Hello, I've recently migrated my blog to http://www.bordercrossed.com and chose a theme from the Wordpress website As I'm an idiot in design, may I ask you, experienced or inexperienced bloggers, to comment on my blog's design? You have a fresh pair of eyes and I'm sure you can see things that I haven't thought about. Specifically, 1.) Use of space. Do you feel that the page is too crowded? Any tips on improving the use of blank space vs. content? (I don't intend to put ads now) ---- Between words in a line ---- Between lines in a paragraph ---- Between paragraphs 2.) Font. Is it easy to read? Or should I use a different font / perhaps larger font? 3.) Placement of objects. Do you find it easy to get what you need or is it difficult to navigate? What other elements would you like to see? 4.) Use of colors. Does the color combination look okay? Would you suggest a better combination of colors that I can try? Point out what's not good will be appreciated and improvement ideas most welcomed Thanks a lot! http://www.bordercrossed.com
1) I think that the design uses space in a good way, however, I would think about making the header image less tall, so that you can see more of the actual content without scrolling so much. 2)The font looks good to me, good size and line-height. 3) I would perhaps add some more links to the top horizontal navigation, maybe a link to the archives/categories, or you could make a new site with links to external resources relating to the topic that you blog about. 4) The theme does use a limited amount of colours, but I like it, I think the simplicity of the design fits your blog in a way. I'm not too fond of the bright red contrast colour though.
Thanks a lot for your feedback This is something I've been thinking of. Removing the RSS banner will save some space. As to reducing the height of the header, do you know what kind of CSS tags I should edit? Good suggestion. I'll try to implement it. Now parked under my list of to-dos, as I don't know how to do this in a way that can be automatically updated. This will take some time Thanks. I'll experiment with the colors. Do you know where I can find tutorials on how to modify color in the css? I didn't know how to customize them, so just took this theme off-the-shelf from the Wordpress website
Another tip: the dark background is kind of, well, dark. You might think about playing around with lighter colors.
Thanks everybody for your ideas. This is the magic of collective wisdom. I've also collected kind advice of people from other forums as well - SitePoint, bloggertalk, and blogtrafficschool Now it's time to take action. I've posted a request on www.rentacoder.com. Request URL <http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/misc/BidRequests/ShowBidRequest.asp?lngBidRequestId=718812> Do you know someone who might be interested in this job? If so, it'd be great if you could ask them to look at the request and bid on it Once again, thank you! ---------------------------------------------------- Potential bidders: Please see the request details below Please help refine formatting of my blog Hello, I have a blog set up at http://www.bordercrossed.com. I'd like to make adjustments to the template to make them look better Would you kindly help to make these adjustments? These ideas came from the collective wisdom of people from several forums, www.blogtrafficschool.com, www.sitepoint.com, www.digitalpoint.com, www.bloggertalk.com. If you have additional ideas, feel free to voice it out! 1. Header 1. Reduce height of header. Ideal height would be similar to www.littlemummy.com 2. Remove header banner 3. Reduce height of black space above header (above Home / about / contact) to zero (4. Optional: Find / design a small appropriate image for the header) 2. Color 1. Hyperlinks. When someone mouse-over a hyperlink, Make the highlighted link color change to red/white for easier navigation. reference www.copyblogger.com 2. Hyperlinks. Try a more visible color (experiment with marron, or a blue-ish color, blue) that matches the color scheme 3. Footers. For headline of footers try White instead of Red 4. Background: The dark background is kind of, well, dark. Experiment with lighter colors. Fix background in Opera browser 3. Plugins 1. Implement a plugin that shows related posts (suggest Wasabi) below each post 2. Implement a plugin listing top posts on the side bar. Add 1 page showing top posts 3. Implement a plugin listing top posts by category, and append it on the side bar when the user has clicked on an article in that category 4. Implement Clean Archives plugin: Sporadic Nonsense. So 1 page is added to display all archives (5. Optional. Implement email newsletter subscription option (suggest Feedburner)) 4. Formatting 1. Increase the space between posts or at least have something to make it clear that it is a new post (this also helps with making sure the comment link goes with the right post 2. On the main page at the end of each post, instead of saying "x comments", say "Add your comment" If you have questions or believe that you can help me with these modifications, please kindly reply. Please note that there may be minor additional minor adjustments along the way, after work has started. At that time let's discuss whether it's easy to implement them or now Thank you in advance for your help. Note: Please document your work. Also it'd be great you can briefly describe to me how each task is accomplished - This is optional but a great thing to have http://www.bordercrossed.com A traveler trying to cross national, cultural, and ideological borders