Time for a redesign!

I chose the dark design for this blog from the default blogger themes...a looong time ago (or so it seems)! Since then, I've taken a usability course in school, read many things on the web concerning usability, and been active at Deviant Art.

I believe it is time for a fresh look :D
The testing grounds: techknack2.blogspot.com ;)

One of the things I've heard recently is that white text on dark backgrounds is not all that usable. Cool, but not usable. As I've gone back and read a couple of my posts, I've realized that it's true, especially for long blocks of text; the text just seems to fade into the background after a rather short amount of time.

Another issue I've had is clutter; the more I look at my blog, the more clutter I see. Whitespace is good; simpler is better. Keep it simple, stupid.

In my search for templates for the new Blogger, I've found but one that I really like: Azul by karan at Skins4Bogger. Unfortunately, the XML download is for a completely different theme...

As per usual, I appreciate any and all feedback. What do you expect to see in a blog's layout? Where do you expect to see these things? Should the comment count be before the post, or after? Etc :)