5 Free Design Suggestions Specific to Your Blog

[Michael Martin]

Update - The offer is closed now. Sorry to anyone who missed out. I might run another one some time in the future!


You've probably seen Skellie's offer of 5 viral post ideas, and Easton's 5 blogging tips. I'm following suit now, with design tips.

Today I released my design services at last, and to celebrate, I'm offering 5 design tips to anyone who asks. The suggestions are all specific to your blog (Nothing generic here. ).

If you're interested, just send me an email!

[Jen]

Wow! Any serious blogger would be foolish to turn down an offer like that, Michael!

[guioconnor]

I am starting to think on a full redesign to my blog in a couple of months time, your ideas would be most appreciated.

[Michael Martin]

Thanks Jen. I'm glad you liked the review after that.

guioconnor - The best way to start a full redesign is to throw the old design out the window. Naturally there are some things you will want to retain (Logo, color scheme perhaps etc.), but in most cases, a clean slate is good.

If you're going to redesign, there isn't much I can say to help. You must have your own reasons to redesign. If they are to improve your current design, then you already know what to change. If it's just to get a fresh look, then suggestions from the old design are just going to limit your creativity.

The reviews so far have all been about people's current designs. If you want my thoughts on your current design, you're welcome to them. Just fire me an email and I'll send ya it back, but I can't do much for your future design.

[guioconnor]

Michael, yes, probably you are right.

The reason for the redesign is mostly that I need better IA (information architecture).

It grew up too much to keep it everything on a sidebar, I am afraid there is no more space to add anything as it is. I even wonder if it's not too much already.

The Archives, for instance are at the same time too long and almost useless as they are right now.

So, summing up, I need a layout that can handle a total IA redesign, keeping up, of course, the current look and feel. A site must be built around it.

I do have a plan in mind (while not much time in my hands right now) but feel free to give your opinion if you want, I would certainly read it carefully :-)

Thanks for the offer, anyway, is a very generous one.

[Michael Martin]

So you won't be changing much of the actual design then? That's good.

Just focusing on your IA, the bit that I'd be most interested in is actually your fixed footer. If you make that a normal bottom-of-the-page footer again, I think it would open up your design a fair bit. As it is, it feels like there is a lot of scrolling to get from the top of your sidebar to the bottom.

In the sidebar itself, I would remove the monthly archives, and then move the category list up, above the book recommendations.

It wouldn't be perfect, but it's a start. What do you think?



Beyond that, in your new design, I suppose a 2nd sidebar is your best shot. You have a lot of content in your sidebar, and I imagine you want to keep it all. I would take your current sidebar, and just double the width of it tbh. The site layout is great already.

You could experiment with pulling it away from the side a little, and adding rounded corners, if you wanted. Experimenting is always good.

[guioconnor]

The site layout is great already.

Thanks :-)

So you won't be changing much of the actual design then? That's good.

Thanks for the feedback, I agree with the most part of what you said. The second column seems not only a good idea, but really unavoidable.

Also I agree with you (if I understood correctly what you said) that it is better to have a double sidebar and not one on each side, that, I think, would detroy my layout. A double right column brings space for many beautiful solutions, I think.

Even with a double column, I do want to rip off some content out of them and put it into a proper page, Notably: archives. I do want to list my archives monthly, and even more, I want to list at least the title of each one, but they need (and deserve) a page for this.

Maybe recomended reading, the flick photos and my shared reading through google read (that currently are not exposed on the site) could go this way also.

Well, I stop it here, it has been great already to read your advice this far :-)

[Jen]

Thanks Jen. I'm glad you liked the review after that.

Oh yes indeed, Michael! And your tips were much appreciated!

In fact, I've been busy all afternoon and evening, ever since I got your email, making changes to those details we talked about... and swearing at this convoluted style sheet!

It's really inspiring me to move up the schedule on starting with a new theme, something that looks pretty much the same but with templates and css all sleek and trim and efficient... {sigh}

[Michael Martin]

Guioconnor - A resources page like that is a great idea. It's somewhere that you can put all of your personal recommendations etc. that regular readers are after, without getting in the way of new readers who just want to bounce around the blog a little.

Jen - Haha - The swearing is all part of the experience! Seriously though; I'm delighted that you found the advice useful.

[Jen]

Jen - Haha - The swearing is all part of the experience! Seriously though; I'm delighted that you found the advice useful.

Never would have thought of the advantages of design-tweaking to a classic rock sound track, either!