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This episode features myself and Darren Rowse and our topic of discussion is blog design. Darren talked about his recent Problogger redesign and how he worked with his designer, Ben Bleikamp. Then we talked about the different professional blog designers currently available (listed below) and how you should work with a designer to minimize the risk of problems.
We went on to discuss how bloggers who have limited financial budgets can go about sourcing a unique blog look, including modifying free themes and why you would want to have a custom design for your blog. We also talked about what a new design can do for you in terms of blog traffic, demonstrating your professionalism and infusing yourself with new energy if you are feeling blogger burn out.
Here’s a list of the resources mentioned in the podcast.
Blog Designers
- Chris Pearson [ pearsonified ]
- Ben Bleikamp
- Nate Whitehill [ Unique Blog Designs ]
- Michael Pollock [ Solostream ]
Freelance Sites
Darren’s Logo Designer
- Mike Rohde [ Makalumedia.com ]
Free WordPress Themes
Maybe I should camp outside federation square, to catch you guys on your next outing. ^^
Excellent audio, thanks
I have been playing with the design for a few of my blogs, to see how badly I can mess up WordPress editing. It’s actually fun, but I have really messed it up a few times.
Your audio has given me a lot to think about and maybe I need to hire someone, instead of taking all this time learning the process.
The last one you both did was on traffic right? I will check this out for sure! Thanks for the nice podcast series, Yaro.
Thanks for the email, gonna listen to it now (can’t wait) !
nice piece.. had me hearing it over and over again like a song of sorts..
the part where you guys talk about money had me thinking.. coz it was pretty much agreed to by the two of towards the end that a neat unique blog design could well cost into 1000 or more at least around 800..
was just wondering, if such a theme is a regular blog design without much coding (unlike in the case with darren for his fav post widget) is spending such an amount worth it, when it can be easily duplicated for something really less.. you pay so much for being unique and within a couple of months you have sites mushrooming with pretty much the same setup…
imo, unless you are introducing something which is difficult to reproduce and would a good amount if someone tried to, one should stick to regular free themes and try and customize them as much as possible…
Yaro, I’ve started my own blog design company as well. Been doing web design for the past 6 years now.
Great podcast, some good information.
Yaro,
Thanks for your informative posts.I also run a blog and I’ve always found your posts useful.Just downloaded your podcast with Darren,hope to make use of it.
A good design is essential to more effective readership. Poling your readers and getting a consensus is a great idea as well. Great audio link! Thanks!
Excellent podcast, especially the part about RSS. Hard to keep up with all these advances.
Yaro & Darren, thanks for the mention of the logo work. I had a great time working with Darren on the new ProBlogger logo project, so it’s quite an honor to get a mention in your podcast.
FYI, I did a post on the process for those who might be interested:
http://summit.makalumedia.com/2007/08/27/problogger-logo-design/
Cheers!
man – we’ve got to meet again some time so we can get a better picture of me 🙂
Lol – Yeah, I could say the same for me…maybe I should go meld two of our “better” photos together.
Nice interview Yaro! =)
Well, I recently got a redesign from sitepoint. I was an auction where I had to see some mockups and pick the best designer.
@maneesh – It’s really a matter of how customized a look you are going for. It’s true you may spend a few thousand on a design and a bunch of other people will go and take elements from it for their unique design and only pay a couple of hundred, but I say imitation is the highest form of flattery (the number of people who have copied the “popular posts” section since I did it – and I think Darren was my inspiration with his old design – is some bit time flattery!).
I think the difference is between whether you want a “unique” design vs. a “custom” design. I like to have tight control over my blog layout, hence I get a custom design made by a designer I can work personally with.
I like the new problogger design especially the way it has a home page and then you click on the blog. But it did throw me a bit the first time I visited.
Problogger obviously has a lot of traffic and you can see the design works well. Do you think that type of theme would work well for less popular blogs?
I’ve also seen the Revolution theme by Brian Gardner and that seems to work well with news and magazine sites? They both have a professional feel with clean lines that’s very easy on the eye. Do you think they are aimed more at blogs that also sell a product?
…] hire a designer to create a unique design for your blog. For more information, check out this post about blog design. It includes a podcast and relevant links. Also, check out the web design blogs on Eaton Web. Some […]
Another great resource as of late is 99designs.com – they have added a feature for WordPress blog designs where you can run a contest and have dozens of designers create a design based on your suggested criteria; then, you only pay for the design that you judge the winner.
This is a great way to minimize the risk of trying to find a designer if you don’t have a good one that you know, like and trust. Also, having multiple designers vying for your business creates a unique competition where people work hard to meet your needs. There are multiple options for pricing too, or, you can launch a contest at any price point you want to offer the contest winner. Not to mention, its a fun process!
Hope that helps some of your readers 🙂
Good day! Do you know if they make any plugins to safeguard against hackers? I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on. Any tips?