Antbag.com

If there is any part of this post that doesn’t make sense, it’s because I’ve changed the theme again since I wrote it. …I needed more color. It’s still pretty minimal. Scratch that. Changed my mind.

I decided it was time to make a change here, design wise. I wanted to make more of a minimalist type of design, without it looking completely plain. So, the design has a few splashes of color here and there. I was mostly inspired to go this route after navigating through minimalsites.com, which is a gallery of minimalist website designs.

Another thing I wanted to get away from, are the normal link colors such as blue. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I was ready to do something different, so I’ve gone with a purple(#990099) as my primary link color. Also, as you can see, I added a yellow background to the site title, as well as to the links within an a-side post.

One thing that runs the risk of being confusing to some folks, would be the fact that I used the same font properties on several different elements. For instance, the headings in the sidebar are the exact same font as the post meta information. Some of that text being links to comments, etc., some of the text is not. The reason I did this was that I thought it gave the design a more polished look. In my opinion, minimalism shouldn’t be plain and boring, but should have subtleties that add a touch of class. I hope I accomplished that with this.

The Future of the Design

I plan to make this theme publicly available in the near future. It won’t make any big splash in the WordPress community. I won’t promote it. But those who like it and would like to use it, it will be here.

Tags: Design, Wordpress Themes by Anthony ∗ 6 Comments »

As I’ve had more time to think about this issue, the more regret I feel for taking part in it, and realize that whether I think New Media Maze responded to me correctly, doesn’t matter.

When the issue first came to my attention, there were plenty of people telling me “not to back down”, and that I “should speak to a lawyer”, etc. I realize now that I got way too caught up in this.

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Tags: Design, Web by Anthony ∗ 33 Comments »

Whether you blog or have a static website, there are plenty of reasons to bring special attention to certain elements within your page.

In my last post, I showed you an easy way to wrap text in a box using CSS by placing the CSS/HTML code directly in your post. That can come in extremely handy in the right situation. But what if you put this block of info in every post, or every other post, or once a week? Even though it’s not difficult, re-typing that code every time could become a chore. In this post, we’ll look at how to get the same effect by adding the CSS in your stylesheet once, and assigning a class to the div we wrap around the text.

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Tags: Design by Anthony ∗ 11 Comments »

Every now and then, you may need to post a short message or notice to let your website visitors know about something out of the ordinary. Actually you can use this little technique for multiple purposes! Creating a back-drop for such notices is an easy process that can truly make this message….noticable! With just a little CSS code put directly into your post, you can make these messages look almost any way you want them to. Here’s an example:

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Tags: Design by Anthony ∗ 4 Comments »

If I were to ask you what the term web design means, what would your answer be?

If you’re like me, the term generally opens the mind’s eye to different color schemes, different layout choices, and a host of other elements that shape and form the way a website looks. However, the more I learn about design and information architecture, the more I realize that perhaps both the architecture and appearance play equal roles in web design. I’ve spent some time lately trying to improve my website. Part of that has been tweaking the visual design, but more importantly, making my best content as easy as possible to find. I’ve had a few goals in mind for a while now, which I think are a good starting point:

• Rather than try to impress with graphics, keep usability the central focus.
• Create better navigation that high-lights some of my better posts.
• Create an original standards-based theme that focuses on my content.

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Tags: Design by Anthony ∗ 5 Comments »

Since I started offering WordPress themes, I’ve noticed that a far majority of new bloggers want to customize their theme. I don’t blame them, that’s what I did too. Many of these new bloggers who are using one of my themes, contact me when running into things that they can’t figure out. I realize that there is a real blind-spot when it comes to how a page is laid out. In this post, I hope to shed a little light and hopefully clear up some of the confusion.

All Themes Are Not The Same

Generally speaking, I think that most of us have probably tried to change a few things on a CSS stylesheet before. It would make sense that what works on one, will work on the next. Unfortunately, there’s a little more to the equation. I’ve noticed that many will assume changing the width of the header, for instance, will have the same effect on all themes, however, this isn’t the case. It truly depends on how the theme is laid out in the first place. Remember, any styles applied on the stylesheet, are adding style to the HTML elements as they are defined within the HTML. So header isn’t necessarily the same from one theme to the next. It depends on how that component is defined within the HTML.

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Tags: Design, Wordpress Theme Tips by Anthony ∗ 6 Comments »