Blog Design
Blogging is a popular practice among personal entrepreneurs and professionals as a way to keep their clientele informed and involved. Easy to maintain and edit by any user, some blogs are self-hosted beauties that link seamlessly with an existing site. Others reside in the networked arms of Wordpress, Blogger, and Posterous, combining visual independence with search optimization to garner readers.
Over the years I have been asked to create many different blogging situations for my clients. Below are some of my latest examples:
The Content Studio
Emily Breder is an amazing writer, creative producer and online mover-and-shaker who asked me to give her blog , The Content Studio, a refit as she is taking off compiling her perscpecitves about her unique experiences, in-field findings, and content creation in the ever-evolving paradigm between work and home. Taking personal elements for materials to design from, we utilized a portion of Emily’s Zen name that has a root in the concept of Home as a logotype and used brushstroked clouds and careful color choices throughout the site to give Emily her online “home”. Get content!
Full Contact Enlightenment
Just re-launched in February of 2011, Tanya of Full Contact Enlightenment—a popular Canadian Buddhist Blog—wanted to give her blog a "fresh coat of paint". Quickly, using the Wordpress install she had in place, we were able to create a logo and site design to match her tastes. As a bonus for the background image we invented "Dharmask": a mash-up of Dharmic (Buddhist) icons and traditional Damask patterning! Have a Look!
Marianne Mitchell's ColorDrop
Long-time client Marianne Mitchell was experimenting on her Facebook page with "ColorDrops" – weekly photographic splashes juxtapozed with color theory and thought-provoking text. It was so popular, she wanted to contiue it on it's own in an easy to use, very affordable blog. We chose Google's Blogger for it's simplicity in use, ease of customization for branding, and networking/optimization integration. Catch a drop!
The Blogisattva Awards
Approached by Nate of Precious Metal, he suggested I might enjoy doing a pro-bono project for a good cause. I am always willing to help, and thusly the rebranding of the Blogisattva's began. The Blogisattva's are an annual public voting award event celebrating the blog posts and online insights of the global Buddhist community. Trust me, there's a lot. Stating with the look and logo, I rebranded the Blogger template accordingly and supplied many materials from awards to advertisements prior to the ceremony in November 2010. See the winners!
Schmoozing With The Word Mavens
Joyce Eisenberg and Ellen Scolnic are another set of long-time collegues of mine: we designed their website together to showcase their book "The Dictionary of Jewish Words" and subsequent book talks. Well, they've done so well with the talks that they needed a blog and Facebook Fan Page right away to handle interaction and more periodical articles. Using Wordpress.com for it's amazing plug-in architecture and extensive themeing capabilities, their blog has helped them connect with new readers, new publishers, and new prospects! Shmooze along with the Mavens!
Precious Metal
Hired originally to create a logo for Precious Metal: The Blog, author Nate quickly realized that the design we crafted him needed a proper home. