Welcome To The Newly Designed TMV
And, so, today a new era begins for The Moderate Voice.
Our new design better reflects what TMV is today and what we hope it will become in coming years as it continues its rapid growth as a prime moderate/centrist/independent voice on the Internet.
The new design is the brainchild of two innovative and highly-talented website designers. TMV coblogger Justin Delabar did the original design with the capitol building, page tabs etc. and the masthead using colors that were on the original TMV as the site appeared on Powerblogs and shortly after our move here to WordPress (the design we’ve used for the past few months has been a temporary template). He took our old look to the cleaner, crisper look you see today.
Lara Chelak of Blog What Design then took the original design and tinkered with the colors, the photo of the capitol building and some other aspects to build upon it. Justin had sent his original concept to Lara who worked to implement it and expand upon it. (We will STRONGLY recommend their services individually or in collaboration for anyone who is interested in using them).
Some things to look at on the “new” TMV:
- The masthead. It more accurately defines what TMV is today. It is no longer a blog just written by a quirky former full-time journalist who is now in the entertainment industry, but is a group blog. It is NOT just a site that offers pieces on politics but tries to offer the subject diversity of a newspaper or magazine (although we don’t do many sports posts).
- The “look” is more of a news site look, yet since it is a blog the typical blog format has been left intact. That’s because TMV is used by many people as a news source for many stories due to our extensive links from differing news sources and to weblogs of many different opinions.
- Our mission statement, on a separate page (see page tab above). This spells out more clearly what TMV is and is not. It will be periodically revised.
- Our famous categorized blogroll, on a separate page (see page tab above). This should help the site load faster. Also, TMV’s blogroll is a WORKING BLOGROLL and not just for show and this should make it easier for anyone wanting to read the site and also checking out other links. NOTE TO READERS: Let us know if you like it on a separate page.
TMV’s goal is to be a leading centrist/independent/moderate voice on the Internet and grow enough so the center has a weblog/news site equivalent to some of the bigger blogs on the left and right. But, no matter what happens, we’re pleased to offer readers this more “reader friendly” design that better reflects what TMV is and what we are striving to have it become.
11 Responses to “Welcome To The Newly Designed TMV”
I Like the new design, except it loads a lot slower now.
It’s not supposed to be loading slowly.
A couple of reasons why the site is slower:
1. There are more graphical elements to the site which load slower.
2. There are more ads on the site which sometime cause slow page load speeds.
The next day or so, there will be some “optimizations” to help increase page loading speeds. One thing about site design, you always end up tweaking things hear and there to find a “comfort level”.
Tyrone S.
TMV Administrator
As tyrone says: you have to give it some time. It has not even been up 24 hour yet.
Yes, as Tyrone said… we’ll be going through to complete some tweaks to put the site in tip-top shape.
Am I the only one who feels that “Right Voices” should be elevated above “Other Voices.” I realize that the sequence “Center Voices”, “Left Voices”, “Other Voices”, “Right Voices” follows alphabetical order, but it doesn’t make intuitive sense (to me at least) for “Other Voices” (ostensibly the “leftover” category) to precede “Right Voices.” That, and our conservative friends might feel slighted at being placed last.
FWIW Nick – You’ve got this ‘lefties‘ vote… Alphabetical order IS logical in a ‘neat and tidy’ world but the world isn’t always ‘neat and tidy’… Plus IMO “Right Voices” will be referred to more often than “Other Voices”.
Better yet… As they now have their own TMV Blogroll Page (and as liberal progressives are the only logical choice :] ) I’d like to see “Left Voices” and “Right Voices” side-by-side (left on the left if that’s O.K. with you) giving any undecided / unindoctrinated readers an easy way to compare the attitude and outlook of both sides of the fence.
Hey guys…. Here’s a real knee slapper for ya. I was on another blog, that linked to here. and I followed the link, and for some reason your name didn’t *click* in my brain… anyways, I got here and went WHOA! someone stole Joe’s blog name… then it dawned on me, this IS Joe’s blog! ROFLMAO! Great new design man! WOW! Awesome… I’m green with envy! *stomps feet* I wanna get on WordPress too man!
get cool and stuff too!!! 
anyhow…it looks great joe, I look forward to coming here everyday. *thumbs up*
-Chuck
I’m with Nick and Steve. I think “Right” should be placed above “Other”. No it’s not alphabetical, but classification is done to make sense to the people who go looking for things. When there are only 4 categories an alphabetical list is not as important as, say, in the tag list. The intuitive list for a moderate blog is “Center, Right, Left, & Other” or “Center, Left, Right and Other”. Toss a coin on that one, I suppose.
I don’t even see the blogroll..?
Congrats Joe and gang. The new site looks like an update of the old look, which I rather liked.
But you know, Joe, there’s too much blue! Can’t you see that you have insulted the red staters? It’s a hidden liberal agenda, isn’t it? And what’s with the yellow? What sort of message does that send? And, and…
For info, I’m having no problem loading the page.