A Web Design Blog

Here we go. Its taken me all night but I have finally managed to custom build my own theme for WordPress.

Note the most flasy of designs but I want the words to do the talking (obv...) the design is to complement the words.

As mentioned its my 1st attempt at making my own WP theme and after doing this one am temted to do more and include it in my business.i basically (am going to more) write about my life, write tutorials and showcase latest work.

Any thoughts on the design etc? NO TEMPLATES HAVE BEEN USED lolol

BTW for any of you that have spoken to me before there is a pic of me on the site, put a face to a name.

Cheers in adv... Dan

Just had a quick look.

I like the banner.

I think you've got a problem with the content in that - the permalink stuff (time, date, category) is much more stirking and outstanding than the post title.

i wasn#t drawn to the post title at all.

I also felt rather diorientated on the site - I couldn't tell you why though. it seems a bit busy to me. I've never liked 3 column blogs. Especially in your case the test all blens together. there needs to be a solid definition between each column i think.

I also recently designed my first Wordpress template (I used a tutorial on wpdesigner.com to guide me but branched off on my own ideas as well). Check it out in my sig.

Mike

right, cheers for that. I was nver one for 3 columns but i thought hey lets give it a go.

Have made some quick changes erfresh and let me know what you think..


dan

Yea looks better now you've swapped the formatting for the titles and permalink stuff.

i think if you could find a less cluttered way of arranging and organising it you'd have a nice looking site.

yeah, a little cluttered. Also, some difference in the top nav and the header.

Oh, and the link to your website in the footer is dead.

But, I'll be reading your site. I gotta learn to make them forms without tables

I think there is too much text that looks alike. Try splitting it up more, give the user visual clues that certain parts are separate from others and cut down the amount of content on that home page. You've got three columns there use them well, there's a temptation to fill up all of your content space when you have it but whitespace is really good it makes everything look nicer and for information sites is a god-send as it improves readability. You've got the makings of a really nice design but you just need to manage your content a little better. Use your secondary pages for a lot of that as it's unnecessary on the home page.

Pete.

Congrats on making your own WP design! I'm impressed!

I'd like to make a couple of suggestions ...
I think the color of the links need to be changed to the blue of your bird or a tone darker. The default blue doesn't match as well as I'd like to see.

The gray/black welcome box doesn't fit the color scheme. Maybe use blue borders instead of black and change the headline to another color.

The yellow coding boxes are a bit over powering.
If you are going to use that color, you should incorporate it into the design somehow.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for all your comments will have another look at re-organising the site today.
I think maybe what i need to do is use the {more} featre of Wp to have the excerpt of the article on the HP and then the full article on the full page.

I agree with the code boxes comment and will address that today. You mention makingthe links the same colour as the bird but wouldnt that make it hard to distinguish from the content and the links?

Any further comments welcomed.

Have toned down the code box, slightly. Have changed the pages lunks @ top to background white.

Have used the more feature on longer posts (tutorials) any other advice on layout etc?

Hi Dan, that is 100 times better! Big difference with just a few little changes! Great job!

Now the site really matches your blue eyes!

Thanks for all your help every one. i am going to put the design to bed now and write some articles, probs not the right place to ask but any advice on my next article? I was thinking 'How to build a simple CSS based page', showing how to build two types of page ( top-nav and side nav) with the same code but different css)

What you think?

yup a hell of a lot better, yea tutorials always go down well.

Hey Dan, why don't you write a tutorial for the Creative Code Newsletter???

We asked for unpublished works, but since you are writing one...can you write one for us too?

Linda

Lchad, Will have a go tomorrow. On the subject I mentioned above?

Dan

Nice!!! PM me if you want me to submit it for October 1st!!

I love it

Nice site well done

Hi,
For the perfect website you should need your development in Visual Studio.

Thank you,
Regards,
Pakistan Boy,

What?! Why VS?

VS is for programming in C and Java. Its not the best program for web programming!

He might be on about visual web studio
microsofts crappy version of dreamweaver