I’ve been considering a new look for my blog for a while now, and I think I’m going to go with this for a few days and see how I like it. I really love the font (serifs, finally!) and the general look of it … but I’m not too sure about a couple of things.
Pros:
- Font – nice, neat, readable.
- No side bar (I think the centered text looks very nice.)
- Larger photos
Cons:
- No side bar … and I kind of liked having a “follow” button up top.
- The header font is ALL CAPS, which is decidedly not what my blog title is supposed to be. It’s very specifically an all-lower case puddle-wonderful life. This might be the deal breaker here.
What do you think? Do you like it? Should I keep looking? I definitely want a change from my previous theme, but it doesn’t have to be this one.
And just because I can’t post a post without a photo, and Maxwell has been strangely absent for a while, here’s a photo of him from last weekend – lounging on the rug, with his favorite doggy as a pillow.
I like it! It will be great way to showcase your beautiful photographs!
Thanks for the input, Tracy, and the kind compliment. I’m glad you like the larger column; I really do, too, I think. (But I am not at all sure about the all-caps title. I’m not sure if it will continue to bother me, or if I will get used to it….)
You can always change it back, or maybe find a different theme that you like better.
True, true. I think I will keep it and maybe play with it for a little while, and I can always switch later. :)
I always vote for larger photos and nice fonts :)
The only con to me is that the header font jumps over your lovely header image when I scroll. I’m not sure it’s possible, but I’d try to put the name into the picture (where it can be not in all caps), i.e. for wordpress not to display it.
I really like your idea for the header image; I am sure that would be possible somehow, although I’m afraid I might have to get some photo editing software before I can add text to the photo. (Right now, I just use iphoto, for cropping and so on, but it doesn’t allow for anything fancy like adding layers….)
Anyway – thanks for the thought – I am definitely going to have to follow through on that!
If you have time to experiment, try online photo editors. There are lots of them, you simply upload the image and tweak it there, no software downloads or payments. I recently needed something like that on the go, so I googled and opened ipiccy.com, it worked like a charm
I’m pretty busy at this moment in life and am going to try to do it with John’s powerpoint, but that is definitely a good hint. I will look into it (…just not this week :p) . Thanks for the idea!
I like the rose — it is really great. I also like the big photos. it is a shame thatvyoubdon’t have control over caps.
Good, I’m glad you like it. Jennifer and got2focus both had the good idea of putting the title as an overlay in the photo, which hopefully I can do somehow. If it works, this theme might be just right.
I love the photo up top too, but the Caps seem to yell at me. :) They also detract from the photo because they’re right in the middle. I know nothing about blog templates, but perhaps there is one that allows for the layout you like but a different header/title box. I do love the clean look of the white background and super easy-to-read font. It looks fresh.
Thanks for the input! … and I am glad you like it.
I’m sure that if I wanted, I could make any sort of theme that I want … but I’m going the easy (and cheap) route of using the free wordpress.com themes, which are pretty limited. I’ve been looking through them for some features that I wanted (layout, size of column, font, etc) and haven’t found a “perfect” one – but this one might be close enough.
What a cute dog! Reminds me a bit of my Ollie (who is a shihtzu X). I’m not sure I’m mad about the middle column only, maybe I’m just more used to the text feeling more anchored. I’ve changed my blog theme too recently, it’s a bit decision. And sure you can always change it again.
Yes, you’re right, I can always change it – which is pretty much the only thing that convinced me to go ahead and make the leap. I feel a little weird changing it around and testing it in “public,” but I guess no one minds too much.
You’re right, Maxwell looks a little bit like your Ollie, doesn’t he? I think Ollie has a longer nose/less squished face – but they are both cuties. We don’t know what Maxwell is, apart from definitely having some Shih Tzu and/or Lhasa Apso in him. We just call him a cutie pie mix if anyone asks. :)
I love the breed ‘Terrier Surprise’! We think Ollie is Shihtzu and maybe Fox Terrier. Like your Maxwell he just looks like a walking teddy bear.
Or an ewok… :)
If you prefer the lower case title, why don’t you just save the type in lowercase on the background image, and omit the blog template title? I like the new look, though for some reason the font is HUGE and I have to reduce my viewing size now… :)
Thanks for the excellent idea … which I am definitely going to do if I can figure out how to without having to buy any photo editing software. :p
It’s weird that it’s so big now. How much did you have to shrink it? It will sort of defeat the purpose if the fonts are so big that people have to shrink the photos really small to make it readable….
It now comes up In what looks like 14-16 point font to me… I do all my photo editing in MS paint or PowerPoint! Poor grad student solution. I know you’re a Mac user, not sure if you have MS office…? I can do it for you if you tell me what you want.
I only have the pages and numbers, but John has MS office, as well as the apple counterparts, so I’m going to try your technique with his software. Thanks for offering to do it – but if possible, I would like to figure out a way to do it on my own.
(Once you get an image edited the way you want in powerpoint: can you re-save it at a specific size, in pixels? And, how? That is that part of this that’s not immediately obvious to me….)
Hm, for ppt you can change the height and width in inches, but I don’t seen an option for pixels – MS paint can do that, though.
Hmm. Thanks for the help … I will play around with it and see what I can do.