New Blog Look

Ahhh!  After more time than I care to admit thinking about it, I've finally made a few changes to how Etcetorize looks.

I'm the type of person who takes 10 minutes to decide whether or not I want my spaghetti baked when I go out to dinner, so making a change to the entire look of my blog, which has stayed pretty close to the same for three years, is actually a pretty big leap for me.

I really don't mind change, but I also love routine.  And I really did love the look of my blog, I just felt like it was beginning to look a bit dated.  And let's face, I'm trying to fit in with the trend of everything being nice and clean and clutterish free.  (I still have some work to do.)

I'm nowhere near considering changing blogging platforms but if you're like me and thinking about making some small changes here are a couple of tips.

Create a practice blog where you can try things out.

-Don't actually post anything of substance here, you don't want Google to pick it up.  It's like a sandbox where you can try different images, colours, headers, sidebars, etc.

Once you've figured out what colours you want for things like tabs and links, write down the colour numbers. (Template, customize, advanced)

-You might think you'll be able to remember where to find the perfect salamander coral again but trust me, you won't.  When you're ready to make the switch on your regular blog, just type in the colour number instead of trying to find it on the pretty little grid.

Ditto for blog and column sizes. (Template, customize, adjust widths)

-Write down what size all of your columns are currently, just in case you want to go back to that.  Also, write down the column sizes for your new look.  This will help when trying to figure out how big your new advertising and sidebar images need to be.

Once you have something you like, stick with it, at least for awhile.

-It's fun to play around but branding is about recognition.  It will take your readers a very short amount of time to adjust to your new look, but you don't want them guessing from week to week if they've hit the right link and landed on your blog or someone else's.

Pretty common sense stuff really.  Like I said above, I still have quite a bit of work to do to get things exactly where I want them, but I've taken the first step and am happy with the result so far, hopefully you like it too!