Hi all!
So I’m kind of liking the changes I’ve made to the blog design so far, and might not mess around with it too much more.
I’m still open to feedback, but here are some of the thoughts that went in to my choices.
Color scheme…
If you notice when you first arrive to my blog, you get an overall feel of blues and greens with some pops of yellow. I chose photos that brought out those colors to use in my header and background, and then set the font colors to reflect those colors as well. Even my Gravatar pic is of me in my yellow shirt – it’s all tied together.
Primary photo choices…
When I chose my header photos, I kind of stuck with some from before, but also changed it up a bit. I updated which Disney photo I used. (Since I’m a Disney expert, there HAD to be a Disney photo in there.) And if you notice, I tried to balance things out visually by putting the Eiffel Tower on the opposite side to kind of off-set that Cinderella Castle pic. We have a sort of architectural symmetry going on, framing the other pics.
Each one of the pics has blue in it, and various levels of green and yellow. The light blue of the water at Saharun Beach matches nicely with the light blue of the gown in the headshot pic next to it.
As to the background, I went with an older background pic – it was taken on my first visit to Croatia in early 2012 – when Miloš and I were on one of our crazy marathon walks – looking over to the Selce area of Crikvenica. I like how the deep blue color of the water provides an overall outer frame to the entire page
New template…
This particular template has the menu “tabs” as floating words along the top of the page. While I wish they were a little more in the forefront, they still work well there. I’m cool with it. This template also has a wider area for text and widgets than the last one I used. I kind of like that – mostly. Still making up my mind about that. I do like that it allows for a bigger, bolder header at the top. That way, when people visit my site, they get that strong visual first impression – which I think is an important element when you want people to stay on your page and further explore it.
Widgets…
For those who don’t know, widgets are the various boxes that you can add to your page – mine are along the right side of the of the text area. There’s all kinds to choose from. I got rid of some of the old ones, and added new ones to the mix. At the top, right under the header, I have the “subscribe” button as the first widget. I wanted to make that super easy to find and right there without requiring scrolling of any kind. Then comes my Gravatar widget. That’s my little square avatar that has the mini profile underneath it. People can click on that and get even more info about me and see some extra pics. Among other things, I have a widget of my Twitter feed, Links to my other sites, and a counter of how many views my blog has gotten. The biggest change I made to my widgets though, was adding photo widgets to the right side, and so…
Photo widgets…
I thought it would be kind of nice to highlight some of my favorite pics as a constant on every page. This way, people wouldn’t have to go looking through old blog posts to see them. It’s also a way to feature some of the places I’ve visited on my adventures. In addition, it just simply shows a little more insight into my personality – readers get to see me living my life on my happiest days, or just visiting really cool destinations. My only concern is that it might make it too busy? However, when you are scrolling down, the pics don’t really interfere with anything else. And they provide a nice visual contrast to posts with lots of text.
I’ve worked on customizing the layout as much as I can using one of the free template options. It seems you have more options for customization IF you pay to upgrade your account. I may need to eventually do that, as I am now at 68% of my allowable media upload limit. But I’m not rushing to have to pay for my blog anytime soon. (At least I think that’s the way it works – other bloggers want to chime in here and help me out? Will going “premium” allow me unlimited media uploads?)
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. I hope you like the changes I’ve made up to this point. And again, I welcome any thoughts and feedback! Thanks! 🙂
