This site has only been up a month, and I’ve already started a major theme make-over.  Doh.

The original theme was pretty close to the Xplosive Reloaded theme by Jai at BlogOhBlog. I started with the theme he developed, made a few minor modifications, and slapped in a couple graphics.

At first I liked it, but a few things quickly started to grate on me. The thin sidebars didn’t seem very user-friendly, and I didn’t like the gray background near the top of the content/sidebar.

So… time to switch things up. I stumbled on the blog at Addicott Web, and I liked the general feel of it. I kept a few of the things I liked about Jai’s theme, added the things I really liked from the Addicott page, and voila: the current theme.

What I Didn’t Like

After looking at the site on a daily basis for the last month or so, a few things started to annoy me.

Thin Sidebars. Originally, I opted for these in order to accomodate advertising. The thin sidebar allowed me to include both sidebar information and a skyscraper ad above the fold.

I pretty quickly got annoyed at the limited width, tho. It seemed to me to limit the readability of the recent posts/recent comments. Thin is ok for categories, but little else will fit into those 160 pixels.

In the new theme, I used one wider sidebar (about 350px), and instead of the skyscraper banner I included a 300×250 square advertisement below the fold. Seemed to be a good compromise.

Gray Background. The original theme had a gray gradient image at the top of the content and sidebar. I like gradients, but this effectively made the background of the first paragraph or so grayish instead of white.

Like Chris at CSS-Tricks, I found that this didn’t look good with images. A lot of stock images have a white background, so there was a clear contrast between the image and the post background.

The new theme boxes in the content and gives the actual post area a pure white background. There’s still a gray gradient, but it’s much shorter, so it won’t ever reach the first block of text (and the first image).

What I Plan On Doing Next

This seems good for now, but I’ll be making a few more changes in the next few weeks. Probably when I have some free time over Christmas break.

About and Contact. I was reading through Steve’s “30 Days to Being a Better Blogger” at Teach42 and I realized I had neither a contact form nor an About page. Oops.

For the moment, I’ll chalk that up to my original theme. I kind of overlooked theme, and I wasn’t sure where to put them. In the normal “Page” list area, I had instead listed the various sub-parts of this site (Nerds at Play, Nerds at Work, etc).

To remedy that, I think I’ll adapt some more of the Addicott theme. I’ll shrink the header (where the logo is currently), and add a series of icons/links to important pages.

I’ll probably shift the actual logo up top, too, the way that Addicott has it. If I move the big “Subscribe” button up top, as well, that will free up some space in the sidebar and move a little bit more above the fold. Seems like a better use of space, all in all.

Finish the Logos. When I started, I made a logo for three of the sub-sites – Nerds at Play, Nerds at Work, and My Old House. Ironically, I’ve been spending almost all my time posting in Teach Them Well… and there’s no logo.

Along with the changes outlined above, I’ll probably simplify the logos of the other parts and add a logo for both the Life of Brian category and the Teach Them Well category. Since I’ve posted almost nothing in My Old House, I’m probably going to drop that category altogether, roll it into “Life of Brian,” and make that section blue.

That’ll leave me with four distinct parts to the site, each with its own color scheme and header logo. Hopefully.

Comments and Suggestions?

If you’ve got any comments or suggestions on how to make the site better, I’d love to hear them.

For some reason I never seem to be able to come up with good ideas re: designing sites. If I don’t see something elsewhere and get inspiration, I have a hard time creating a polished site.

I suppose I’m just more inclined to work on the back end programming things or in the front end writing things. I’d be happy to let someone else to the prett-ifying part.