Sprucing Up

I’ve felt a general dissatisfaction with my blog theme lately.  While I do like my theme, I find myself wanting a bit more from a theme.  I mean, I have a free theme so it’s pretty easy to tell when another blog has the same great taste in themes that I do.  But I’ve been growing restless lately.  I’ve even been considering a premium theme, but I won’t commit to something like that unless I’m 1,000% sure that it will give me what I want.

I’ve also been thinking about my old space, the one I had before I switched to WP.  I’m pretty satisfied with what I was able to do there (just not satisfied with the abilities of Blogger, which is why I switched).  Here’s what I like about the way that space ended up:

• The headers for the date and sidebar widgets.  They’re bold, and do a great job of delineating the sections and highlighting the text at the same time
• The proportions.  The sidebars are slightly wider than the ones here (195px vs. ~175 here), and at 950px the entire thing is 50px wider than this one, which means it doesn’t feel as cramped.
• The thin double line between the body and sidebars is a definite marker between the spaces, yet remains delicate and unobtrusive.
• The same double line border is around both the header pic and title of my blog.  On the new one, the KirstenL4W title (there only so a name shows up in your readers) just kind of floats above the header pic.
• The symmetry!  I almost forgot about that one.  I’m the kind of person who likes symmetry, so having a sidebar on each side appeals to that sense of balance.

And for the WP blog:

• The calendar like date stamp.  It keeps there from being too much text at the top of a post, what with the post title, author, and categories.
• There’s a white text area and I can have something else for a background.  It leaves open the possibility of having a patterned background.
• The menu bar.  The fact that I have one at all is one of the big reasons I switched to WP.
• The header image.  This particular theme supports a custom header image, which means I just upload whatever pic I want and move it around within the box for an instant, decently proportioned header image.  It’s easy to do and makes changes easy, if I wanted to do that.

A few must-haves for any theme are:

• 3 columns.  I really like having dual sidebars and I’d really feel like something is missing if I didn’t have them.
• I must be able to have a header image without a lot of tricky coding to make one work with the theme.
• The proportions need to be right.  Things should line up to the exact pixel, and there should be proper spacing where necessary to make things easier on the eyes.  Sorry, but after working for a few years as a receptionist in a graphics studio, I’ve learned to recognize and appreciate these often-overlooked design details.

I could go on to list the things I really don’t want in a theme, but if I start looking then this list might get too long, so I’ll just leave that alone except to say that I don’t want a magazine style theme.  I think magazine style themes are too business-like for a personal blog, and I don’t like seeing them on other personal blogs.  If the elements I really like and want are in place, then I would think that the theme will do a decent job of omitting the don’t wants.

I’ve really not seen any free themes that are condenters right now.  I’ve uploaded a few and tried to work with them, but once I started trying any customizations, they quickly fell out of favor.  That leaves premium themes.  The two I’ve seen that have promise are Thesis and WP Remix.  Does anyone out there have any experience with either one of these themes?  What about them do you like and not like?

In the meantime, I’ve done a bit of sprucing up.  The blue-gray was getting old, so I created a new header image from a photo taken during the recent vacation that Mister and I took to the east coast.  This was taken at Salisbury Beach, MA.  I was looking out towards the ocean (trying not to get blinded by the sun) as the sun came up.  It’s a bit more colorful than the last picture, and I complemented it by changing the background to a soft seashell color and defining the borders around the image, body, and footer with a deeper color.  The menu bar looks a bit sparse because of the borders everywhere else, but I think if I tried to put a border around the menu bar buttons, then it would look a bit crowded.

So quit hiding behind your feed readers, stop by and let me know what you think of the new image and colors.  And if you have any experience with the above-mentioned paid themes, I really want to hear from you!

Other Posts Like Me:

• Theme of the Day
• New Look!
• Pictures of Me
• Feeling the Blog Love
• Improvements