Hi guys, it's been awhile since I wrote something for my Build a Better Blog series and since I've had a lot of questions and emails about my outside Rain blog, here goes...
First I thought I'd give you a quick overview of what I did to make it look so different from the standard Rain blogs and I'll point out a few things that might not be obvious until you play around with it. The fact is that what you see on my outside Rain blog is actually a theme I had designed on WordPress.
Here are a couple of photos of a default AR blog theme I used as a starting point...
In the first photo above you can see that...
- it has a custom blog header designed to fit the default space of 960 pixels W x 134 pixels H
- the BIG TEXT title which is standard on the outside blog
- and it filled up the entire screen from left to right on a standard monitor (screen resolution of 1024 pixels wide i.e. iPad in the horizontal position)
In the second photo below you'll see the standard AR outside blog footer (bottom of the page area)...
Now let's take a look at the makeover to see how I cleaned it up and gave it a more polished look ...
In the photo above you'll see that...
- I removed the BIG TEXT title since I wanted to add my own text with color and a shadow in the new header
- I designed a new header sized 700 pixels W X 200 pixels H so I'd have more "breathing room", I find the standard AR blog header much too narrow for adding graphics
- to add even more breathing room, I added some space between the blog header and the content
- the fonts were changed and the links were given a more web standard type color
- you can see I also reduced the size of the content area and the sidebar so I could have some of the background showing through
- then I added another graphic to the background along with a shadow area behind the content so it would pop off the page a bit
- if you go to my outside blog(see link below) and scroll down the page, you'll see that the background is fixed or static, meaning you always see it no matter how far down you scroll
And last but definitely not least. I wasn't too thrilled with all the "stuff" in the standard blog footer area(bottom of the page/posts) so...
- I removed all the "stuff"
- and added a very simple graphic
If you've been reading me for awhile you know that I'm a big fan of clean, minimal design. I could have also added a logo or a bit of text but for now I decided to leave it as it is.
I have a ton of ideas for other ways to pimp out Rain blogs so my outside Rain blog will probably look very different if you're reading this weeks or months from now but for the next little while, you can see the live version of this design at... http://garaughty.activerain.com
While Rain blogs don't have the kind of features you find in WordPress, Posterous or Tumblr, they do have some nice possibilities which we'll take a look at in some upcoming posts.
For more information about super affordable custom designs for your Rain, WordPress, Tumblr and Posterous blogs you can reach me at marti@garaughty.com Later...
If you have additional topics you'd like to see covered or would like more information about custom graphics, themes or to book a 1 on 1 consultation to create or customize your WordPress or ActiveRain blogs, you can reach me here Later...
For more info about how we can help you stand out from the crowd, contact GiselleStCyr@garaughty.com
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