So after having started my blog over a year and half ago, it
felt like the time was right to give my blog a much needed makeover. It’s
something I wanted to do for a while but had no idea what I wanted or where to
start. I’m extremely fortunate to be friends with a hugely talented designer and
illustrator, Ellie Tzoni. Of course, if that
wasn’t the case then I would have trawled the web for a designer to take on the
job of my blog redesign, but I have to say that I’m thrilled that someone who
personally knew me could do it.
Some of Ellie's other awesome designs!
Even though I emailed Ellie a huge list of
ideas and illustrations I wanted to be incorporated on my blog, she completely
ignored them and instead came up with a simple yet gorgeous design that encompassed
everything I wanted. Honestly, if I had had it my way, then the blog header
would have been cluttered and looked a little immature.
I was also contradicting myself by requesting all of these
elements and colours, when the blogs I linked to as an example of what I liked
were, in fact, the complete opposite. My favourite blogs have a minimal and
clean aesthetic, usually featuring a header on a white background (although
there was a pink one I threw into the mix for good measure ;-)).
Ellie sent through her first
attempt at the header complete with a mock-up of how it would look on a white
background. Sorry to sound cheesy…but it was love at first sight! I think she
was worried that I wouldn’t like it as it was completely different to what I
had originally envisioned but that didn’t matter; she had created something
that I wanted without even knowing that I wanted – just like a truly talented designer
should.
The next stage was creating the social media buttons. I
emailed Ellie with 8 different buttons from my favourite blogs to point out
what I liked about each set such as the colours, logo and shape. Ellie
responded with 4 different options for me to choose from – predictably I was
drawn to the girly heart shaped ones! Combined with the header, Ellie managed
to create a beautiful, sophisticated and feminine look without being overly
girly. As I said before, it’s not what I originally had in mind but I’m so glad
Ellie didn't listen to exactly everything I wanted as I couldn't have asked for a better redesign.
Ellie’s guidance didn't stop there either. We also discussed
what the image on my blog should look like, the size, positioning, the layout
and the other colours such as the post titles. She felt that we needed to
introduce a fourth colour into the palette and luckily agreed that the
turquoise complimented the other shades nicely.
Once I was happy with all the elements, Ellie emailed them
through ready for me to pop straight onto the blog. As I suspected, it wasn't
quite as simple as that! Praise the lord for Google and all the lovely people
on the internet who take the time to write/film and post tutorials. First of
all, a big shout out to Cottons
& Curls for her tutorial on uploading your own header and social media
buttons. Although I had to make my own tweaks, as she says, it’s all trial and
error especially as each person will want to do something slightly different
with their blog. Secondly, I’d like to
thank Beta
Templates for their guide to adding
code so you can change the colour of your post title. Again, had to do some of
my own tweaking to get what I wanted but at least I know a little more basic HTML!
Long-time readers of my blog might also notice I’ve made a
few other changes. I’ve streamlined the home page so that you can see 4 of my
posts but instead of endlessly scrolling, you get a preview of each post and
the option to ‘read more’. I also removed the ‘Link Within’ widget. Whilst I
liked the idea of it, it would often show two of the same post as a suggestion
which a) isn't very helpful and b) looks like it’s broken. I feel like the
homepage and posts look a lot cleaner now with these changes.
Apologies for the long-winded explanation but I thought it
might be of interest to anyone who’s considering redesigning their blog to read
an experience of the process. If you have any specific questions, please feel
free to ask in the comments!
Now that I’m not longer ashamed of my basic (bitch) blog, I’ll
be posting a lot more. I’ve also decided to get social on y’all and you can now
find me on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
Hope you like the new design as much as I do!
x
