Redesigning Hummingbird604.com
There’s something that needs to change here at Hummingbird604.com
Not sure exactly what, but I have been feeling the need to re-theme my site. This theme was completely customized to my liking by my good friend J. Karen Parker. She fiddled with the CSS to adjust the column width, moved stuff here and there. She made sure that everything looked good (this site has a customized version of the Deviant Art theme).
But right now I think I need to give it a change of look. Not sure why I feel the need to do the re-theming right now, but I know one thing. I’m not going to use TwentyTen. Yes, even though WordPress 3.0 has been released, and even though I could fiddle with Thesis, and I could do a few things here and there, I think I’m going to instead spend some time exploring a few WordPress themes that would make my site look still professional. But not TwentyTen. Why not? Because it’s the generic WordPress.com theme. And that would make my blog exactly the same as the other 20 million blogs hosted on WordPress.com
And I don’t want that 🙂
I remember when I was tinkering with my photo site and ended up having the same thing as you 🙂
Can’t wait to see what you decide to choose as you’re new theme!
Huzzah! TwentyTen has given me a real distaste for wordpess. It’s too bad they don’t have a limited release for their default themes.
haha, but playing around with themes allows you to distinguish yourself and twenty-ten lets you to it with far less code than normal. Plus it has so many features that most people will never even find. I did andremalan.net with twenty-ten and only a handful of code and some play time in Adobe Illustrator.
Custom is the way to go, but it can prove costly if you hire a professional designer and coder to do it. See if you can work out a barter system with someone, exchanging some of your services for theirs. Sometimes, they’re even happy with a footer link in exchange, especially on a blog with a readership of this size.
I’m tinkering with Lolebrity right now, trying to find a good photoblog theme with sidebars, and the possibilities are endless. I caution against custom design only because:
a) there are many gorgeous themes out there and NOBODY is going to refuse to read a blog just because it’s in the same theme as a different one
b) designers are professionals (at least the good ones are) and a good design job will set you back a couple of thousand dollars easy. If you can’t pay for a limo ride, you take the bus. If you can’t pay for custom work, you pick a prefab theme. Since there are hundreds, it’s likely you can find one you like.