www.reflectingthedesigner.com

Recent Projects

Well, I’ve been very busy on some projects recently as well as other “life” stuff that have kept me from being able to post as much as I’d like to. I just completed a full Wordpress website for a company that I did a WP blog for several months ago. They wanted their whole site transformed and consolidated into one Wordpress Site. It was a huge process as I had to set up Wordpress in their current hosting location, transfer the old blog over to it, and completely design and add content to their site from top to bottom. A huge thanks to a couple of helpful posts from Digital Raindrops on how to successfully add more widget spaces going horizontally across the bottom of the page and still in keeping with the format of the other widgets as far as design. Widget Logic, a Wordpress Plugin, was also a huge part of this site so that almost every page displayed different widgets that were applicable to that page. I also used a separate page template for the home page, but honestly I had to dig around through multiple posts online and work out things myself before getting the desired effect so no kudos to anyone on that part, although Wordpress does have some helpful articles on the subject. The key to page templates is to properly link to new css that you create for that template. Contact me if you are interested in taking a look at that site.

Other projects I’ve been working on is the logo and branding for a local church (still working on that, and will post pictures once complete.) I also just finished doing the blog redesign for My Skin Concierge, Ava which I like to describe as a Victorian Pink Explosion. It’s the ultimate “girly-girl” site, but why not with a topic like skincare? I still need to do a couple of little things on that one, and Ava will be organizing and structuring her menu items how she wants them when she has time.

I told one of the visitors to this site that I’d work on a matching WP theme, Twitter, and YouTube Channel for them, but after that I’m going to be stopping for a little while so I can get caught up on the rest of life. Thanks for your patience!

There are several new prospects on the horizon for my husband and I that require my utmost attention right now, so I’ll be taking a break from any new design projects for a while. You can feel free to ask me questions, but I will not be able to take on any new customers until further notice. I have a couple of projects to finish up for some current customers, and I’ll keep you posted when I’m ready to start-up in full force again. I will still be writing the occasional blog post, and you can always feel free to comment on previous posts or ask a design question.

Take care!

I so enjoyed working with Annie from Annie Kennedy Photography as we helped to give her a presence as she starts her new business venture. Annie has a wonderful eye for photography and a great sense of style, so it was easy to come up with a great design that matches her personality with such great photos to work with as the centerpiece. First, I created her logo design and business card, then I used that logo and the styles used in the card to create a matching blog theme. A few Artisteer/Photoshop tricks used in this blog are the following:

Background Pattern

Artisteer has some tremendous pre-made background designs, but many people don’t think about editing them to create new and unique background patterns. I simply took a screen shot of both an ornate background as well as a grunge background and pulled them into Photoshop to create a completely new style. I first changed the colors to match what I wanted, then I stacked the grunge on top of the ornate and chose a blending option creating an entirely different look. I then cropped the whole image to one small column, and faded it into white at the bottom so that it could be used as a horizontally repeating background image when pulled back into Artisteer.

Glare and Buttons

Because there are so many dark colors and that rough grungy look, I wanted to balance it out with some more feminine touches. I love some of the floral glare that Artisteer has in their pre-made glares. To tie in the buttons to the theme, I again took that image, flipped and scaled it to be used in the bottom corner across the page. I then created individual layers for my buttons making them the same color as the background, but giving them a bevel so they stand out. To see more of the code in adding these to your blog, make sure to check out Blogger Scrapbook and look under the scrolling buttons category.

I’ve been working on several different projects which have kept me from being able to post as regularly as normal. One of these projects has been the complete blog theme redesign and reorganization for Health, Home, & Happiness. The first order of business was to find out what Cara’s blog was all about and the theme she wanted to portray. I created a theme who’s colors, pictures, and organization make it very clear what this blog is all about – Health, Home, and Happiness! I added an image logo that clearly states the name while editing and using some of her own images from her blog posts. I then edited and created another compilation of images from her site to visually demonstrate the theme of the site.

Cara has a ton of helpful posts from natural food recipes to DIY, money saving tips on household cleaners, clothing items, and more. Because she has so much information on a variety of topics, we needed to organize her posts clearly by labels then create a horizontal menu with sub-menu items so that people can quickly find the information they need. Part of reorganization meant redoing sidebar items, adding easy social icons and links to the side bar, creating a customized About Me Profile, adding a footer with links, changing some of the side bar items into actual posts, and much more. Now, Cara has a blog that is easy to navigate and displays her message and pictures in a creative and easy to read way.

