Over the past several years since the start of the blog sometime in September 2004, And Far Away has gone through some make-overs. Here, you can trace the aesthetic changes of And Far Away over the years.

(For the details, click on each image, which well, somehow grows)

September 2004:
(the first design ever)

This design marks the very beginning of And Far Away. I had absolutely no knowledge of html, CSS, or any other sort of web-related language. I had never used Photoshop before, and I didn’t even know that Dreamweaver existed. I managed to change the original colors of the header (which I believe were green or orange) to red and pink by randomly changing the color codes on the template and relying on trial and error.
I had this design for a very long time compared the designs that would follow, and that could be attributed to the fact that I eventually taught myself sufficient information about CSS and HTML to manage creating my own designs.
Here’s a link to the first post ever (on the very latest design).

November 19, 2005:
(the first “launched” redesign)

The first year of my design program had come to an end and I was a more familiar with Photoshop than ever before. This design was based on a Blogger template, but I changed the colors and added a header I edited myself. The surprise of this design to me was the use of the color green- I have always hated green, and here I was using it in something I love so much. But green it was… and I was surprised by the amount of positive feedback I got about this design.
Here’s thepost I launched this design with.

July 13th, 2006:
(also marks the move from WordPress to Blogger)

Eigh months after my last redesign, I decided to migrate to WordPress, and that, naturally, had to come with another redesign. This one was based on a portfolio project I had done earlier for a webdesign class at school. I really like this design, although I thought it was a little “dull.” Gray just isn’t the color for me, I’m a lot more loud and obnoxious than gray, and the header is too clean and polished, and I’m extremely messy and “ma3jooga”. So needless to say, I was rather anxious to change it to become more in line with the content.
Here’s a link to the moving post.
 

September 2006:
(another redesign on the second anniversary, and the current design)

This is definitely my favorite “And Far Away” design so far; a lot of white space, Amman in the background, and a lot space for change. I launched it with the second anniversary, expecting no one to like it (especially the rainbow bit). A lot of people didn’t like the rainbow bit, but otherwise, the design was well taken.
Link to second anniversary post.

Sketches throughout the ages (and I’m glad I didn’t go with any of them):

So, which is your favorite And Far Away design?