musings

Blog design and layout are not my fortes…

I am sitting here looking through the many different blog layouts offered on WordPress. Some people love playing with blog layouts, colors, fonts, and all of that stuff. Not me. I kind of suck at doing layouts. I just want to get to writing. But then I realize that the blog is probably not easy for everyone to read and I wonder if I should change it.

Would it be better if I switched from a color scheme to just black and white? I could do that, but it seems so stark. I’m not really a stark person.

Don’t be surprised if I switch the design again soon. I’m not very happy with what I have right now. One thing I liked about Google’s Blogger engine is that it was so easy to use. I had a lot of freedom as to what templates and colors I could employ, as well as fonts. It didn’t cost me anything, either. In fact, I made money using Blogger, although I did occasionally run afoul of their “anti-decency” rules. I got in trouble once because I wrote a post about a big pink used dildo someone was selling in one of the Stuttgart yard sale groups. Hell, I even did a well-received song parody about it. But Blogger said it was too dirty for their advertisers, so I had to put it in draft. I later rewrote it for this blog, because I now own the domain and can mostly post whatever I want.

WordPress just seems harder to customize the way I want it. And there are so damned many designs to choose from, some of which are kind of expensive. I don’t mind paying for my blog space, but I already have a lot of subscriptions and it gets hard to keep them all straight. On the other hand, everything works on WordPress. Blogger got pretty wonky toward the end of my stint there. That was one major reason why I switched venues. The other major reason is that I had stalkers.

I really do suck at this kind of stuff. I’m much better at communicating than creating visually appealing spaces. I didn’t inherit the crafty gene from my mom (who really does have it in spades). It’s probably a good thing I’m not a Mormon. I could never do the crafty shit they do and put in their blogs. Apparently, in some circles, that makes me a failure as a woman.

Anyway, if anyone out there in blog land has a preference, let me know. If readers would rather see this blog in black and white, I can easily arrange that. On the other hand, it looks like readers have the ability to alter the way the blog looks, anyway.

Sigh… life was a lot easier when I had a simple diary… Just give me a pen and some paper and I’m good. I like the layout on my travel blog better than I like the one on this blog. But the travel blog is photo heavy, while this blog isn’t. I’ll keep looking for a better layout plan. Please let me know in the comments if you have any tips.

Edited to add: THIS DOES NOT MEAN I WISH TO HIRE ANYONE TO HELP ME WRITE MY BLOG. I don’t need rude comments about my writing style or “wordiness”. I’m looking at you, Richard M. Miles, spammer extraordinaire. For a “business communication specialist”, you sure suck at communication. This isn’t a business; it’s a personal blog, and thus it comes straight from me, wordiness and all. Kindly fuck off.

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2 thoughts on “Blog design and layout are not my fortes…

  1. I agree. I’d like to change it up more – customize backgrounds and fonts. I just changed the layout. For the home page, I like it better because I can highlight the different categories But I’d like to be able to play with the background colors and layouts for the posts as well. It looks too bland to me.

    Good luck! I keep saying I need to look for tutorials and never get around to it.

    • You know what else is irritating? So many times, I have accidentally navigated away and lost some of my post. I spent over an hour on a travel post today and half of it got wiped out. I was so irritated, I quit and went to AAFES, which irritated me even more.

      But then we had a beautiful lunch. I will write about it tomorrow, when I am sober.

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