I was just browsing through some new twitter followers blogs, and I couldn’t help but notice some well designed themes, and some very poorly designed Wordpress and Blogger themes. Most of these have great content, but a lot don’t really make you want to stay on their site very long because they are either not friendly on the eyes or they are difficult to navigate through.

Here are some simple tips to help you make your blog or site keep more viewers. (Note: not all of these tips are even used on my own site, but should be.

Content:

• As everyone knows, content is king in the web world, and if people don’t immediately know what your site is about at first glance, you’ve already shot yourself in the foot. Make sure that your title is clearly visible, easy to find and read, and clearly communicates the purpose of your site.
• SEO: Search Engine Optimization is very important.
  
  1. While it’s great to have a beautiful title, make sure to also have text that search engines can read (whether it’s visible to the human eye or not) so that people will be able to find your site.
  2. If you are using Wordpress, I recommend checking out the Platinum SEO Pluggin.
  3. Make sure to put plenty of tags in your posts, but make them applicable to your content and not too random.You want people to come who are really interested in what you have to say or they won’t stay.
• Displaying Ads: Almost everyone wants to display ads, but most blogs are overpowered by them so that not only is it difficult to see what your site is all about, but it also just turns people away.
  
  1. Put only ads on a page that apply to that topic, and limit the number of ads to just a few really targeted ones.
  2. Try creating a separate page for resources that you use or recommend, and create a post or page for each ad telling why it’s worth looking at.
  3. If you are using Google Adsense, make sure to design your ads so that they blend in to your site, but are also in easy to find places (such as before or after posts, or close to your main content in the sidebar).
• Organization: Nobody wants to be fumbling around through your site trying to find that one post they were looking for. Let’s face it, who really cares about looking for a date of a post from a calendar or your archives? They really want to find a specific topic or category. Here are a few simple organization tips for your content.
  
  1. Make an easy to navigate menu that links to your main categories and subcategories.
  2. If you can’t make a menu, make your own menu in a sidebar widget or gadget by simply creating links to these categories and subcategories.
  3. Place the most important info or links toward the top of the page in your sidebars. If you are using a search feature, put it right at the top or in your header. Otherwise it will never get used.
  4. Label your posts very specifically, but with several different words or phrases that mean the same thing. Then, make sure to put a search box at the top of your site so that people can easily search for a word or phrase and find just what they are looking for. Quick Hint: If you want to know how search friendly your site is, do a quick search for a topic you know you wrote about a while back and see how long it takes you to find it.
  5. If you are using a 3 column design, organize your sidebar by the content you are displaying in them. For example, you can use one sidebar for info about you and your site or ways to follow you, and the other for ads and links to other sites.
  6. LESS IS MORE! The more content on a page, the shorter amount of time most people will stay on that page. This is why menus and sub-menus are soooo helpful. The main visible menu shows the main categories, and helps people focus on what direction they want to go in. Once they’ve chosen a basic direction, than you can give them more specific options within that direction.

Design Elements:

• Who doesn’t love a beautiful design?! However, your design should never overpower your content. Your design should direct the reader to the content not only by drawing their attention to it, but also by giving a visual message of what your site is all about.
• Avoid Loud colors or large graphics. Not only do they distract the eye and can overwhelm the senses, but they can also take a long time to download. If you want to use patterns, try to use a repeating pattern for the background so your page loads faster.
• Three column designs are a must if you intend on displaying a lot of widgets or gadgets. No one wants to have to scroll forever.
• Header Design: Try for a clean, uncluttered header that clearly depicts what your site is about, and contains links or buttons to what you really want people to go to.
• Footer Design: Don’t put important content in your footer that is not displayed elsewhere on your site, especially if you are using a blog. Most people don’t make it that far down the page. Footers should be eye friendly, and contain links or items that are either mentioned elsewhere already or are not as important.
• Scrolling Buttons: These are great for items you don’t want people to miss, and they also give you more room in your main content. Just make sure that they blend in nicely with your theme and don’t detract or distract from the main thing. A back-to-top button is also a great way to help people quickly get back to the header without having to scroll a long time.

To wrap it all up, here are a few questions to see if your site is welcoming and easy to navigate.

• Can someone tell what my site is about within seconds of viewing it?
• Does my theme compliment my site or detract from it?
• Does my theme match the message of my site?
• Can people easily find what they are looking for on my site?
• Are people directed to what I want them to look at immediately on my site?
• Do people see my content first or annoying ads first on my site?
• Do people ever see the ads on my site and do they compliment the content that they just read?

