Time for a new Poll.
Who designed your blog?
I’m sure there will be other options to those that I included. If you don’t feel your situation is covered feel free to leave a comment below and tell us your answer.
{democracy:28}
I’d also be interested to hear about your decision to design your blog the way you did. Why did you choose the option and template that you did?
I used a template off of the WordPress site primarily because I don’t have the funds to get a custom theme. Also, I wouldn’t know where to go to get a custom theme at a good rate. If my blog takes off I will consider getting a custom theme created for my blog.
I use a free but not unique template. I have no idea how to use CSS so I just stick with what’s available (for free, of course)
I designed it myself. I really can’t tell you why I did what I did. It started off much less complex than it is now (although it still isn’t really that complex). It started off at a two column design with no fancy footer like you see now. After I built up some content I needed more room for everything, so I developed the layout you see now.
Actually a friend tweaked a standard design for me – no option for this.
After looking around a bit, I’ve chosen inBloom 1.0 as my free theme. Then I went to add my own header and logo, and ended up tweaking some more.
The blog is not up yet, so I’m still working on the design before launching.
But the launch page says alot about it :)
I bought a template and tweaked it.
My reasons were:
1. I liked the template
2. The fact that it was purchased means fewer other bloggers will use it so mine will stand out as unique
3. I tweaked it so it really would be unique and so it would do what I want it to do
Since mine was going to be a real estate blog, I went with one of the top real estate blog design and training organizations, the Real Estate Tomato. The experience has been excellent so far.
I voted for the “I hired a designer for a unique design”, although it isn’t entirely true.
My wife happens to be a web designer, so she gave my blog a complete makeover after not being able to stand the “generic” look it had with a template.
Here’s the part that’s not true: I didn’t have to pay for it. :-)
My personal blog is a representation of me and I wanted it to be exactly what I pictured in my head, but I don’t do graphics, so I hired a designer to design and code what I saw in my head onto my blog… and it came out great. My blog design is complimented regularly and people remember it (after I first started blogging, I’d get “oh, you’re the spy chick!” at meet-ups). My designer: http://www.designbyreese.com wasn’t cheap, but she def was worth it.
My template was free from WordPress and is called Computerized. I know just enough about designing and programming to give myself fits when something I try doesn’t work right :) My wife has a blog, too. She doesn’t like it very much when I tell her I don’t know how to do something that she wants on here site. “But you changed your blog so much. You just don’t want to help me”. Ugh….Don’t tell her I said that.
I mostly just tweaked some of the colors and column widths on mine, as well as completely redesigning my header. I liked what what already there, so I left it alone for the most part.
i use a free theme (not default) i see lots of cool themes around but they are all paid!!! lol and i don’t have enough money for one (yet)
Self designed goodness! :)
Blogs + forums + shopping cart in one slick template.
We’ve been using a somewhat tweaked version of the Blog Oh Blog theme for a while. It’s very easy to work with.
While I’m an artist by trade, I admittedly seem to lose patience in designing themes. On more than one occasion I’ve popped open Photoshop, gotten started on something original, only to lose interest in what I’m doing. I never start with a clear cut idea in mind though. I’m sure if I did so, I’d finally actually finish something.
I got my blog done by the nice guys at http://the449.com.
Myself of course, check it out under my link … I do all design elements that my blog has myself …
Lex
When I was starting my blog, I knew I wanted a unique look but also had absolutely no knowledge of CSS (and no money to hire a professional!). I chose K2 because it has such a great support forum, a resource I used quite a bit while I was getting started. It’s a nice, clean design and easy to customise, even for a CSS newbie. My final result is far from perfect, and I definitely want to have a redesign by someone who knows what they’re doing, but I’m happy enough with it in the meantime.
The downside is that, of course, everyone and their dog knows the K2 layout, so even all my customisations don’t make the site as unique as I would like.
Being new to blogging 8 months ago, a free template served its purpose. As I have gotten into the community, I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t and now have a better idea of what I want.
Plus, since my blog isn’t really making me money yet, it hasn’t been in the budget to hire a designer.
But for the new year, I’ve decided to find at least a better template and tweak it.
Bloggrrl, thanks for the nice words!
I designed my own blog & many others like:
kingnomar.com
robneville.net
…
I designed my own theme because I couldn’t find the look of what I wanted. However, I’m finding it is a lot of work just to get the basic theme built (for instance, it took me a whole day to figure out how to get my archives link working correctly. The reason it wasn’t working is because I had a date.php and category.php page and in WP there is a page hierarcy and so those blank php pages were overriding my archives info!).
Also, I ordered some books on PHP, CSS, and WordPress (as well as a Wacom 6×8 Intuos for PS) and hopefully after going through those books (and learning how to use the tablet), I’ll be able to continue working on my theme to add more to it. Right now it is very simple looking.
I tweak the free themes available. I am really loving the news theme you are giving away so I will switch to that if I win.
I tweaked a free theme. I haven’t tweaked it so much that you can’t tell what it was originally, but I wonder if there is a time when you tweak so much that it truly becomes it’s own theme?
I wanted to change the colour scheme and the header to match the title of my blog.
Plus I wanted to try it.
For this blog I tweaked a free theme:
http://thisblogwillpaymymortgage.wordpress.com/
My template came from the network I blog for, and it is not what I would have chosen but it is what we have to work with … there are probably worse templates out there for my purposes.
One thing I have noticed about templates is reverse type. When I was younger I loved reverse type templates and thought they were great. As I get older and spend more hours looking at a computer all day for work and for blogging, I find myself shying away from reverse type templates because it is more work for my eyes … and over the course of days, weeks, and months, that makes a difference.
I made my own theme. The design and layout only took a couple of hours. It was the chopping up and making the various template pages and adding in the WP coding that took most of the time, fine tuning it .
I have the Mandigo template for WordPress which actually includes a lot of customization for a template like SEO and stuff. I have customized though by changing the sidebar of my blog to be wider and moding a lot of the templates to be more Google friendly
I tweaked a free template and got some pretty positive responses.
I think I’m going to check out sandbox, and see what I can do with tweaking that for my next one.
I chose my current template because it was basic instead of busy and I didn’t see anyone else using it. I made several changes to it but now I would like to change my theme. I can keep working on that on my own, but it would be great to get a custom unique theme developed.
heavily tweaked free template here
I have “Considerably Tweaked a Free Template”. Now it’s more how i like
I felt the need to design and create my own theme since I release WordPress themes in my blog.
to be honest – I bought the template ( the shame of it )
and also its a new niche one.
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