Design Dilemmas

Thank you to those who have left kind comments on my blog about my recent design tweaking.  I don't have time to write up some of my recent recipes so am indulging in another introspective post about the blog.  I thought I'd share the history of my blog designs and a few reflections.

I don't spend money on my blog (other than on photography and food) so my design is the result of my limited technical skills.  The above photo is the design on my blog for the first couple of years.  It took me that long to work out how to upload a banner photo.

I was very excited when I first worked out how to put a photo on my banner.  And colour.  You can probably see that I love green.  As with most of my changes on my blog, it happened through playing around with the Blogger templates when I had a bit of spare time and chancing upon what I wanted.

Then just recently I came across the new Blogger templates and started tweaking again.  Once my banner was up, my new aim was to get some background on the sides.  The above picture is an approximation of the design I chanced upon.  I sort of liked it but it just wasn't me.  In particular I wasn't happy about white print on black background, which seems harder to read.

I have recently read a Gerry McGovern article saying that "redesign is out, continuous improvement is in".  (If you have an interest in hearing up the latest thinking on websites, I'd highly recommend subscribing to Gerry McGovern and Jakob Nielsen's newsletters.)  In this piece it advises against radical change because people don't like change.  This article made sense of why I felt uncomfortable every time I saw my new image.

So I returned to my old image and updated it.  I love the backgrounds on the page tabs and posts.  I love the look of the Shabby Blog backgrounds.  I have tried a few other side patterns but they were all too bold and took the eye away from my blog.  That seemed wrong.  So I am staying with the more subtle dots for now.

However I am not sure about my colours.  They are in the ball park but I have been tweaking them.  I got even more confused when I checked them on my work computer and the hue was different than at home.  So I am not even sure what colours you are seeing when you read this.

So for those who are wondering if I will keep trying on new blog outfits, the answer is no.  I may continue to make small changes to the design, especially the colours.  My big dream now is to fix the position my blog banner which is too low and needs to be in the centre.  There is always something!  But it will be baby steps, as always.  After all, people, continuous improvement is in!

Update: February 2012 - I have updated the design again so at least my banner fits across the page.

Update: July 2012 - I removed my shabby blogs wallpaper and replaced it with one from Blogger as I had read some bad things about shabby blogs!  The problem with changing the Blogger background wallpaper is that it then resets all the other fonts and backgrounds which means they all need to be customised again!  May still look out for other wallpapers but this will do for now.

More screen grabs (photos) of design changes at Drop Down Menus and Blog Changes (July 2013).

April 2014: I have done away with the background wallpaper and have a new clean modern look.  See above.

August 2014: I updated my banner for the first time in 2 years.  I have kept some of the previous banner in it.

This blog is archived by the National Library of Australia's Pandora archive.  You can see previous styles there.