Those were just a few simple tips, and there are a ton more. Please leave a comment if you have other tips to add, or if you have a question. Also, let me know if you are interested in a customized Wordpress or Blogger theme design.

This blue and brown binder graphic set pictured on the right includes individual graphics designed to be printed and inserted into a 1″ half sheet sized 3 ring binder. These images were created to be printed easily to a home computer on standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Printing on photo paper or card stock is recommended.

Simply print, cut out the graphics along the edges, and hole punch as necessary. Note: I’ve included two separate versions. One includes text that matches the free prayer journal I’ve made available on this site, and one has no text so that you can add your own as desired. Hint: You can easily open these graphics in a Word Document, add your own text, and print to your own printer if desired. These would be ideal for a special event or as gifts. Each down-loadable graphic pack comes with the following:

• One high resolution cover graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 6.75″)
• Four high resolution tab insert graphics (dimensions 8.5″ x 5.75″)
• One high resolution binder graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 1″)

Click this button below if you would like to purchase and download the full text version to match the free prayer journal. After clicking on Buy Now and entering in your payment information, you will be able to download the zip folder containing all of the graphics. You can print these graphics as much as desired, but please do not alter the images in any way.

Binder Graphics Pack With Text Included – $10

Click the button below if you would like to purchase and download the text free version to edit yourself. Again, while you are free to add your own text into the blank fields, please do not edit or alter the image itself in anyway.

Binder Graphics Pack Without Text – $10

Please contact me if you need customized binder graphics for a business or ministry event. I offer exceptional prices and very quick turn around, and would be happy to discuss your graphics needs.

This beautiful binder graphic set pictured on the right includes individual graphics designed to be printed and inserted into a 1″  half sheet sized 3 ring binder with clear cover pockets. These images were created to be printed easily to a home computer on standard 8.5″ x 11″ paper. Printing on photo paper or card stock is recommended.

Simply print, cut out the graphics along the edges, and hole punch as necessary. Note: I’ve included two separate versions. One includes text that matches the free prayer journal I’ve made available on this site, and one has no text so that you can add your own as desired. Hint: You can easily open these graphics in a Word Document, add your own text, and print to your own printer if desired. These would be ideal for a special event or as gifts. Each down-loadable graphic pack comes with the following:

• One high resolution cover graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 6.75″)
• Four high resolution tab insert graphics (dimensions 8.5″ x 5.75″)
• One high resolution binder graphic (dimensions 8.5″ x 1″)

Click this button below if you would like to purchase and download the full text version to match the free prayer journal. After clicking on Buy Now and entering in your payment information, you will be able to download the zip folder containing all of the graphics. You can print these graphics as much as desired, but please do not alter the images in any way.

Binder Graphics Pack With Text Included – $10

Click the button below if you would like to purchase and download the text free version to edit yourself. Again, while you are free to add your own text into the blank fields, please do not edit or alter the image itself in anyway.

Binder Graphics Pack Without Text – $10

Please contact me if you need customized binder graphics for a business or ministry event. I offer exceptional prices and very quick turn around, and would be happy to discuss your graphics needs.

I have created buttons for several other sites (such as the ones in my right side bar), but I’ve finally gotten around to creating a button for this site that people can add to their own blogs, etc. as a way to advertise my site. Here are simple instructions for how you can create your own button with visible code so that people can easily grab it to add to their own site and further promote your blog or site. It will look exactly like my button in the right side bar (with the title “Grab My Button,” except your own image and link will appear in whatever dimensions you create your image in. It is very simple!

• Create an image that you want to use and save it to an online hosting account or to your ftp site.
• Copy and paste this code into a text widget, and replace the items in red to match your own image url and title.
  <center><a href=”THE URL TO YOUR SITE” target=”_blank” title=”YOUR DESIRED TITLE“><img alt=”YOUR DESIRED TITLE” src=”THE URL TO YOUR IMAGE“/></a></center><center><textarea id=”code-source” rows=”3″ name=”code-source”><center><a href=”THE URL TO YOUR SITE“><img border=”0″ src=”THE URL TO YOUR IMAGE“/></a></center></textarea></center>
• Note: If you are using blogger, just choose to Add a Gadget and click on the HTML/Javascript button to paste this code into. In Wordpress, a simple text widget will work.

That’s all there is to it! If you are a regular subscriber to this site, or you like the posts here, please make sure to grab my button from the side bar and add it to your site! Feel free to let me know if you want a personalized button image that will match your site perfectly and fit the standard button dimensions.

