A brand new, responsive OM&HB

The days when I switched my blog design every few months are very long gone, but here we are again with a new look OM&HB, only 20 months after the last one.

Here’s what it looks like right now:

And this is why it is significant:

Yes, I’ve finally gone mobile-friendly and responsive.

I pretty much had no choice: tablet and phone traffic is nudging towards 50% of my site traffic – and it gets even higher than that on “big hit” posts. If I care about my readers – and I do – I should be catering to their device choice.

Also, frankly, when I’m talking to publishers and journalists about mobile strategy, having a design that’s not mobile-friendly was getting rather embarrassing.

What’s changed?

• Responsive design! Yes, I said that above. But it’s the most important thing…
• The sidebar returns. Yes, I tried to bury it all at the bottom of the page, but it didn’t work. A single sidebar is still useful.
• Sharing buttons are gone. An experiment: I want to see if the lack of sharing buttons has any traffic impact.
• Pagingation. You can actually (at long last) page back through older entries from the homepage of the site.
• Taupy RIP. Yes, the lizard finally bites the dust. Here, for a final time, is Taupy, the mascot of this blog for the best part of eight years:

What do you think?