I spent a pretty significant amount of time yesterday redesigning DL. The concept is something I've had my heart set on for a very long time now, and someone who's a much better artist than me (I am perfectly aware that I can't draw for crap, thanks) had promised to draw it up for me. For possible t-shirts, actually, but I wanted to use it on the site as well. So I gave up waiting and drew the thing myself. It's cartoony and a bit dorky, but I kind of like that about it, thought it was charming. At least it's original, and a hell of a lot more thought and time and effort went into it than if I'd tossed up some stock photos of the characters like I did with the last three designs.

I've actually gotten more feedback in favor of it than against it, but those who are against it really, REALLY hate it and are not at all shy about saying so. So now I'm all, should I redo it again? Because I'm not that attached to the concept as it stands (or the picture, even though I poured my non-artistically-inclined little heart into it), and it's really not worth the grief. But then again it's not like they're complaining about usability, they just don't like the way it looks. I suppose I could point them to the FAQ where it says that the site is about the writing and not about pretty pictures and then tell them all to suck it up and deal. Which I may just have to do for the time being, because it's not like I have loads of time on my hands, especially not to spend trying to satisfy people who seem to have missed the point of the site.

Guh. Can you believe I actually lost sleep over this? And now I'm sitting here too worried about the lameness of the site's new look to be able to focus on writing. But at least all of the usability issues with the old layout seem to have been solved, and that's the important thing. I really need to stop thinking about this. I'm obsessing, and there are soooo many other things that I need to be spending my energies on.

Heh. It always amuses me a little how much harder I take it when people criticize my web layouts than when they criticize my writing. I have no idea why that is.