A New Look for Phoenicia

While adding some new pages to the Phoenicia Publishing website the other day, I managed to delete the home page. While reconstructing it, I decided -- whether fearlessly or foolishly - to try out a new theme, and ended up giving a facelift to the whole site (and devoting way more time to it this week than I'd planned, but, hey.) It's something I've wanted to do for a while but I guess I needed this push by fate!

Please check it out and if you see anything amiss, please let me know. I'm always interested in your opinions about the content, look, fonts, sizing, ease of use,  navigation. The photo-headers are new, and may change with the seasons; we'll see. What do you like, or not?

In addition to getting ready for our new publications coming later this fall, I was also posting a new Phoenicia blog post, with more behind-the-scenes photographs of the recording process during last month's sessions for the forthcoming Jon Appleton CD.

And there's a new sign-up for the Phoenicia email newsletter, no more than twice yearly, but it will offer special prices, pre-order offers, and occasional giveaways, exclusive to the subscribers. Some of you are faithful readers and much appreciated customers, and are already on the list, but if you aren't and would like to be, please do sign up!

Comments

[Roderick Robinson]

Line length/font size. In print publishing this ratio is strictly observed (I'm sure you're aware of this); if the font size is too small the eye has difficulty "turning" from one line to the next, although increasing the leading can help. I would have thought your line length was close to the maximum given the smallish font.

An invaluable reference (which is also, amazingly, a good read) is Editing And Design, written by Harold Evans, editor of The Sunday Times and later The Times. Later still head of Random House. He is the only person I know who can explain type usage objectively without resorting to vague terms like "look" and "feel".

However, subjectivity does also play a part. I have published several longish short stories on my blog, such that I've exceeded the maximum wordage for posts and have had to break the stories (three parts in one instance) to make them blogger-acceptable. My line length, dictated by a standard template, is much shorter than yours and I thought my ratio was OK. But Lucy, whose blog line length is similar to yours but who employs a larger font, admits to difficulties in following these long posts.

Thanks for your incidental mention of the Annunciation project. An aspect of this aroused my interest and led to my first serious attempt at what I take to be vers libre, recently posted. I got some encouraging comments.