Comments are the backbone of a blog. For a blogger, there are few things better than a nice, long stream of comments. As a reader, flicking through such streams can be as enlightening as reading the post itself. It can also be useful to easily spot the author’s comments, to read what they in particular had to say.
As an example, here on Pro Blog Design, each of my own comments looks slightly different to the adjacent comments. Achieving the same effect on your blog is easily done.
The method described here is specifically for WordPress users. Movable Type users should refer to this article, and TypePad users to this one.
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For most bloggers, the comment field is one part of the blog that we really want our readers to see and use. As such, it seems strange that the comments form is rarely any different to the default white design.
Adding more advanced effects to the comments field is easily done using CSS. The method has been explained below, and is followed by a few pointers that you’ll want to remember when choosing your effects.
How To Add Effects
The comments field is treated as any other CSS element. View your page’s source code to figure out the ID of yours. In the case of most WordPress themes, the basic CSS code will be as follows:
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In yesterday’s post I discussed how the design of a personal blog can be an enjoyable experience because of the many design freedoms it offers. The key with a personal blog design is to let your personality shine through.
There are a number of ways in which this can be done through your writing and commenting style, but it can also be done in your design. Listed below are just some of the different might use to go about making a design that little bit more unique.
- Header design. The blog’s heading is arguably the best place to be creative. Let your heading reflect who you are. What are your hobbies and interests? Why not put photos of them in your header?
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Guest post by Steven Snell.
As new visitors arrive at your blog, color is one of the most important design aspects for creating a positive first impression. Last week Michael wrote about the importance of making your blog template unique. Effective color modifications can be a quick, easy way to help your blog stand out from the crowd, especially is you are using a very common theme.
Fortunately, there are a number of free tools available online that can help with finding the right color combination. We’ll take a look at a few of them and hopefully you”ll find something that you would like to use for your own color decisions.
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Redesigning has become a hot topic in the blogosphere, largely because of the redesigns of two of the most popular blogs, ProBlogger and John Chow.com. One blogger went as far as to dub 2007, Year of the Redesigns. Why should time be a factor in a redesign?
Redesigning for the Wrong Reasons
There are many reasons for a blog redesign. However, not all of these are good reasons, and what’s more is that they are no different than they have always been. What makes now so special? Hype.
One of the most frequently mentioned benefits is the hype and attention that a redesign obtains. The amount of attention that John Chow has received cannot be denied, but lest we forget, you are not John Chow. The same level of attention will not be repeated on you. If anything, you will receive less attention than ever as your blog will be lost between the dozens of others changing themes.
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Each page on a blog holds a number of different sections. Each section has a distinct purpose, for example; the title gives a name, and the blogroll gives a list of links. For all of these goals to be fully achieved, each section must be clearly marked out, and then distinguished from its surrounding sections.
Often the most effective way of doing this, is simply through understanding the concept of proximity (closeness). In normal terms:
If a number of objects are physically close together, the brain will classify them as a single group.
To take an example, look at the following image of 4 copies of the Pro Blog Design logo:
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The purpose of categorising posts is to organise your content. You group similar posts into sections, allowing readers to easily find all the posts on a certain topic. However, categories are more than just a list in the sidebar.
How Are Categories Ordered in a New Blog?
When a blog is new, naturally it will have fewer posts. Therefore, posts are grouped into rather broad categories. For instance; this post is currently categorised into the “Blog Usability,” category. Usability in itself is a huge topic, encompassing many sub-sections. As the blog is still new though, there is no need to break into these sub-sections.
Small blogs have a small number of categories.
As Your Blog Grows, Your Categories Grow
Over time, you post more and more, and the blog becomes larger and larger. However, because your blog is virtual, viewable only on a screen, you don’t see that.
Forget about the computer, and think about each post as a written document, and your blog as a filing cabinet. In the beginning, it may be suitable for you to use a separate drawer for each category, however, each page you add is filling up the cabinet. What do you do when there are so many pages that finding a certain one takes forever? You divide up the drawer. You take all of the pages in that drawer, and categories those, e.g. by name, by date or by topic.
Why should blogs be any different?
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