dwellinggawker favorites 06/03/12

Linger for a while in the top five dwellinggawker favorites from this month:

Is your shoe collection getting out of control? Check out this post for creative ideas to organize your shoes. [via PS by Dila]

~

The key to a well-organized garden is a great pathway, use these 35 garden pathways as inspiration for your next project. [via Freshome]

~

Brighten up your home for summer with these 10 colorful ideas. [via Babble]

~

From ice to sand dunes: 36 incredible places to see on Earth. [via Enpundit]

~

Style has no price tag— try these tips for a pretty home on a budget. [via Florence Finds]

~

Forget diamonds, a well-organized closet is a girl’s best friend: 12 Captivating Closets to Covet. [via Fab You Bliss]

weddinggawker favorites 05/28/12

Revel in the top five weddinggawker favorites from this month:

Burlap adds a rustic touch to any wedding; browse through this gallery for 15 burlap finds. [via OneWed]

~

A list of gorgeous wedding dresses including this one photographed in Paris. [via Le Magnifique]

~

Incredible first look photographs from both the altar and first look sessions. [via Bowties & Bliss]

~

Advice on how best to word wedding invitations. [via Apple Brides]

~

Wondering how to integrate your pet into your special day? Check out this post with over 20 ideas for how to include your pet in your wedding. [via Bridal Guide]

craftgawker favorites 05/07/12

Quell some Spring time boredom with the top five craftgawker favorites from this month:

Adorable magnetic closure bracelets made out of t-shirts. [via Henry Happened]

~

10 incredible ideas for DIY furniture makeovers. [via Babble]

~

DIY lace socklets add interest and can even make ill-fitting shoes more comfortable. [via Love Maegan]

~

Be inspired by mystifying paint sculptures made by sound vibrations. [via Enpundit]

~

Can beachy waves be accomplished by straight ironing braided hair? [via Oh So Pretty]

foodgawker favorites 04/22/12

Take a bite out of the top five foodgawker favorites from this month:

These s’mores cupcakes have both the flavor and texture of real s’mores. [via The Pastry Affair]

~

Spiked spaghetti (spaghetti with vodka sauce) makes a great romantic dish. [via 6 Bittersweets]

~

The best roasted potatoes you’ll ever eat. [via Jo Cooks]

~

A last minute scramble for homemade cinnamon rolls leads to this simple creation— Crescent Cinnamon Rolls. [via The Hungry Housewife]

~

Chew it over with a Twix cake. [via Raspberri Cupcakes]

Site Redesign

After 7 months of design, development and a lot of testing, we are extremely excited to launch the new look of the gawkerverse. We are starting out with foodgawker and rolling out the new design to the other sites in the next few days. The redesign adds some new features and a little more polish to the sites. It’s also a responsive web design, which means the layout adapts and optimizes to  whatever device (mobile, tablet, desktop, etc.) you use.

We are going to follow-up this post over the next few weeks and give more detailed descriptions and tips on using the new and old functionality, but we want to highlight a few now.

Hover Bars

The first new feature is the hover bars on the photo cards (desktop browsers only).

The title is shown and you can now share the post via Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc., by hovering over the photo. We also added a magnifying glass icon for easier access to the post permalink page to see categorization and tags.

Customize

The customize feature allows you to tailor and save pages to your tastes and preferences. Custom pages are essentially saved searches without the need to enter a search term. Here are few examples of custom pages we created…

* Healthy, fruits and veggies <- vegan, fruit and vegetables excluding desserts

* Asian food <- posts from select bloggers who cook mainly Asian dishes

* Desserts, no vegan/gluten free <- desserts excluding vegan and gluten free

Pagination

We cleaned up and simplified pagination. Now you can enter the page number, hit the return/go key on your keyboard and go directly to the page you want.

Mobile

The responsive web design impacts mobile the most. You’ll see the desktop ads disappear, the navigation collapse, the footer minimize and the photo cards reduce to mini-cards. The layout out should work well whether it’s iOS, Android, Windows Phone or any other modern mobile platform.

On mobile, you’ll need to go to the post permalink page (tap on the magnifying glass) to view a larger image, categorization, tags and to share via Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and more.

You may notice the page numbers only change with every other page load. The page numbers match the desktop site page numbering, but we are splitting the desktop page (46 posts) into 2 pages (24 and 22 posts) on mobile. This reduces the length of scrolling and page weight on mobile for faster loading.

Other Changes

Match by keywords in search - when we launched advanced search, we implemented phrase matching to get better results on search terms, but we realized that it was too restrictive. Now a search for chocolate cake will return all results that have the terms chocolate and cake anywhere in the post title, description or tags. If you want to match exactly by phrase, just add quotes around your search terms, e.g. “chocolate cake”.

Fixed favorites sidebar bug - if your username had a space, period or any other odd character in it, the favorites page wouldn’t show the categories or your tags in the sidebar. This has been fixed.

Search Bar - search is still in the same location in the header. If your screen width can only support three columns of photo cards, the search bar has been collapsed. Just click/tap on the search icon to expand the search bar.

Thank You

I’d like to thank Maria, our designer, for coming up with a great look and feel. I’d also like to thank Sandy Sage and the Crowd Favorite team for developing and implementing the responsive design. I believe everyone is tired of my nitpicking and pixel pushing of the design and code. Thanks to the all the gawkerverse team members who helped out in user testing. It took us awhile to get the redesign launched, but I’m very happy with the results.

Enhancements

Even though we have launched the redesign, there are more refinements we want to make and will do so in the upcoming weeks and months.

Between the gawkerverse and the Crowd Favorite teams, we have tested the new design on 10+ browsers and a few dozen devices. We weren’t able to test across all mobile devices as there are just too many smartphones out there. So, if you see any issues or just have feedback, please drop us a note via our contact form.

We hope you enjoy the new design!

-Chuck

dwellinggawker favorites 04/04/12

Revel in the top five dwellinggawker favorites from this month:

Thought stairs were boring? Think again with this compilation post of inspirational staircases. [via Lulobird]

~

A quick tip to help hang or mount items without drilling unnecessary holes. [via The Harpster Home]

~

Spark your Spring cleaning creativity with a list of 25 beautifully organized closets. [via Babble]

~

National Geographic took inspiration from the Pixar movie “UP” and created a real-life flying balloon house. [via Inthrlld]

~

Check out this fascinating design that offers the illusion of a cut chair. [via 1 Design Per Day]

weddinggawker favorites 03/25/12

Celebrate with the top five weddinggawker favorites from this month:

An elegant DIY wedding in Nebraska for under $5,000. [via Le Magnifique]

~

A chic wedding in Portland, plus a tutorial for the bride’s retro-inspired hairstyle. [via Bridal Musings]

~

A DIY aisle runner that can serve as a memento after the ceremony. [via Oh Lovely Day]

~

What not to do: the top five fashion faux pas committed by grooms on their wedding day. [via One Wed]

~

A photo diary documenting one bride’s battle with cancer. [via Bridal Guide]