Sunday, January 13, 2013

This Olde Blog



So, I've been doing some thinking.

Frightening, I know.....but, nonetheless.....

I'm wanting to do a little sprucing up around this here blog, but I'm not a huge fan of the small amount of templates offered by Blogger (no offense, Blogger, old buddy, old pal). Given the limited scope of Blogger's offerings, I'm o.k. with how things are looking, but I'd like to see some other options.

I've done my due (Google) diligence and am still not sure what might be best as far as changing things goes. I want to make sure I don't lose any information nor the basic format I have now.

So, I'm bringing this to the blogger community......any ideas?

What are some of the must see sites regarding something like this?

12 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I do some website design for work, but everything is from scratch. There are a lot of people online who do design work though.
Those with Wordpress blogs tend to have more custom formats and images. Those blog owners probably know the best places to look for designs.

Mark Means said...

Hopefully, I'll get to the point where I'll need an original design...but not yet.

I have a Wordpress blog, too...and I'm still clueless :) I'll see what others recommend and thanks for the tip :)

***Dave said...

I started off a decade ago on Blogger (back when it was just ... Blogger). Then ran in Movable Type for some years, until shifting over to WordPress about five years ago. I'm self-hosted, but Wordpress.com does hosting, and it seems like it provides more flexibility than Blogger does. There are a ton of WP themes (varying wildly in quality, of course), as well as plug-ins (ditto).

Leslie said...

I'm with Dave - I switched to Wordpress fairly recently after a long time with Blogger. I started with Wordpress.com and now am self-hosted at Wordpress.org. I found that I had stuff to learn along the way - but in the end there was much more room for change and creativity :)

Charmaine Clancy said...

I like your minimalist look, I find it more off-putting when people clutter their page. If you want to personalise it, try creating your own banner in photoshop and adding it to your html. Just googling will give you the instructions, or I think pic-monkey is a site that will make a blogger banner for you.

You could use more pages to showcase writing if you want, or a link list. I like the fonts you use now, simple sans-serif and easy to read.

Mark Means said...

At one point, I think I was looking at consolidating my posts on Blogger and Wordpress but, for the life of me, can't remember if I was looking to move -from- Blogger or Wordpress. Ah, the joys of senility :P I do have an "outside" theme on my WP blog and it is fairly simple, but I like some of the widgets that Blogger offers so....I dunno

I do like Charmaine's idea, though, about adding more pages and creating a banner.

All good points, thanks guys ;)

Anonymous said...

I agree that Blogger is really limited. I've changed my look a handful of times. Charmaine has the right idea. Personalized banners and badges work for me. Other than that, I change the template three or four times a year for variety.

Trisha said...

I always have my own images of choice in my blog's background. You can make use of blogger templates but really transform your blog with your own choice of bg image.

Cross Planes said...

Looks good. Wordpress has many more options, but I hate migrating my blog.

Mark Means said...

Stephen/Trisha--I found a banner image I'm satisfied with...for now. Though, I think I'll keep on the lookout for something snazzier :)

Mark-- Thanks and I tried to do some import/exporting, but it wasn't working so, meh. I spent last night and part of today working on it and am pretty happy with the results.

Papab46 said...

I ditto everything Charmaine suggested and commented, especially your font selection (might even borrow your idea). I've always been a big believer in "KISS".

Mark Means said...

Thanks Papa, I usually am a pretty staunch believer in that, myself, though sometimes I get carried away :)

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