Funky, Minimalist, Blog Redesign Needed! Wireframe provided.

The Squiggly Line

Hi designers!

About 3 years ago, I began blogging at my website, http://www.thesquigglyline.com. I always had the intention of redesigning a custom template 'soon' after launch - but it never happened. I've continued to blog consistently over those three years, building a similarly consistent readership.

I would now like to redesign my blog. This project means a lot to me.

You can see my current blog here: http://www.thesquigglyline.com and read more about me in the about section (http://www.thesquigglyline.com/about).

My audience tend to be:

- Predominantly male, but it's probably 60:40 males:females.
- Largely Australian based
- People who use twitter
- People who:
- Write Ruby
- Build web businesses
- Save the world
- Come along to Trampoline (http://www.trampolineday.com).

- Would rather have the blog posts delivered to their email inbox, than subscribe through an RSS feed.
- They like to comment, but the conversation is what matters most.

Having said that, I'm beginning to target a more international audience, mainly from the western world (London/US).

I need the design to be suitable for current versions of Wordpress.org, and want to to include some of the following design elements.

I have some idea about what I want, but am happy for you to go for it and follow your intuition about what you think suits.

1) Structure
-Focused on content
-NO columns please
-Focus on email subscription sign up
-Design applicable to pages, as well as posts.

2) I would like the wordpress template to look like design of Vimeo, but more minimalist, with some splashes of colour.

See this screen shot: http://screencast.com/t/sOHiiNlBF

I like this Ai-Live.com for its simplicity: http://ai-live.com/
I like Ross' website: http://rosshill.com.au/
I like Craig's' website: http://craigmod.com/
I like candy stripes like this and would like to incorporate it *somewhere* if possible. http://screencast.com/t/Ku0dtJkoqN

3) I have attached a very basic mock-up/wireframe for you to look at. It is also viewable on Google Docs:

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=…y=CMPu_dQJ

4) I'd like some iconography to be included for the artifacts of Wordpress. As you can see in the mock-up, I'd like to have a stat/metric type design in the right-hand column. I'd like to see icons for:

-Subscribe (via email)
-Follow me on twitter-@stevehopkins
-Comments
-Number of Reads