Change, My Dear, and Not a Moment Too Soon…
The more observant among you may have noticed that my blog has had a facelift. To be technically precise, it’s had a theme-change. No, this isn’t to signify some new phase in my life, or some anniversary. The fact is, the designer(s?) of the theme I was using (“SimpleNotes”) decided to overhaul the theme. They’ve done this once before, but that time it didn’t affect the layout of my blog too much, so I went with it. This time, it made the page tabs go all skewiffy and the drop-downs fell out of place, and the widgets didn’t look right–in short, my blog looked a mess. So I went looking for a new theme, and I’ve settled on this one. At least for now. I might tweak it some, perhaps come up with a new title banner, but pretty much this is it.
“Why not create your own theme?” you might ask. “After all,” you continue, “do you not work in IT? Do you not do programming for your bread-and-butter? Do you not know about HTML, php, CSS, and other geeky acronyms?” All the above is true and relevant. Yes, I have the requisite skills to construct a theme of my own. So why not? Two reasons:
- I don’t have a good eye for design. My artistic skills lie very much in the verbal and musical, not in the pictoral. Heck, I check with my wife every Sunday to make sure my tie goes with my shirt! If I were to design a blog template, I’m sure it would be uuuuhhhgly as they say down here.
- Time. No matter how skilled you are, it takes time to come up with a design, and then actually code it. And for me, that time would be better spent writing and doing the other things in my life that are of more pressing concern. Especially when there are perfectly serviceable freebie templates out there–like this one!
So here it is–the “new” blog template. It’s called “Twenty-Twelve” in case you’re interested. I hope you’re all okay with it. At least I hope you can read the posts and it’s not too off-putting.
QUIZ: Can you identify the source of the quote I used for this article title? Clue: It’s from Doctor Who. Okay, better clue: It’s from CLASSIC Doctor Who. 🙂
Change is good. I update at least once a year and just recently, I dropped a whole blog and its long time followers (155,000 peepers). Sometimes it is bet to go simple so the writing pops and nothing is distracting. I think this looks nice 🙂
…hmmm and my writing popped with spelling “bet” is “best”. *irk*
Thanks, Katy! Once a year? Wow, I don’t think I could do that. But I bet it does keep things looking fresh. I must say, I like the larger font size with this theme. The eyes are not getting any younger..!
I considered starting a new blog for all the non-writing stuff and keeping the writing on its own blog. But I nixed that idea pretty quickly. Maintaining two blogs? No thanks. I’d end up spending more time writing about writing on the “writing” blog than actually writing! Simple is good. 🙂
Lookin’ clean my friend. Clean is good.
Thanks, 2Ns! I was looking for something that was easy to read, fairly uncluttered, and didn’t mess with my widgets too much. You know what I mean. 🙂
I would have given a third reason: You work with computers enough during the day and need a break so would rather not create your own. 😉 It looks nice though. Clean.
This is true, though I know people who code for their day job and then code for pleasure at night. While I enjoy programming as a creative act, that’s not me. If I was a writer or musician full-time, perhaps… 🙂
I like it! A while back I changed my theme as well, and tried to go for a more noir look. I think I achieved it, although I might have to re-vamp again, and possible go back to that apple pie green look. LOL! At least it’s easier than painting. 🙂
Thanks, Donna! Yes, definitely easier than painting! 🙂
I agree with Carolynn, looks clean and sharp.
Interesting timing also. Today I’m reorganizing my blog. Not the template, but the organization of things.
Lookin’ good!
Thanks, Dena! I’ll have to check out your re-org-ed blog… 🙂