Poll time – who designed your blog?
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{democracy:49}
If you’ve got more than one blog – choose the one you consider to be your main blog. Tell us more in comments below!
About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
I bought the Thesis framework and just customized it so it doesn’t even look anything like Thesis anymore.
It really pays off to learn how to create your own designs. :)
I considerably tweaked a free template though I’d love to get one custom designed one of these days. They’re so costly.
I used to tweak free wordpress templates. But, it’s much easier to do your own from the scratch.
I design all of my projects. I started out using free themes and just never really found ones that fit, so I learned to make my own from scratch.
I’ve tried out Thesis, but I find it extremely limiting. Working with raw code works better and lets me do things my way.
I use blogger minima template and made modifications to it
Regards
Salman
http://www.tips4blogging.co.cc
Paid for a premium template (an original Revolution theme) but tweaked code here and there. This was after “making do” with free tweaked templates for several years.
I used a free template that I tweaked a lot. I’m still trying to find an ideal premium template that I like enough. Any suggestions?
I purchased the developers edition of Thesis from DIYThemes. I have three blogs, two business and one for my hobby, running off of that theme. I am currently setting up two others based on Thesis.
All of these are customized (or will be, works in progress) by myself. I am learning the coding and tweaking and geeking as I just seem naturally attracted to this type of thing.
I like the Thesis theme but I just modified another theme of Chris’s which is free. It’s the Copyblogger theme but my goal was to make it look as little as Copyblogger as possible.
I have experience with XHTML and CSS and feel a little strange about it, but I used a non-default free template. Actually, I went through 3 trying to find one that was functional for my needs and had a good enough look. I will eventually design my own, but my goal was to get the blog online ASAP and I have never made a WordPress template before. I ended up choosing the free one from Unique Blog Designs for now.
Spent the first 4-5 months of this year designing my own theme and modified a bit of code etc with drupal. Its still evolving to this day, and will probably never stop.
I’m certainly happy about all those days spent tinkering and playing around with code and photoshop. Can’t imagine what it would be like if I had to pay someone to design my blog, don’t think it would be worth it.
I made a child theme on top of the wonderful Themehybrid Framework.
I used “elements of SEO” (just to get a theme with two sidebars) and tweaked it a lot. I moved one of the sidebars to the left, implemented code that can randomly show adds in order to share revenue (show person A’s ads 30% of the time, etc), and changed a lot of look and feel stuff (added a nav bar, inserted a blurb about the author at the end of each post, etc) . I poked around on Google to figure out how to do a lot of things.
http://www.observingcasually.com/
i use free wordpress themes : vibrant for wordpress n get few modification :)
I bought Thesis. I think it was a good compromise. Ideally I’d have a bespoke theme. But Thesis was installed overnight and looks very professional.
Only eight people paid for a premium theme so far? Boy do I feel like a dope.
I love Thesis though, it’s the only premium theme I have paid for that I can honestly say is worth it.
I’m currently using one of the free Blogger templates which I tweaked a little for my blog. This has worked well for me because I know very little about web design and am a little scared of HTML, CSS, etc. After a year and a half, I have hired a professional web designer to do a complete and unique redesign of my site. It wasn’t cheap, but now I can move my blog to its own domain and will be able to have all the features I want on it. Plus, she will take care of the migration and all of the technical stuff for me so that I can’t mess anything up! A very good thing!
Used an ‘Elegant Theme’ framework with several tweaks, but I am in the process of making the transition over to Thesis (honing design skills in the process). It’s a slow and gradual process – but learning (advanced) web design is no easy task.
Initially I designed and programmed my blog from scratch. After a couple of years I’ve asked a designer friend to create a new and professional design for me. Haven’t regret that. Still love and use the design he created.
I’m on blogger. I used to have Woork’s Daily Inspiration template on my blog, but later decided to take a free template called “Daleri Mega” from Andreas Viklund and convert it to blogger template.
So far, I’m very pleased with the design, and I’ve learnt tad a lot about designing blogger templates.
Now, I’m going advanced, implementing some fancy effects on the blog.
Btw, while designing the blogger template, I got a real insight of how powerful the blogger platform is, if you know it inside out.
completely Designed it Myself :D
When I started the blog journey, my first blog was a free template. It was not appealing to the eye and soon I found myself looking for a paid premium blog template. Those did not work well. My knowledge of code and such was rusty at best. I thought, “Why not pay a professional to design my blog?” and I did. He was not very reliable and in the end I only got a portion of what I paid for. So… now what. I was confused, frustrated, and down right ready to give up. Then I discovered http://www.frugalthemes.com and found the right platform for designing my blog. I chose to understand how to use the widgets and codes better and the results are posted. My efforts took me at least 40 hours to learn and get right after much practice. Now, I am on my way with blogging.
