Yep, I've got a new default layout for my blog now! I'm really digging it, it's all kinda old looking, in a nice way. I've still got a few improvements to make to it but all in all, there should be no drastic changes to this layout.

Technical details. Nearly all layout changes have been done using stylesheets. I didn't really touch the HTML much, just added an class attribute so I could style posts properly. Also, had a minor change to the HTML to make it XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant, so now I'm happy! Navigation and header type is Georgia for that old-ish feeling. Most of the little graphical flourishes used brushes and dingbat fonts. Hand painted the worn paper effects and the grunginess on the header.

While researching the worn, old style look, I came accross a great article on how to do it. Also a few resources like brushes and stuff. The best thing I found while digging through it though, was a retro colour palette for Photoshop. I've always had trouble figuring out colours, and this just helps immensely. I've combined the palette with some other colour strip I found on the net so now I'm a really happy camper. Probably going to be doing a few retro look designs before I get sick of it all.

On a sidenote, if for whatever reason you feel the need to go back to my old blog layout, you can load it up by clicking on the seashore link on the nav section marked alternatively. Kinda cool huh?