This past weekend Brittany Vanderlinden (@brittanyvandy), Laurie Smithwick (@upsideup) and I spoke at the Type A Parent Conference about blog design. Woo woo!
Some people were surprised how much in-depth our session was because we went PAST typical blog design chit chat. Not only did we cover traditional design-y things like fonts and colors, but we also delved into making your site easy to use and even touched on coding (gasp!).
So here’s our (long) presentation and some links to additional resources that we had mentioned.
Plugin Resources for Spam
- Akismet (free unless you’re a business)- this one is a must for WP users
- WP Ban- can ban specific IP addresses (Gigi from Kludgy Mom has a good WP Ban tutorial)
- Growmap- from the guy who made CommentLuv. It’s a good one to use if the others don’t work. I used this temporarily on Adventuroo until the bots stopped hitting that site so hard.
(Or if you want even more plugin recommendations, subscribe to my newsletter and get a mini ebook of resources I use to run Momcomm.)
Code Stuff
- Firebug for Firefox (inspect HTML on other sites and modify your own site just to test)
- Can do something similar to what Firebug does on Chrome by going to View>Developer>Developer Tools
- W3Schools.com to learn more about code
Fonts
- Basic- Google Web Fonts
- Even better- Font Squirrel
- The one to watch (recently purchased by Adobe)- Typekit
Places for Color Inspiration
- Design-seeds
- Kuler (from Adobe)
- The world around us (no link needed!)
WordPress Frameworks
I worked with some fellow chicas on a post comparing the first three if you want some more reading on frameworks. I currently run Genesis on this blog and Thesis on Adventuroo.
Finally, slides don’t tell the whole story so if you want to get as close to the live presentation as possible, check out Christina Gleason’s live blogging of our blog design session (thanks Christina!).
Would you pin this bad boy? Here’s a preeeeety graphic to make it more enticing:
Hope you enjoyed it, y’all! And big thanks to Type A for having us speak!
Momcomm gives blogging chicks practical, can-do tips for writing, blogging and using social media (and sometimes a snarky rant).
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I'm a mom who loves marketing, photography and all things social media. I have two boys whose claim to fame is that they were born on the same day... three years apart.
Twitter: AndreaUpdyke
says:
I can’t wait to dive in to this!
Andrea (Lil-Kid-Things) recently posted..Why I don’t recommend BRAVE {movie review}
Twitter: CarrieWChildren
says:
Thanks for sharing the presentation! You always have such great thoughts and your e-book was so helpful during my site redesign!
Carrie with Children recently posted..Family Fun at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Cabins #TravelTuesday #Disney
This is perfect timing–I’m just about to start a redesign project! I took classes in usability and web design in school, but I have such difficulty applying it to my own blog. How sad is that?!
Kiersten @ Oh My Veggies recently posted..5 Super Easy Three Ingredient Side Dishes
Love it, great job ladies!
Tina @ Life Without Pink recently posted..Moms Of Boys Speak Out – Are They Jealous Of Friends With Daughters?
This is awesome! I will have to spend some time with the live blog and get the whole story. Thanks for making this available. I love learning all this bloggy goodness!
~ Ferly
Gifts We Use {to grow, love and serve}
Ferly recently posted..Learn As I Blog: My Blogger Resources
Twitter: TheWineabe
says:
Awesome!! I so want to hire a blog designer…and make the switch to WP. I feel like I finally have an idea of what I want…thanks to you and all of your amazing critiques and tips!!
Suzanne @ The Wine{a}be recently posted..June Sponsor Love
I have so much to work on after attending Type-A. I’ve been a huge fan of Leap Design for years so it was such a treat to be at this session. The presentation was well thought out and the Power Point has to win some sort of award for best in show. Thanks again! I totally pinned
Kim @ Dirty Diaper Laundry recently posted..Is My Child EVER Going To Talk? Yes, so enjoy the silence while you can!
Twitter: osvme
says:
thesis & genesis make me sad. i would love to be able to use them but being poor… yea, not an option. oh well.
Jenny recently posted..Another Evening Walk
Ooh, thanks for the kuler link, looks useful!! Oh, and just so you know, the design seeds link doesn’t work — I think you forgot the final “s” in your hyperlink.
Kathleen Quiring | Becoming Peculiar recently posted..An Experiment in Minimalism: Tackling the Bookshelf
Thanks for the catch! Fixed!
And yes, Kuler is amazing. If you have Adobe PS or Illustrator, you can download the .ase files from kuler (have to be logged in) and then open it in one of those programs. It will pull the swatches right in for you. Love it!
Hey, thanks for featuring my blog!
Crissy Page recently posted..How To Clean & Sanitize Baby Toys
Twitter: BoonieSooze
says:
Pinned it, my friend. Wish I could have been there, live, and in person!
Susan in the Boonies recently posted..Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake with Raspberry Sauce
Twitter: RobynsWorld
says:
Thank you for all the extra resources that you mentioned in the session. Yours was my favorite of the conference this year!!
Robyn Wright of RobynsOnlineWorld.com recently posted..#RedLaser Twitter Party Wed Night – Win an iPad or eBay gift cards!
Wow great article and presentation. Outstanding job! I’m a newbie with a lot of brainstorm right know on how to build my own blog. This is a great content and information that I was missing. Thaaank you.
Hello melissa,
Sometime it’s very difficult to get an idea only by reading content. However the presentation you have shared is very nice and rich. Anyone can get idea about how the blog can be more attractive by taking the design part in the consideration.