My blog is beginning to take shape. How you may ask? Let me explain.
Here’s what I did.
Firstly, I went on a quest for a new theme. I saw the one “Hive” and loved it, but it was $125 so I moved on. I checked out the demo of two more and then found a section categorized as “blog themes.” So, I clicked on it to continue my search. That’s when I saw the theme “Oxford.” This theme was everything I wanted, yet again it came in at a whopping $125. I then made my way through the list of themes one last time and settled on the theme “Eighties.”
Next, I realized that I forgot to set my time zone during class so, I went into setting and did so. I then set my about page, which serves as my home page, to static. Then I created menus. After watching the lynda.com tutorial, I set up three different pages, about, contact, and blog, and then added them under the main menu option I created in menus.
At this point, I realized I hated the “Eighties” theme due to an awful salmon color that was carried throughout, so I reverted to the original theme I went with called “Illustratr.” After re-settling on this theme, I decided to create a home page independent of my about. I later reverted back to using my about page as my home page.
I then add search, archive, and recent posts widgets to my page. There was only one placement option for these, which is the bottom of each page. Next, I added social media icons, which I set up via a custom menu under social media menus. These icons were also displayed at the bottom of each page.
Following widgets and icons, I then started working on a header, which I later replaced with a featured photo. For this photo, I cropped a photo I had taken while in NYC, changed it to black and white, and then resized it as closely as possible to the dimensions suggested by the theme.
Lastly, I checked the theme in mobile to see if it still worked. It did!
Here’s why I did it.
I went back through all of the themes to find one that was even more streamline and bold than “Illustratr.” Although I found a few contenders, they weren’t options due to pricing and an awful salmon color they all insisted on featuring. So, I settled on the theme “Eighties” because of its large photo header and it’s bold text, which I found to bring an exciting element to the page. I later decided that the combination of the font, the header, and the theme’s colors were too much. So, I decided to revert back to my original theme choice.
My final theme placed my menu in a central and easy to find location and it highlighted each menu choice in my favorite pink color as well. I wanted to keep the menu itself very straightforward using a simple tab for each page. This simplicity was intended to keep the site very user-friendly and easy to navigate. I also chose to make the first page of my site static to give the site an overall more professional vibe. Although at one point I made the home page stand on its own independent from my about page, I felt like my site needed a little more work before it would be appropriate to do so. So, I again reverted to the way I had it before.
I added widgets to make navigation of the site easier for viewers. The only issue I had with this part was that the only way to access these widgets was to click on an arrow at the bottom of each page. This was concerning because it could possibly make the site a bit more difficult to navigate. The social media icons I added are also at the bottom of the page, but stand out more. I chose to add links to my Twitter and LinkedIn because these are the two sites I am most active on.
The header I selected I made black and white to continue with the theme of my site. I chose a photo I had taken in NYC because its my favorite place. However, after setting the photo as a header, I realized that its location had the potential the hinder viewers for getting to the content of the page quickly. So, I went in and made photo a featured image instead. This placed the image between the menu and the about which broke up the text and made the page flow better.
Lastly, I checked in on mobile because there is nothing I hate more than awful mobile sites!
Now, I need to work on a clever about me to add to the site!
