“Around the Common” Redesign

Around the Common is a community blog about my town of Bridgewater, Massachusetts. I recently did a redesign of the site, replacing the default Blogger template with a custom site design. The new design gives the site its own individual look, rather than just be another generic Blogger-powered blog. The almost-daily updates of what’s going on in the town still remains front and center, clearly the focus and easily read on the white background.

Around the Common original site

Around the Common redesign

The old links sidebar, which scrolled for many screens, has been split into two sidebars of logically grouped items: The center column contains town-specific links (government, community, business, and political sites) and the right column is blog-specific content (about the site, RSS feed, Google ads, “Best of Bridgewater” site poll winners, and the archives). The ads, originally buried in the bottom of the sidebar in the old site, now are more easily seen, yet still remain unobtrusive and blend nicely with the site’s colors.

You can visit Around the Common and find out what’s going on in Bridgewater.