I mentioned several days ago that I was working on an update to the Stormbirds site with the goal of updating the template and hopefully solving some technical issues along the way. I’m pleased to report that the first part of that effort is now underway, however, what you see now is not entirely what I have envisioned and so there will be additional changes coming in the next several days and no doubt weeks and months.
So what’s new? The biggest change is that for the first time in this site’s history, I have moved to a new template. Strictly speaking, I did update the template once before but it was from version 1 to version 2 of the same overall scheme. More recently I also started using an alternative template for news posts pushing the featured image to the top and making for more readable space. Time marches on and technologies change and the site has been having several underlying issues that I was not able to work with under the old template. Rather than change for change sake, occasionally it is important to do a refresh.
The new template is now in place but I intend to do more with it and more is possible. More modern WordPress templates have more control over how content and elements are arranged and while I’ve initiated the first set of changes that I wanted to see, there are more things I’d like to change. The overly large heading and featured image I’d like to cut down a little while still maintaining the visual appeal and punch of some (hopefully) beautiful flight sim graphics. The templates for pages needs refinement too.
You’ll note that I’ve also updated the logo for Stormbirds to match the new set of fonts available. You’ll hopefully note that I’ve retained the same sans-serif (for the font nerds out there) style and the wings on either end of the logo are still there with some tweaks to the size and angle. It’s new, its a little bit fresh, and I reserve the right to continue to tweak it.
The TL;DR of all of this is that Stormbirds is still very much continuing on, there’s more work to do, and I appreciate everyone’s feedback and comments so far. You were all encouraging and I hope I’ll continue to hear on what is working well, what you like about the new setup, and what still needs some effort to be put in. This is not the end of this update but the beginning.
Stormbirds 
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