For the last few weeks I’ve been quietly updating this website. In addition to cleaning up a lot of metadata and re-categorizing hundreds of posts, including creating a category just for photo essays, I’ve also updated image and gallery posts to include featured images. These changes were all in preparation for the bigger change: switching to a new theme.
For the past year or so I’ve been unhappy with how the WordPress theme I’d been using, Hew, displayed images. On mobile and desktop alike it had wide white space to the left and right of paragraphs, with the effect of making images look small. This was especially the case for gallery-style posts. I originally chose Hew because I principally wrote text on Excited Pixels but I’ve found it’s unsatisfying presentation of images has meant I haven’t even wanted to upload or share photos here.
I expect that to change over this year, and plan to prepare and post far more photoessays as well as sole images.
I’m currently using Radcliffe 2; it may not be the theme I stick with in perpetuity but it feels fresh and better presents images I’m uploading to Excited Pixels. I’m happy with the typography and how quotations are presented, and the text is easy to read on a variety of screen sizes. Text continues to be important because I want to keep writing here and, also, I want the 1,600+ posts here to display properly and well. I suspect I’ll continue to make some adjustments over the coming weeks and months, but I can’t picture going back to a WordPress theme that doesn’t present my images as well as Radcliffe does.
Excited Pixels 