JWN redesign update #1

Big thanks to everyone who sent comments in response to the post I put up recently on my desire to upgrade several aspects of the blog. If you’re reading this post on the JWN site you will already have seen that the design is changing a bit. Bear with this process as it continues. I decided that rather than spend time discussing with a web designer what I wanted to do it might be a lot easier to start trying to do as much of the redesign myself as I am able. Especially as I now have quite a lot of experience of tweaking my own Movable Type.
In this first step, I reorganized the front page into a two-sidebar format, since the old sidebar had become ways long, crowded, and clunky; and I tweaked other design elements quite a bit along the way. However, the visual redesign of the site is by no means finished yet. I think I’m going to look for something ‘cleaner’ and classier. I really don’t like the blue I have on the banner right now. Ways too bright and perky!
I would love to have a well designed JPG-imaged banner, though I haven’t found anything I like yet. Can anyone out there make one for me? I’m thinking something classy, lots of white, some blue, possibly some greys… an image of the world, a peace dove or something… and of course the text that we have on the banner now. If you can make one for me, please send it along!
Also, any comments you have about the redesign to date. Giving the main blog text a fixed 55-px width rather than a proportional width was a suggestion from Bill the spouse. I have yet to implement that in the archived versions of the posts. Does anyone else have thoughts on that?
Onward and upward.
Update, Sept. 11: Sorry about any strange effects you might experience. I’m trying to keep them to a minimum. ~HC.