Great Find: Create Your Own WordPress Theme

May 25, 2006 by Liz

Something to Do This Weekend

You’ve got some energy and a weekend to change things around. Why not go for it?

Great Find: Blog design 101: Creating your own WordPress theme by Rachel Cunliffe
Type of Article: How-to on WordPress Theme design
Permalink: http://cre8d-design.com/blog/2006/01/27/blog-design-101-creating-your-own-wordpress-theme/
Target Audience: Designers and the brave among others

Content: Rachel Cunliffe, blog (and website) designer from New Zealand, is well known for her work around the blogosphere. She did Darren’s unique Problogger.net design among others. This classic post gives some start up advice and links . . . with more links in the comments . . . and even more links in the related posts. Click the title shot below for a peek. Rachel’s blog, cre8d design, is the real Great Find here.

Great design is curb appeal, branding, and promotion.

Thanks Rachel, for giving us a start. We’ll use this until we can hire YOU.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

5 Type Turn-Offs that Are Exit Only

May 9, 2006 by Liz

I’m Only 1 Reader

Spend enough time as a publisher and when you read for fun, you can’t help seeing publishing things . . . if they’re great I comment on them. Reinforce good behavior is what I learned in teachers’ school. If they’re not good typography, I try to overlook them and keep reading. If I simply cannot, usually I just move on shaking my head. I go back to my own blog to make sure that I’m not doing the same thing.

YET when I see the same type issues happening from one blog to another, I think folks can’t see how the type looks and feels from this side of the computer. So I’ve started taking notes on what it’s like to be the reader. Of course, I’m only one reader, but I AM one reader. I’m one who will come back or I won’t. [Read more…]

Color and Font Codes

May 7, 2006 by Liz

HTML Color and Font Codes

When I first started blogging, I was anxious to do what I could do in print–add emphasis using color or maybe once on a rare occasion change the font for flavor. But I was new to HTML and the rules had me baffled. I recently found this simple tutorial that not only shows how, but also shows which fonts are those that usually work.

Great Find: Color in Your Text from Writing up.com
Type of article: HTML tutorial
Permalink: http://www.writingup.com/htmltutor/color_in_your_text_from_htmltutor
Target Audience: Folks who want to know more about HTML
Content: This tutorial starts out with the basic code for changing the font and the color of your text.

Then the tutorial offers two clicks further. The first click takes you to choosing type fonts. While you are there, you can see how each font looks and check whether it is available on your computer. The second click shows you a basic color chart and color words to allow a chance for experimentation.

This tutorial is great for new bloggers or for seasoned bloggers in a hurry looking for a color change in their typography.

Click this screenshot title to go there.

I’m adding this to the NEW BLOGGER PAGE in the side bar.

–ME “Liz Strauss

Getting Customers to Stop by to See You

May 2, 2006 by Liz

Walking the Trade Show Floor

Yesterday walking the trade show floor, I felt I was in a 3-D blog world. Aisles and aisle of blogs sitting side by side with real people in and around them. They were all in the same market, different niches. Some were not easy to tell apart. I was scanning the signage to get a clue. Oh my! 60% were woefully inadequate. Here’s what I saw.

Company names with not a hint of what they do.
A list of what the company does, but no name to pull it together.
Taglines that said abolutely nothing, i.e. making things happen — good things? bad things? It didn’t say.
Taglines that said the same five buzz words that I found at most every other booth.

It seemed clear to me that the folks who designed these books — 3-D blogs — were thinking of what they thought the customer should know rather than thinking of what the customer might have come to find out. Standing outside each booth that I’m talking about I only had one question. [Read more…]

Great Find: Adding Show-Hide and Categories

April 23, 2006 by Liz

Improbulus Offers Us 2 in 1

There’s a reason I wrote poetry to Improbulus the blogger at A Consuming Experience. She is one great researcher, analyst, problem solver, who does everyone a service in every post she writes. Her analysis and deep research are featured in Technorati’s family of support pages.

This post is a two-in-one special for you. What I give you today is WAY COOL.

Great Find: How to include categories for your blog (manual, expand-collapse) by Improbulus
Type of Article: How-to article on adding show/hide feature and categories to blogging platforms that don’t offer those features.
Permalink: http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-to-include-categories-for-
Target Audience: Anyone who needs to add a way to do categories or show/hide features to their blog platform

Content: If there’s an interesting problem to be figured out, Improbulus has been on it and found a way to deal with–if not, she’s found out who’s already done that. This particular entry in her archives demonstrates how to break a post and continue it on the next page in the lower function blog platforms. It also shows how to manually add posts to categories in a platform, such as Blogger–the platform that Improbulus uses. The great news is she offers the exact code and how to use it. Click the Consuming Experience to access the article.

Adding categories is great promotion for page views. It pulls readers deeper into your blog. I’m going to have to write her another poem, but first I need to add categories to my blogspot blog.

If you use this post, how about leaving Improbulus a comment or better yet, linking to it. It’s always a great idea to support folks who do us these kinds of big favors.

Brand you and me. Improbulus understands that BIG TIME.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Cool Designs April 2006

April 8, 2006 by Liz

Successful Blogs Look Successful

Spring is time we think of spring cleaning. I’ve been thinking it was time to show off some of the folks who add to the wonder and beauty of the blogosphere. So here’s the first in a showcase of great blog designs. As I said last December, successful bloggers are constantly trading ideas and talking about things. Design is always a topic folks like to discuss.

As always, click the screenshots to get a closer look.

You’ll never convince me that no one’s listening when Yas, CFrederick, Lindsay, Bocker, and Karsten talk. They bring together ideas, information, and design as news. They’re always thinking and creating.

Veerle’s blog was sent to me as a recommendation by two people. She not only knows her stuff. She knows how to make it look easy and fun.

Brother Jones is the blog of Brother Jones Artworks. This page features the art of illustrator, Dennis. Visit the site to see Don and Doug, and the Brother Jones Band too.

Tom Coates, who works for Yahoo, masterminds this intelligent, playful blog. The minimalist design pulls my eyes right into it. I love the best use of highlights I’ve seen on the Internet. AND he’s more fun to read than those serious Google guys.

Design Melt Down is the Studio/Working Blog of Patrick McNeil. It has pages of information and tutorials for folks to browse and learn from, as well as outstanding design.

It’s a magazine. It’s a blog. It’s a walk through an art museum in your living room that feels like a tour through a toy store. Pingmag is like no other blog and uses design to let you know.

Blogs are getting further and further from the look of the printed page. Take your time. Get ideas for your own blog. Now’s the time to spruce up, clean up, paint, polish, and promote your blog again. Give your brand new curb appeal. Take a lead from the pros.

If you don’t love what you see here, I plan on doing another feature like this, so e-mail me a link to where I might find some other great design at lizsun2@gmail.com.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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