I went through numerous blog themes on my blog before and spent two months putting up content before I felt it was ready to be launched. I actually paid for one premium theme before I found another that I liked even more that was cleaner. Of course, I found another one after it launched that I liked even MORE. LOL By then I realized it wasn’t the format so much as the content. I think the format helped with the look of professionalism I was going for. Since it has launched I have tweaked it quite a bit, learning how to do each new thing every step of the way. The site has been live for nearly three months and I’ve updated content every single day. How much longer I can keep up that schedule remains to be seen. It’s been tough. But I’m enjoying the process.
My blog is based on Structure by Justin Tadlock. My designer didn’t do much tweaking to the original – mainly color scheme and header and such.
I tweaked an existing free template. Next, I’m working on a child theme thingy, then get brave enough to do my own from scratch. Oddly, I’m looking forward to that :)
I had fun creating my own!
I use free template and with minor modifications.
I had an existing website design, and wanted my blog to blend with the rest of the website. I paid a designer to create a custom template for me, and I’m glad I did!
Interesting results here really, would be interesting to correlate the impact frameworks such as Thesis have had on the amount of people designing blogs entirely themselves.
On the same note, anyone looking to move from a tweaked theme to a custom design, just get in touch with us quoting “ProBlogger” and we’ll give you 25% off our usual prices!
I use a free template from WordPress.org and tweaked it a bit.
When I first started making WordPress blogs–after using Movable Type for several years–I started with a free theme to see how it was structured. Then I dissected the code, moved things about and completely redesigned it to match an existing Web site I’d already created. Basically the original theme helped me see examples of the WordPress loop and other bits in action.
Now, when building new WordPress sites I typically re-use certain code elements from other sites I’ve built then craft them into something suitable for that particular project.
I use a free template which I’ve found somewhere over the net. But, I modified it so it looks a little bit different than the original one. :D
I picked up a free blogger template on the web and tweeked it for more my style – I have seen others I like better since but don’t want to turn people off by changing too much so I will wait until my 1-2 year anniversary with this template.
I designed my theme myself. I looked at the innards of some free themes but I built it myself. I think it helps knowing *how* everything works in your theme. If something goes wrong, you’ll be in a better position to fix it.
I use a very simple free template that I tweaked quite a bit to make it even more elegant. I’ve found that a lot of free templates want to please everyone and they end up adding all sorts of stuff that most people really shouldn’t be putting on their blog. I don’t use a whole lot of elements that other people do (top posts, recent posts, recent comments etc.) so I really have to tweak most decent looking themes to make it how I want it.
Totally done it up myself. :)
I completely designed my blog. If anyone want one I will do.
I fell in love with the Thesis theme and bit the bullet, since I’ve implemented it I’ve received a bunch of compliments from my readers and my traffic literally doubled from one week to the next.
I may take some graphic design courses at the local community college in hopes of possibly doing my own blog design one day. I’ve got the vision, just not the skills.
I got my template from Bloggers , but then tweaked it with some additions here and there . Still not that happy or impressed with my work .. need to modify it more further and need help ..
Any webdesigner than can help me ?
I tweaked a premium theme option?
Completely designed it myself. It’s my personal design/code playground and always “a work in progress”.
Also minimalistic — my favourite kind of design which I don’t get to implement in other sites I work on.
I love my Thesis! Plain, simple, clean. Powerful!
I took a little-used free template that I found and liked. Then I changed the header graphic, altered some of the internal code (the template was made for an old version of WordPress), etc.
Overall, I’m happy with the design, though the coding is a pain as I haven’t worked with PHP much at all and my HTML skills are over ten years old. It’s been a learning experience, but so far I’m happy with the results.
Now to build some real traffic to the thing. lol
I started my blog last month with thesis theme. Now I am focusing on the post instead of the design.
I created my own template from scratch. It is quite simple and many times a week I tweak it here and there =)
i also used free template not default
for my Money. blogging Tips blog
http://teratips.com
I purchased a template and customized it substantially. The site gets great compliments and it does very well with Adsense and affiliate marketing.
I design them all and use my own software KeZoor as my blogging platform. Use it for all my customers.
I used a blogger template and made alot of modifications to it, if you can help it, you can’t leave it just default.
Of course as a Web Guy, I’m never happy with just stock and every template can be tweeted regularly, you never want to be the same as every other site out there.
I designed my blog and implemented it using a Child Theme for Thematic WordPress Theme Framework. It’s a real joy to work with!