropriate, and beautiful in its own pedestrian way.

A lot of the design tenets of Unsung are still the same as before: no rounded corners, no shadows, no blurs, and a general distrust of symmetry. Plus, there are now a few more uneven surfaces.

I could write some bs about how the sharp edges vis-à-vis the flowing neon text (and the neon-inspired icons I designed) represent the tension between craft and manufacture…

…but, I don’t know. A lot of this design stuff is rattling around in different parts of the brain and doesn’t bubble up to the surface where words live. It just felt to me the contrast was fun.

Personal goals

Because yeah, in addition to all the explicit and implicit goals, I also wanted to have a bit of fun and learn new things, and add a bit of delight, which hopefully you will spot here and there.

I hope it makes both reading and navigating the blog more enjoyable.

Thank you to Naz Hamid and David J. Ross for their help with the redesign.