Here’s a brand new theme with some extra goodies thrown in. It is a widget ready theme that includes a top menu and a fun scrolling brick wall background. Click here to download this theme. The first screen shot pictures exactly what the theme looks like. Notice that there is plenty of space in the header for you to add your own png or gif to personalize this Wordpress theme to fit you. Please see my post on how to add images or buttons to your header for simple instructions on how to do this. Note: instructions are at the bottom of the post.

I’ve included a sample header image in the zip folder that you can use if desired as well as free social icon buttons. See the example image of what your blog can look like if you choose to use the icons and the header image I’ve included. You can view my post on how to add scrolling buttons to your theme for instructions. Note: the instructions are toward the bottom of the post. You can always feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you have questions or need any help with adding buttons or images.

After saving the zip folder to your computer, you can either upload the zip folder directly to your blog through your Wordpress dashboard, or you can unzip the folder, and upload the theme folder itself to your sites ftp folder. Make sure to save it in your themes folder.

As always, feel free to contact me if you are interested in a completely customized and personalized Wordpress or Blogger theme.

Well, as you can see if you’ve visited my site before, I’ve just updated the theme again. I like to create new design themes for my own site both for variety as well as to demonstrate some nice Artisteer, Photoshop, and WP tweaking techniques. I’ll list a few of those techniques in this post.

Photoshop:
Designing your own site elements really helps to tie the whole site together completely. By creating your own glare image, buttons, header images, etc. you can give your site a completely customized look without much work. For example, I created the background pattern using Photoshop. All I did was grab a plaid image off of the web (make sure you always only use copyright free images or pay for stock images!) I then, added the green, semitransparent crisscross stripe on a 100px x 100px image of the pattern. I also made sure to define it as a pattern so that I could use it in other elements of the design.

Artisteer:
The beautiful part of Artisteer is that it allows you to easily add your own graphics as texture, backgrounds, glares, etc. I uploaded my 100px x 100px image of the plaid and chose a tile repeat. I also chose the Overlay setting for the blending option in Artisteer and gave it a tiny bit of transparency so that the gradient I chose for the background would still show through nicely.

Artisteer comes with its own texture and pattern designs as well, which are nice to use. The header, button header, and footer are all sporting one of the many built in Artisteer texture graphics.

A great tip for Artisteer is to choose a nice solid background image or texture as a canvas for buttons and a logo you add to the code later. Note: Always make sure to make your header text as small as possible, the same color as your background, and put it in an out of the way spot in your header. This way, search engines will still find the text, but you will also be able to add a graphic as your main title.

Wordpress Trick:
Because I had a relatively plain header to start with, I was able to add my own clickable logo button and social icons to make the header look complete and give it nice interactivity. To do this, simply follow these steps:

• Create your images and upload them to your theme’s image folder.
• Add appropriate div classes and links to your Header PHP. It should look something like this (added code in orange):
  <div class=”art-Header>
  <div class=”art-Header-logo-png”onclick=”location.href=’URL TO THE LINK YOU WANT’;” style=”cursor: pointer;” title=”Home”></div>
  You’ll need to copy and paste this same code for as many images that you want to add. Just make sure that you label them each based on what they represent, and of course change the display title url to match. You’ll need to use the exact name for the CSS.
  
• Add  code to your CSS to display your images in the way that you want. Go to your Style Sheet CSS and find this /* begin Header */ Here is an example of the CSS code you should add for the example above (note, make sure to keep the div order the same as it is in the Header PHP):
  div.art-Header-Logo-png
  {
  position: absolute;
  z-index:0;
  top: 13px;
  left: 5px;
  width: 503px;
  height: 206px;
  background-image: url(‘images/header.png’);
  }
  You’ll need to make the width and height appropriate to your image size, change the position as desired, and most importantly make sure that your img url is the name that you saved your image is into your themes image folder.

Always make sure to save the php file before doing any editing in case you make  a mistake. You’ll most likely need to tweak the CSS several times in order to position your graphics exactly where you want them.

Wordpress Pluggin:
I made good use of the Display Pluggin available through Wordpress. This pluggin allows you to decide which pages you want certain widgets to be displayed on. Very helpful, and you could really have a lot of fun displaying a different graphic button for each page if you wanted to. (The images I added to the sidebar of the About and Welcome page is just some html I added to a text widget.)

I hope you enjoy this new theme, and please let me know if you are interested in a customized Wordpress or Blogger theme with setup included.