Blog Design for Neophytes...Or Editing HTML- How Hard Could it Be?

This is a post I wrote months ago and just found in my unpublished folder-  hope it is helpful to someone!

There are always two ways to do things: the easy way and the hard way.   Blogger has done a fabulous job of making blogging easy and accessible to absolutely anyone who has the desire and a keyboard.  There are lots of perfectly good templates out there ready to go.  Just click on them and you're off.  Unfortunately, I have just enough creativity and hard headed-ness that it ruffled me a bit to use a blog designed by someone else.  After all, I have a degree in design so I should be able to whip a little something up.  How hard could it be?  A background, a header, some gadgets, edit some HTML.  This phrase: "How hard could it be?" has been my default line of thinking and my fateful Waterloo on projects of all kinds over my lifetime.

     For some reason, getting the pre-made, pre-designed, perfectly wonderful and acceptable thing is just too much for me.  I can't do it.  I have to try it for myself.  So for the past two weeks I have been scouring the Internet for tutorials on how to customize your background and make your own header using Photoshop Elements.  Sounds easy.  Ha.  Computers are finicky things and so am I.  What I found is that there is no one-stop-shopping for this sort of thing.  Or perhaps, I didn't know where to look.   I don't understand it.  Every second 2.5 people are cranking out their first ever blog entry on their newly minted Blogger account and I'm positive that at least half of those folks would love for someone to walk them through all of the steps I just took to create something completely original for their blog.  I'd love to do it but I have no idea how I got here.  I cobbled together videos from You Tube and written instructions from various Bloggers (Thank you!) and ended up with something I am ok with.  I say that because I don't think I've ever been completely satisfied with anything I've made.  Fortunately, I'm not a perfectionist and I just move on to the next thing.

     So, even though it was a pain, I'm glad I did it the hard way.  I jumped completely out of my comfortable box and learned something new, which proved to be immensely satisfying.   I've conquered my Blog!  That seems to be a key to work- the more difficult it is the more satisfying it is when it's done.

     By this time next week I'll be off on another project.  Another thing to conquer.  I don't know if I'll redesign the blog anytime soon but if so,  I've posted "notes to self" on my wiki so I won't have to start from the beginning again.


     Here are a few of the sites that were very helpful for me on my Design Your Own Blog Journey. Perhaps starting with these will save you some time researching.   If you know of others, please post them!

Blogger Background:
     Kevin and Amanda:  My favorite thing about this site is that Amanda is from Auburn.  So, I love her right there.  Next, she is amazingly talented.  Amazingly.  In all sorts of things, not just blog tutorials. I've never met her, but judging from her blog she appears to never sleep.   I covet her photography skills.   Here's her tutorial on how to make a blogger background.  My main problem was that I am a Photoshop Elements neophyte and I didn't know how to do one thing in that program so I had to do...more tutorials to teach myself.   That put me behind a few days.   She's also got some awesome fonts with instructions about how to use them on your blog.

     The Cutest Blog on the Block has a good written tutorial for making a blog background.  In fact, they have a lot of great stuff on their site, including perfectly adorable blog backgrounds and headers you can just put right on your blog easily.   If you're already familiar with Photoshop you will do fine with their tutorials.   Again, that was a bit of a learning curve for me.

Blogger Header:  

     Blog Designs by Dani has a helpful tutorial.  (Step #2 basically says- now make your header in Photoshop.  I needed instructions for exactly how to do that.)

     Her Design It myself page has several good instructions for various blog elements.

Blogger Signature:

    Again, hats off to Amanda.  Here's her tutorial- with a link to Cutest Blog on The Block.

     Working with the HTML can be a bit intimidating but I made sure to save my original templates in case I royally screwed up- which was a distinct possibility.  Fortunately, due to the great instructions I received, it all worked out.  I'd love to see blogs you've designed and hear of any tips you've got for others who are going through this process!