Blog Theme with view to release

Viewing in FF – what I see.
Left sidebar:
Under “Parent Guidance Rating” it’s unredable. It looks like lines of text on top of one another.
Under “Pages” the about box is sitting on top of the text about Kirby?Times.
To be honest, I don’t think the header (though I like it) goes with the colors of the site. I think it’s a bit heavy on the red so maybe you could incorporate some of the colors from the header image into the rest of it?

I clicked away instantly.

Honestly, that theme is unusable the way it currently is. Far too crowded. Far too red. The links are just weird…just not a good design, to be frank

AAAAAHHHH!

I’ve just installed firefox and see the issues there, but should not be a problem to solve.

The colours don’t matter much as I can alter them. Too much red? Perhaps, but the main text area, is plain black on white.

In what way do the links look ‘wierd’? Do you think plain links would be best? With no bullet and hover bullet?

I suppose its a bit crowded, but with 3 columns in 800px its hard to look spacious.

The site will have at least 35 banners, and I’ll style each theme to refelct that, hence the red theme you see right.

Monkeypup, I’m not sure how to take the ‘AHHHH!’. Can you be a little but more, constructive?

What I release will have no images, just a fill in banner and Css divs once I’v cleared up the Firefox fixes.

maybe we’re not seeing the same thing, but it looks aweful on this end:

https://www.5images.com/uploads/770f5e8e9e.gif

and yes, colors can be changed, but they aren’t. We’re critiquing the way it looks now

Firefox issues sorted apart from a small issue with page posts needing to have more of a margin, or something. I’ll sort that tommorow.

I see the point about colour, but you’ll see a few themes appear in the website/blog as I tweak it, and I’ll repost here when I do so.

I’m taking onboard all the suggestions and will redesign to make it at least easy to navigate.

no, what you need to do is scrap that theme and start over. I seriously cannot imagine someone seeing that and wanting their blog to look that way and downloading it…

Resiny, the theme is just a basic three column that fits into a 800 resolution monitor without scrolling. It looks ok on big 19″ lcd also. The 3 columns appear on all pages.

It validates with css and xhtml.

It is a foundation worth keeping, and there are plenty of WP themes which go for 3 columns, but not many can be read on a 800 or even 1024 monitor without the dreaded sidescroll.

It also offers a nice sliced header, or just a single image if you want.

I think the basic foundation of the design is good, and will continue to ammend it till I think it is good enough to offer.

I’ve just looked at 6 3 column themes offered for download, 2 or 3 sidescroll, but all invalidate in the xhtml if you test them out.

That was the first 6 downloads of three column themes, although many errors will likely be widget errors, most of the theme examples seem to be crammed full of Google ads, which makes me wonder at the purpose of offering themes.

I think theme downloads, or the example page, ought to validate. I want to see a verifed theme before I install it.

All these WP themes are on the WP codex website.

Not trying to get in a flame war, just bringing you a users perspective:

Joe WP user could care less what validation is. He doesn’t even know. He just want’s the slickest looking three column theme out there.

Take another look at your theme. I don’t doubt the codebase is good, but when I said I clicked away instantly, I wasn’t kidding. You need to do a complete overhaul of the visuals. If nothing else, scrap the color red from your brain, and replace it with #fff

Hrmmm, this is a tough one. Technically, the theme is great. And I’m sure it is pure and validates well. For that, kudos! I could forsee using this and building on it in the future. Solid multi-column layouts are gold.

“Artistically”, it looks like a blood bath.

Fortunately, I can look past some of the graphics and the color and see that the layout is damned sweet. But yeah… it is a bit hard on the eyes. ??

(and I WILL be watching for the release)

Since you asked for pointers to what might make it look better:

1. It’s far too busy. Everyithing is fighting with everything else for the readers attention.
2. The sidebars are distracting. I think it’s the red.
3. Too many shades of red. You probably doon’t need them.
4. Get rid of that checkered effect in the sidebars.

In a nutshell: I know you want red, red, red, but it’s just too full of distractions and leaves too much for the main content to have to fight with in order to get noticed.

BTW: I hope you’re going to obliterate that log fire and candle animation. It’s awful.

Hahaha, I’m laughing about the last three replies, because they nailed it to a “t” on the way I feel about it. =) And also to add, I think it’s great you’re making a three column theme that fits nicely in the screen for us using 800×600 res. =)

Keep up the good work, however though, just maybe minus all that red and whacky imagery. Eww..that can for surely go down the toilet lmao!! ?? =p

spencerp

Just was kidding about that last ending few words lol..

Resin, I’m new here and the last thing I want to do is have a flame war. I appreciate the advice you give, but I think you might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater in this instance. Saying that, you gave an opinion on a blog design which has altered maybe 20 times since.

Classic quote = “‘Artistically’, it looks like a blood bath.” Lol, tell it like it is. I see the point though and you’ve all persuaded me there.

I guess my mistake is that I’ve basically put up my own design meant for a specific location, i.e. Liverpool, when I ought to just be doing a blank theme release without the liverbird logos and so on and so forth.

I suppose not many people would want a blog with Liverpool splashed all over it, plus the red of Liverpool and some more red and so on. I suppose also that the Christian symbol and the star is not everyone’s cup of tea. Bear in mind the banners are not going to be included, they are my own and I use them in css theme switchers elsewhere, and now the excellent WordPress theme switcher.

What I’ll do is concentrate on a plain version of the design, keep the structural side of it but not force my own aesthetic choices of red, red and more red.

I’d never actually wear red nor would I want wallpaper that was red. I take the point.

I’m glad the basic idea of a three column WordPress 2.02 blog that looks ok on an 800 resolution screen is at least a good foundation to start on.

In defence of the errors in the three column themes on offer – I’d say most would be the excessive use of widgets and simple mistakes like not including alt text with images.

I realise that 99.99% of people looking to use WordPress do not care about errors in the xhtml or the css, but it is the 0.1% who do care who are right.

I would not rest with one error and I avoid some widgets like the plague because they invalidate and spoil what was pretty much a perfect example of xhtml and css design.

The animated fire looks good I thought, but needs tweaking. The candle is as good as animated candles come, nice small file size and the flame looks pretty good.

I’ll post back when I lose the images and the red in the 3 column theme.

Thanks for the input, it helps a lot.

alright, it’s looking better now. The sidebars are still way to patterned. I’d seriously consider just making them white, or maybe grey. What would look best would be getting a background images repeating down the page, and then you could have the sidebars stretching to the bottom.

also, the links with the box around them don’t look too hot….

but yeah, it’s starting to look better