The Blog Studio

I have a confession to make. I love customizing existing themes. I’ve designed within the confines of a pre-existing theme a couple of times now. It’s fun. It’s easy, and pretty fast. Design brain candy, if you will.

I can’t show you the work yet, as it’s still underway. But I did want to let you know that we do accept theme customization work. We have developed custom plugins for existing themes, and have done total design overhauls.

Some of the existing WordPress themes offer excellent bases for customization. We enjoy working with them so much, we’re developing our own set of themes to be released in early next year. More details will be forthcoming.

We’d love to talk with you about your design or development needs. Please use the info on the contact page to get in touch.

Thanks!

It’s been ages since we last released a free WordPress theme. I’m kind of embarrassed about it to tell the truth! I’ve started at least 10 free theme blog designs over the intervening years, but something or another always comes up. This time though, I am committed!

In the spirit of forcing myself to finish this thing, I thought I’d show you a bit of a teaser. The image below is very much a work in progress. Certain elements will probably make it through to the final, while others won’t. The theme release is about a week away. It will be our holiday gift to you.

So without further ado, here’s a wee look:

During the redesign and rebranding process we launched a few months ago, I made a bunch of screen shots of the work in progress. Reviewing them gives a really interesting look into how the site developed.

As you’ll see, I started with one clear idea: make use of watercolour to create a bit of a sophisticated feel. Through a gazillion revisions, you can see that idea develop. I went pretty far down one path, but the intent in the original use of the watercolour had been lost. I literally wiped the slate clear of all colour, and immediately felt like I had it.

In retrospect, I may have gone a bit too far on the dark colours in reaction to the visual direction of the earlier versions. Perhaps it’s time to tinker a bit!

As an aside, looking back at this slideshow posted below, it’s interesting to see how may versions the scan of the watercolour went through. I was determined to find a way to use it!

We’ve been very hard at work over at PrimetimePolitics.com adding new features and refining the design. The Featured Debate is now loading using Ajax, which speeds up the page load quite dramatically. I also recently added a bit of javascript that pulls in the favicons of the sites we’re linking to, which gives an immediate visual cue to what the site is about.

The hard work is really paying off. We’ve seen average daily visits jump from the low hundreds to 1100+ in just a few days. Of course, the content might have something to do with that.

We’ll be rolling out a very cool addition to the site early next week that we hope will really increase the usefulness of this already useful site.  Stay tuned for more!

From Seth Godin, who continues to amaze me:

1. Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker.

2. Change the interaction. What makes great websites great is that they are simultaneously effortless and new at the same time. That means that the site teaches you a new thing or new interaction or new connection, but you know how to use it right away. (Hey, if doing this were easy, everyone would do it.)

3. Less. Fewer words, fewer pages, less fine print.

4. What works, works. Theory is irrelevant.

5. Patience. Some sites test great and work great from the start. (Great if you can find one). Others need people to use them and adjust to them. At some point, your gut tells you to launch. Then stick with it, despite the critics, as you gain traction.

6. Measure. If you’re not improving, if the yield is negative… kill it.

7. Insight is good, clever is bad. Many websites say, “look at me.” Your goal ought to be to say, “here’s what you were looking for.”

8. If you hire a professional: hire a great one. The best one. Let her do her job. 10 mediocre website consultants working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one rock star.

9. One voice, one vision.

10. Don’t settle.