Custom Background Image Makes the Blog.

I chose my current PB template, "Ethereal," because it had a simple format that looked organized for the things I needed to include on the blog: About widget, Follow widget, regular blog posts with defined titles, dates, a text header, Blog Archive, and a Links widget.

I was also interested in having a colorful background, but did not want it to be too busy, so the salmon colored gradient worked out great.



Alternate Theme 1: Travel

This theme has an obvious charm to it with the armchair, and quaint picture frames in the background. The problem I see with this frame is that there is no need for that specific picture. The great thing I just discovered is that you can change the image! This just turned into a great theme. If you can create a nice background image for it, this would be the best theme to go with in my opinion. There is a shaded spot so that your blog posts will show up, there are several layout options, and you can edit the CSS! You could pretty much customize this site to be whatever you would like.

The problem I see with this blog is getting the background image good enough so that you can easily read your posts. The shading will obviously help a little, but depending on how big a screen people are reading your blog from, your background may not work as well as you think it will.



Alternate Theme 2:

While this theme has a lively background image to start (which some people may find tacky, others artistic) the theme also has the option to upload your own image. I think this theme would be a nice fashion student blog as it is colorful and may inspire some kind of artistic thought, but I don't think if you want to become a big fashion blogger that this is custom enough to do so. Also, I noticed that on one of the layouts, the right column's widgets separate into two columns. This looks cluttered and does not follow suit with the typical fashion blogs.



When it comes to templates, especially when working on my website, I find that the ones that do not allow a lot of widget integration, or allow CSS editing give you the greatest troubles. As I am not too good writing my own HTML or designing CSS templates myself, I have spend a lot of time trying to find a template that works best for my website needs. The problem is that a few little things are off that make the templates nightmare-esque. For example the image below shows a huge feature box that I wish was smaller because it takes up a good portion of the homepage (why the designers made this so large, I have no idea... otherwise I really like the template).

5 Tips From Shelby Jacobs About Blogging.

Here are my five blogging tips:

(1) If you are writing for your friends, write for your friends; write as you would normally talk to your friends.

+ If you are writing a blog for your family, make it family appropriate; add images they can share with other family members (you will inc. your loyal followers)

+ If you are writing a blog about your experiences with the stock market, write for people interested in finance (pick an age group… you might want to write for potential future employers, or you might want to write for your finance class buddies (but make it so only they can read your thoughts, not the public).

(2) Post regularly.

+ I have trouble doing this, I’m not going to lie. I know I will write each week, that is not really the problem. The problem is writing every M,W,F at 3 PM… a schedule my NIF audience could easily get used to due to he general high school/college class schedules.


*Image from the Art of the Business

(3) If you don’t have images, and can’t draw, and don’t want to borrow someone else’s images, borrow them anyway and learn to use the Microsoft word draw tool.

+ I was taught in a 7th grade desktop publishing class how to use MSW draw tools to create a pepsi can, house plans, and a thanksgiving dinner. You can do anything with these tools if you have a little time to get to learn the program. If you have no imagination of how things can go together, find a picture online and use the objects in the picture as something to trace (I don’t know about you, but I usually trace and then end up making something that looks completely different once more creative ideas start coming to mind.)



(4) If you are going to do a video blog…

+ Make sure it is worth sitting 2 minutes to watch… and make sure the image that is displayed before you press play is somewhat interesting (I never click any pictures that don’t look interesting unless I already know what I’m about to watch).

(5) Try out tumblr, wordpress, and blogger. They all have interesting themes and structures that vary in different ways. I have started blogs since high school and have used the three for various reasons.

Tumblr- currently using it to co-blog with my best friend whiel she is gone for the summer. We use it to share everything and anything; stories, website links, videos, pictures, whatever. Tumblr is cool because you simply click Text, Video, Link, etc. buttons and add a new post really quickly.



Blogger- in the past, I have used Blogger to keep a more personal journal for family and friend to read because it is not as easy to upload pictures as the other sites.



Wordpress- I currently use wordpress to host my website, NextInFashion.com. The templates offer a wide range of website building options, and can make a blog look more like a professionally done website, and less like your typical blog.