26 November 2011

How to #1

I've been meaning to write a post on blog design for a while now, and this awesome post by Kate Gabrielle guest-posting on Laughing with Broken Eyes has reminded me that it's been languishing on my to-do list.


Basically, trying to make a blog (on Blogger at least) look halfway decent is a total nightmare. The  pre-made themes are fine but they're also so bland. And style bloggers tend to be creative types, so it's frustrating to know how you want your blog to look but not be able to do it. 


When you start out with a Blogger template there are so many simple things that need to be changed to start making your blog look your own. For example, why is there an annoying little line that separates all the Gadgets in your sidebar? Who wants that? It's the first thing that needs to go! Of course you can Google for tutorials (which is what I did) but often the hardest part is trying to figure out the name for what you're trying to do - it took me about a week to find the correct phrase to Google when I was looking for a way to put a horizontal list of links under my blog header. And I'm still not sure what that list of links is called..


Pretty much every blog I've seen seems to be very well designed and attractive, but I'm sure there are some newbies like me out there trying to figure out how on earth you can post two photos beside each other (and why on earth Blogger makes it so hard to do).


Instead of trying to give my own explanation of all of the different things you might want to do with your blog design, I've compiled a list of a few of the tweaks you can make, with links to the very helpful tutorials I used that worked for me:


Huge thanks to the sites which posted the tutorials above, without them, who knows what this blog would look like!

I have plenty more tips so please let me know if you found them helpful, if there's anything you see on my blog that you'd like to know how to do or if you have some tips yourself.


DISCLAIMER: all of these tips are useful only if you are very new to blogging or if you have zero html experience like myself. I'm sure they are laughably simple to a lot of people though! And I in no way claim to be an expert, or to know what I'm doing really - but if I can point someone in the right direction I will try!

7 thoughts:

Anonymous said... Reply to comment

urgh, I know exactly what you mean. I am still in the process of redesigning my blog....!!! *rolls eyes*

Jules
http://andsuddenlyisee.wordpress.com

X said... Reply to comment

I have been dying to know how to place two pictures side by side for some time now so thank you for finally shedding some light on it for me :)

HoneyBunny said... Reply to comment

Thanks for posting, these are really useful! Especially the one about putting two photos side by side:)

Anonymous said... Reply to comment

Thanks for posting. I get multiple e-mails a day with people asking me the same stuff. I'm glad you cleared it up! :) cute blog, by the way.

xo, Samantha
http://theadventuresoftwosams.blogspot.com/

Celeste said... Reply to comment

This was really sweet of you to share. Even after almost 3 years of blogging, I still have to google tips all the time!!

Cosmia, Inflammatory Knit said... Reply to comment

Glad I could help! I'll make a little permanent button for these and add a few more so I can have a nice little reference guide :)

Abigail. said... Reply to comment

These are great! I've spent so many hours looking up different design bits and I ALWAYS forget to save the link. I've definitely worked my way up from 'complete noob', but would love to be able to design one from scratch. Maybe in the summer when I have more time to sit for hours at my laptop.
Great blog btw! :)

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Thanks for commenting! I love reading new style blogs so please leave a link to yours if you have one!

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