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 tweaked the iNove theme that WordPress offers. Now it looks nothing like the original and it’s unique.
As some above hint, was not able to splash out on a bespoke theme, i tweaked a great free one I found. I absolutely love it with my own touch!
I designed and coded mine myself. Or more, I coded it and then designed it, so it’s semantic.
Actally, the theme that I use right now
already edited by me by some coding
I won Revolution Pro Media in a contest and I tweaked it. Now I bought Thesis theme and customize it for my clients. It’s a really neat theme. Makes designers out of ordinary people. :-D
I used a free template and tweaked it to what i needed. Have tried with premium templates which I have won but they seem very complicated to customise(Maybe coz I am not a designer /coder by profession)
I hired a professional designer from India. He’s awesome and fairly cheap.
He designes everything I use, all my blogs, websites, banners and ebooks.
– jens –
I designed my full portfolio/blog myself – using one installation of WordPress and a large handful of custom templates to get different looks for different categories.
I’m a self-taught WordPress designer, though, with a background in fine art and graphic design.
I don’t even want to know how much it would have cost to hire it out.
I’d be curious to see a poll “how much would you pay for a custom design”.
I use Thesis, which have customized, but am eternally improving.
Thesis is a great theme for people with interest in web design, as it lets you easily customize the theme.
There are a lot of great free templates out there for both WordPress and Blogger if you are willing to search around a bit to find them.
I designed mine in Dreamweaver (you can copy/paste a lot of the code, so you don’t have to be a programming whizz) and then ‘converted it’ into php wordpress-theme compatible. It’s a lot easier than you think and you can get everything EXACTLY how you like rather than having to fit a predesigned theme. I’m happy to explain how to do it if anyone is interested. :)
Sam
My partner and I did all the customization ourselves on both of our Movable Type sites. They’re always a work in progress as we add new features.
http://www.mygourmetconnection.com
http://www.myshoppingconnection.com
I mostly use free themes that I tweak, but for my main blog I purchased the DIYThemes Thesis theme.
You don’t have the option I took – customizing a premium template; I’m using a version of Innuendo.
I am a beginner. Don’t know HTML or CSS. Not happy with the free themes I tried. Then found Atahualpa in the WordPress.org free themes. Lots of room for modification. I created a very SIMPLE theme which suits me and my audience. I love it! I even have a favicon!
We use a free WordPress design. There are so many many wonderful options and we have been able to add and delete what we like.
I used a free template with minor tweaks.
I designed and developed mine myself. It’s a very simple design so it wasn’t hard, but having said that, I’ve also done some fairly complex themes for other people.
I use a premium design too and customize it myself so that it’ll look different from the other.
Interesting to see that the number of people that use a free theme (not default) [157] is so close to the number of people who use a premium theme [150].
as i started blogging and i dont get much revenue out of it i am using a free template which is tweaked a bit,
Darren,
I write two blogs (English / Spanish) about the subject of financial literacy using the blogspot platform.
Although I’ve heard many positive comments about wordpress, I’ve remained as a blogspot user which doesn’t mean that won’t consider migrating my work. First, I need to learn how difficult it could be.
http://financialculture.blogspot.com
Kind Regards.
I use both Blogger and WordPress. Blogger is good for ease of use and wordpress is fine if you are into PHP
I used Quick Press wordpress free template in Entrepinoy Bank and will tweak it to suit my needs. Even if it has simple design, I like it because it loads fast. Anyway here is my baby:
http://entrebankph.com and htt://www.elliswell.com
I’m using a free theme from UBD. But, I tweaked it a little.
-Mahesh.
I recently created my own Magazine based blog theme with my knowledge of HTML and CSS after putting up with many free themes out there already. It took a few months to put together, but this was to make sure everything went smoothly before launch, of course. ^^
Own work of course. Well, im Designer :)
Great Poll, i dropped my poll
Money Blogging Tips by http://teratips.com
I hired Ben Jacob(benjacob.in) to do mine :)
What about tweaking a paid template?
I purchased Thesis and would like to customize it. Where does one learn to customize?
use a free template and then customize it.
I used to tweak free themes, but I did finally found a free theme I liked and didn’t have to tweak. It’s perfect for my website. I also found one that works for my personal blog, but I’m more ecstatic about the one I found for my business website.
I took the freebie!
Interesting comments. I like using free and premium templates/themes, and modifying them as needed. Why build a theme from scratch when there are most likely themes that are already done that are even nicer than what you had in mind?
I’m currently using a free template that I tweaked quite a bit, only because I’m still learning how most of the code works. As I develop more skills in that area, I look to do more of my own thing.
im designing myself, kinda tight budget here
I customized my free template myself, and I think it is unique.
The benefit of a search engine friendly website is it has a greater chance of getting sales. Good website structure makes people spends more time on your site and the more vital it turn out to be useful in their mind, the better chances that they will purchase your product or services.
I used a free theme but did quite a bit of customisation. in retrospect its actually made it harder to maintain in the long run as upgrades to wordpress and some plugins have impacted our CSS
I took a free theme & completely re-designed it from the ground-up. But I’ve also been poking around with the code.
I noticed Traffic Blogger’s comment “Why build a theme from scratch when there are most likely themes that are already done that are even nicer than what you had in mind?” Because it’s fun :D
Being a WordPress professional, I designed all my themes myself.
I won’t say from scratch but nearly, I use a CSS grid for all my projects (960gs) and the rest is mine :D
Since my company does so much work for clients, building wordpress blogs and CMS, we did it our selves: http://www.veribatim.com/blog/
I’m using a free template from WordPress.com because I can’t make up my mind. Once I do finally decide what I’m going to do cosistently, I’m switching to the .org version of WordPress and I’ll pay for the THESIS theme.
I’m not hiring anyone to design my blog themes but still I vote for “I hired a Designer for a Unique Design”, because I’m winning a blog contest in someone else blog, so the owner designed a WordPress themes for me.
Regards,
Lee
I have several blogs running but one of my main ones is with Google’s blogspot which I customised through the html editor so that it looks a little more unique. This is fairly easy to do just by using an image for the header, changing column widths and background colours.
I have also started to use WordPress now for my new blogs and I purchase my own domain names to publish them against rather than using a free platform.
I use Joomla and one of the Joomla templates that I could customize.
A friend of mine tweaked a free WP template. Right now, I so want to change to a more professional looking theme and weighing the option of hiring a designer to do it from scratch or find a decent looking theme and have someone tweak it for me. It all depends on my budget now (which is not much!).
Because no, I am not a designer and can’t afford my blog to display an error if I make a coding mistake! :-(
I use WordPress for my main blog, but I also have a Blogger account.
I’m looking into redesigning it. Any thoughts on where to find the best free templates?
Thanks…