“Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile.”
My favorite season has finally arrived! Today marks the official beginning of autumn with the arrival of the autumnal equinox. And with the change in seasons comes change at Third Leap. I’m happy to introduce several modifications to the website!
New Logo
After half of decade of makeshift, homemade logos, I came to the realization that it was finally time to seek professional assistance in creating a new Third Leap logo. After a bit of Instagram networking, I selected Pez & Pencil, a professional designer, illustrator, and lettersmith from Stoke-On-Trent, United Kingdom. Pez was phenomenal to work with, and the logo is better than I ever could have imagined! A future post will recap the finer details of the new logos (yes there are more!) as well as the evolution of the logo throughout the years.
For now, you can find the new logo on the home page.
Optimized Resolution
When I first (re)launched Third Leap, I optimized the website for my default desktop screen resolution of 1280 x 1024 pixels. This decision was made out of convenience, without giving any thought to my visitor’s screen resolutions. Six years ago, optimizing for 1280 x 1024 pixels would have been the right move, but today, the most popular screen resolution is 1366 x 768 – another sign that notebook/laptop users now far outnumber desktop users.
Third Leap has now been reconfigured for 1366 x 768 pixels which makes for a smoother browsing experience.
Sortable Recipes
When I first published the Recipe Archive page, I followed TheMadFermentationist’s static format; categorized, brew day recap links accompanied by a single sentence description. After discovering Scott Janish’s dynamic format, I realized that custom sorting by visitors is inherently more useful. You can now sort the recipes by beer, style, date, rating, etc. In addition to the sortable table, I have begun adding links to BeerXML, tasting notes, and sensory overview files for each recipe. This will provide visitors with complete access to everything they would ever want to know about my beers.
In addition to these three major changes, I also made some minor tweaks to the website:
- Blog Archive page now sports thumbnails of each blog in leiu of boring text – a picture is worth one thousand words, right?
- Home page backdrop photo now complements autumn with its red, orange, and yellow hues
- Email newsletter has been added to the footer (via newspaper icon) – join for quarterly email alters that will give you the inside scoop on Third Leap
- Navigation bar sports a new red color and more page links for easier website navigating
- Icons now accompany the Blog and Recipe Archive buttons on home page for added pizzazz
- Footer sports a new red and features fewer, but larger, social media icon links
- ‘Different By Nature’ appears in the footer as a condensed nod to our goal of creating artisan beer that harmonizes local ingredients with native, foraged yeast to impart a distinctive New England terroir
- Link color has changed from blue (summer) to red (autumn)
There are some additional changes forthcoming, but those are for another day. In the meantime, please let me know what you think about the new website changes in the comments below!
PS: Check out the beautiful photographs (like the one below) by my cousin, Hannah, on Instagram!
