I don’t like the way my blog looks
When I first moved from my free hosting on wordpress.com to paid hosting with dreamhost I did so in order to be able to creativly control the look and feel of my blog and owning my own domain was just an added plus. I probably could’ve just paid to upgrade the options from wordpress.com, but it just isn’t financially wise when it’s cheaper to buy the domain & hosting independantly.
When I first set up my blog I was madly in love with my theme. The grungey feel is definitely ‘ME’ and the pink & black rocks too… but I don’t like it much anymore. At times it even stops me from blogging as I can’t always be bothered going and finding an appropriate image to have displayed on the main, magazine style front page.
I’ve searched high and low for other themes that suit my blog. One that fits both my personality as well as the subject matter whilst presenting a professional image – which is one of my big issues with this theme – It’s gone beyond grunge and into total pig sty territory. The way the boxes don’t line up and is just all screwy. I have found other theme’s that I like, even a few that come close to being absolutely perfect… but when another, much more prominent sex blogger starts using that theme it gets knocked out of the running.
So I’ve come to a point where I’m just going to have to create my own theme, maybe not from complete scratch, but very close to that. I found a theme with a structure I like, I’ve stripped the guts out of it. Tore it back to bare bones and am starting from there.
I know that I want to be able to write short posts of just a paragraph or two without having to find an image to go with it. I want these short posts to show on the main page so readers don’t have to click deeper to read just a short piece. And I want to keep the right hand sidebar, but a much more tidy version.
I began building it last year and even have it to the point where just a few more hours and a couple of lines of code could turn it into a functioning theme, but now I’m nowhere as in love with it as I was when I began on it. I love the cute little button and sexy pin up girl – but the theme feels too … pretentious, frilly and way to girly & mumsy for me. I love the stripes and some of the colors but I think the theme stinks! (If you really want to see it Ive been testing it here : http://www.screaming-violet.com/blogging/)
Not sure when I’ll get around to it, as I find it far more rewarding working on other people’s websites – but eventually I will turf this cruddy theme and try a new one out. In the mean time if you want your own theme customised, or created feel free to contact me… I’ll be far happier working on something for you than for myself!
Violet xx
I’m still working on mine, actually. I got it finally (almost) perfect, but then I found out I should have made a Child Theme instead of editing all the code. So, now I need to figure out which code I edited and get it working in a Child Theme so I don’t lose everything next time the base theme gets updated. What a friggin’ pain.
GAH and cookies still keep trying to use my old site on these damn comment forms -_-
I always like the way your blog looks. I love the comment section with the pink “post comment” and I love the side ——-> I think it looks great. But if you want to change it, that’s up to you. After all, I’m constantly updating my blog, and my hair, too. hahaha. I get bored easily. And good luck!
I actually really like your theme, but I totally get needing to like it yourself.
I’ve been wanting to give me site a magazine style front page, didn’t even think of needing an image for each post. At the least I’d like to add a nice gallery featuring my reviews up top. Do you know how to do that?
Yeah, there are quite a few ways you can go about adding Image Galleries that feature selected posts on the front page of your blog. If you want to shoot me an email with a link to an example of what you are looking for I’d be happy to take a look and try and help you out.
I’m in the (very slow) process of building my new design business to do exactly that sort of thing – Helping bloggers to do the “extra” technical customisations etc to their blogs, so I’d be more than happy to help you out. Eventually it will *hopefully be an extra form of income…. when I finally find the time to set it all up lol
I like the colors and general layout of your theme but I always find magazine style to be so confusing if you don’t actually have a magazine. I prefer seeing things in chronological order on the index but that may just be me
Theme and colours are fine.
I understand that. I almost used this flashy magazine theme that I found. I thought it was perfect! If I had enough reviews up, it would be no problem, I told myself. Then I realized how many old posts I would have to go through so I wouldn’t have empty picture boxes next to text. I had it up for about a week, and it likewise nearly prevented me from using my blog at all. I almost considered contacting DreamHost and cancelling my membership, but I told myself to suck it up and find another theme. The theme I ended up with came with the wordpress app. How fitting is it that I spent days trying to find the right theme, and I ended up using one that came with the app? *Facepalm* It’s unnerving.