Grading The Goons.

You've all heard me mention GoonBlog several times over the last three months. It's actually been live for a few weeks now, and Chris and I have been hard at work in our rare spare time finding our voice and putting some content together while the graphic design takes place in the background. I have a lot of faith in this project for a variety of reasons, so I decided to pony up some duckets for a professional design.

We didn't want to 'roll it out' until it was 100% done - but I've just gotten the first mockup back from the graphic designer and I want some feedback before I give him another round of changes to make. Click here to go to the designer's site, and then select GoonBlog from the dropdown menu on the right.

I almost really like it. The gloves as a background image in each post, the Stanley Cups beside the titles, the center ice design at the top - but I'm not 'wowed yet' and I desperately want to be. The designer is obviously talented, and followed my exploratory round of suggestions to the letter, but it needs a 'little something'. Here are a few of my ideas, and I look forward to hearing some of yours, dear reader.

- Cartoon players are duking it out rather than checking.
- Post cell is shaded with a light grey instead of surrounded by a thin border.
- Less real estate used at the top of the screen for the graphics.
- "GoonBlog" is more condensed and both words are on the same line. Saves space and will allow us to repurpose it as a logo.
- Yank the crossed hockey sticks.

Those are some of my first impressions. Detroit and I look forward to some of yours. We didn't want to 'drop the curtain' before we officially 'dropped the gloves', but we have - so rip into it and slug us with some feedback. And be sure to have a look at the current version of the site so you can get the big picture/bored to frozen tears.