Meet the newest author at Wisdump! Haven’t heard of Wisdump? It’s former blog of Paul Scrivens, of 9Rules fame. It was sold to Splashpress Media, who owns such sites as Performancing and Blog Herald, and I’ve been asked to contribute over there on a weekly basis.

My first article is one on some really basic blog layout mistakes that are all too common, and easily avoidable:

• Fluid Layout - two words: bad idea.
• Too Wide - who decides how wide your blog should be? Your readers.
• Important Stuff in the Footer - extended footers are great, just don’t count on many people seeing them.
• Not Enough White Space - let your blog breathe!

Jump on over to Wisdump to read the full article!

You might also like:

• Building trust with clients - being honest about mistakes
• Font choice- does it matter? Your opinion please.
• Design Process 2

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I recently posted about the four reasons your blog needs a logo, and the need to visually differentiate yourself from the millions of other blogs that are out there. Some of you probably thought, “that’s great, but I’m not a designer and I don’t know how to customize my blog anyway.” In the spirit of the MTV show, I will “pimp” your blog with a custom logo design along with a customized blog header!

The Randa Clay Design Pimp My Blog Contest

I’m offering two prizes:
1. One winner will receive a custom blog logo, along with a custom header if they would like one.
2. A second winner will receive a free blog review, including a feature article on this site.

There are multiple ways to enter:
3 entries: write about this contest on your site (at least a paragraph or so) with a link back to this post and one other post that you like from this site. You can use the graphic above if you like.

2 entries: add Randa Clay Design to your blogroll

1 entry: subscribe to my feed (see links in the sidebar or at the bottom of this post)

It is notoriously difficult to keep track of all entries to a contest such as this when they involve links. In order to make sure that I include everyone, I’m going to ask that if you want to enter, please send a quick e-mail to randa [at] randaclay [dot] com with “Pimp My Blog” in the subject line. Include all the ways you are entering- just copy and paste the section below and fill in the blanks:

Link to the post about the contest:

Link to your site directly if you’ve added me to your blogroll:

The code word that is in the footer of the feed:

Also, if you’re not interested in a custom design, but would still like to be in the running for the blog review feature post, let me know that as well.

Some limitations:

1. If you have a WordPress blog, I can help walk you through the installation of the header/logo. I can also provide some help with Blogger blogs, though I don’t work with them as much. If you are on another blogging system, you can provide the size header and/or logo you need, but you might need to find some other help installing it.
2. If you win prize #2, you agree to allow me to post the review, along with any “constructive criticism” I might provide, on this site. (I’ll be really nice, I promise.)
3. You may post on multiple blogs and receive 3 entries for each post, or blogroll addition. Please send ALL entries in one e-mail if possible.
4. I will not design for or review an adult, gambling, warez or other morally offensive site.
5. All entries must be received by August 24th, midnight US Eastern Time.

Even if you’re not interested in entering, I would be grateful if you would help me get the word out with a mention on your site.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!

You might also like:

• Last week for entries in the Pimp My Blog contest
• New inside and out
• Blog Review: Failure is the Key to Success

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The more WordPress themes that are created, the more difficult it can be to find high quality, well designed (inside and out) themes. Recently plaintxt.org ran a design competition challenging theme designers to create skins for their Sandbox theme. All the submissions are in, and the winners have yet to be announced. I took a look through all the designs in the handy live previewer and while I was rather disappointed in the quality of many of the themes, there are some wonderful designs that are worth mentioning. Here are the skins that I think stand out from the crowd of 46 submitted, along with my humble suggestions as to what might have been improved:

Essay, by Ian Stewart:

A minimalist approach that makes great use of white space and typography. I’m not really sure why the designer included so much margin on the left though…

Milkia, by Christian Betancourt:

An utterly clean design with focus on content alone. It could use a smidge more color though.

Mix, by Jauhari Nurudin:

Though I’m not fond of the seafoam green, the designer makes excellent use of icons and colors in the sidebar to differentiate between sections.

Prima, by Sunaryo Hadi:

This design is very pretty, and makes a nice use of borders on the posts to pop them off the page a little. Better colors could have been chosen to go with the brown though, and I think a serif font would have worked better for the blog title.

Sakena, by Shazia Mistry:

A lovely design with a very “un-bloggy” look about it. Neat use of Flickr images to create a header. I would have included more margin between the content and the sidebar.

Sandpress, by Arpit Jacob:

Beautiful and sleek- I love the reflections on the date icons and the navigation is very nice. The black box containing the RSS options certainly pops out at you, but it’s rather jarring, and would have been nicer using the blue as background.

Shades of Gray, by Leslie Franke:

This design is very sharp and clean. The post column is a bit wide though- it’s better practice to keep your content columns to 15 or so words per line for readability.

Certainly design is subjective, but I think the clear winner is Sandpress. What do you think? Want to know what the judges thought? The winners are to be announced on August 6, 2007, by 12:00 AM.

So, what about my own big announcement that I mentioned in Thursday’s post…? It’s contest time! I have a great contest planned for the next couple of weeks. Want details? Next post….

Thanks to everyone who has been participating in the very interesting discussion in the prior post. I appreciate all the thoughtful comments.

You might also like:

• Nothing... this one is unique

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“If no one hates you, you’re doing something wrong”

This is a quote from a recent post on Copyblogger. Do you think that’s true? While I agree that you can’t water down your content so much that no one will ever take issue with it, stating firm and well thought out opinions does not have to be offensive. As Brian quotes in his article, Tim Ferriss said in a recent interview on ProBlogger,

Do not try to appeal to everyone. Instead, take a strong stance and polarize people: make some love you and some hate you. Hate is an extreme, but here’s the gist: what you write, in order to create the highest pass-along value, needs to be “remarkable”. Is it something that is worth remarking upon?

I agree with Tim that being “remarkable” is important, however why must anyone be offended because someone takes a strong stance on something and holds a different opinion that they do? Of course, there are those who try to be offensive just to drive traffic, and I don’t understand that either.

Here’s my appeal to you:

• If I happen to take a strong stance on something and you disagree, tell me about it in the comments- I’m interested in your opinion.
• Be nice as you express your opinion here or on any other site, and I’ll do the same.
• Let’s not turn into jerks just to drive traffic. It’s not worth it in the end.
• Let’s try to remember the lessons we learned in kindergarten: be nice, share and try to get along with others.

Tell me what you think. Am I just being too girly and naive? Are we really not successful unless people start to hate us?

Stay tuned- the next post contains some big news!

You might also like:

• Blasts from the past
• The Best of the Sandbox
• How to set up a sideblog

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