For those that I haven’t badgered with various Photoshop or CSS questions in the last month, I’m working on a complete overhaul to the site. The current theme is one that has evolved from a WordPress theme I found somewhere in the theme directories online, and because of such it’s frankly a mess. The code is nasty and has way too many images in it (the sidebar is insanely cluttered with images making page load times way more intense than they should be). So, I’ve been working on a more aesthetically pleasing as well as cleaner theme for the site.

Part of this overall change will incorporate a bit of layout changes on the main page as well as a new logo for the site. I was hoping to get a pro to do this and contacted several people in the community. However, I was only able to get one company to come back and tell me that they could indeed take on new clients, while everyone else I contacted said they wouldn’t be available for new clients until Spring 2007. There was one listener that contacted me about this issue and I emailed him back, but I have since lost your email (my Macbook’s hard drive failed a bit ago) and I haven’t received another email from you, so if you’re reading, email me again if you’re interested please.

All that being said, here is a draft that I have been working on so far. I originally wanted something super aqua and realistic and still wouldn’t mind having that, but it’s simply out of my ability to create something like that, so I thought that I would go with something flat looking, while still stylish. Just some things that come to my mind when I think of “fanatic” are a lot of sports stuff like megaphones, pom-poms, and mainly the big #1 foam finger. Here is my initial mockup so far.

Please send me some comments, especially if you are coming from a designer perspective and could contribute useful tips. Feel free to email me some suggestions as well, maybe I’ve missed a very cool idea and you have it, that’d be great. Keep the suggestions and thoughts coming people!