Have you seen that I've started handing out gold stars? You can go back to my first post if you want to get the longer introduction. I'm giving out gold stars three at a time in these different categories: blog theme, blog profile, and blog signature.
I initially called the series "Craig's Picks" but I had asked for feedback for perhaps a more catchy name. We had a nice discussion with lots of good suggestions but one stuck with me more than the rest "Craig's Clicks" I like it (thank you to Judy Jennings for suggesting the name). I'm clicking around ActiveRain as much as I have time to and if I see something that I like and that is a good example of presentation for all of us, I'll mark the click with a gold star in my book. Once I've gathered three, I'll post the features.
I'm looking at the presentation of you in the virtual world. If your presentation is attractive to the eye, engaging, tells a concise story about you to someone who has never met or seen you before then you will get my attention too.
These next three stars are also going out based on the blog theme (appearance). I'm looking specifically at blog banner and background image or color.
(These settings, by the way, are editable if you go to My Home > Activerain - Customize) I will soon be writing how-to articles on the topic, but for now we are looking for inspiration for a job well done (that we can learn from) The next three stars go to...
Cindy Marchant
Cindy read my first post and before the ink on my post was dry (or pixels, so to speak) was off to
work on her blog theme. Cindy got a little help from her husband, but that's
ok if you do that too. Call on people to help if you want to reach a little higher in the
graphics department than you might do yourself. Cindy has a nice series of
seven images that mark interesting aspects about her area. The photos are
offset from the page with a thin white frame and shadow background.
Jane Peters
Jane has chosen a beautiful single night scene of LA. She incorporates her
company brand via the logo on the right. On the left is two lines of text:
larger font is her name and below and smaller is a tag line telling us
concisely where and what. The background is subtle grayscale with page
shadow which seems to lift the page up from the background. Jane called on the handiwork of
a fellow AR, Inna Hardison of Ha Media. good job
on a very nice blog theme!
Peter & Linda Pfann
Peter and Linda are using a very similar theme as what they have on their
regular website. This is often a good thing to do, it helps carry through
your "look" in continuity from one site to the next. The banner
graphic is a series of interesting photos of Victoria, BC. They are in
semi-random rotated and overlapped layout as photographs on a tabletop. This
too is an interesting effect. Their one line of text gives the location
reference as well as a clever tie in to their name. Pfanntastic job on your
blog theme guys!
craig's note to self: write a blog
post teaching about the importance of aspect ratios on
graphics; teach people not to stretch/squish their graphics 'to fit'
horizontally or vertically :)
Well there you have my next three "Craig's Clicks" gold stars in featuring blog themes.
I'm also going to giving gold stars to the categories of profile pages and blog signatures (footers). If you have any in mind that are inspiring to us all as a good example, please let me know to check somebody out.
Also stay tuned for future posts where I will teach you how to do some of the things that we see here.
PS - meanwhile you may want to check out www.bannerfans.com -- Joel Kruse on AR wrote this post on how to use it. Keep in mind that you will want a custom size banner of 960x130.
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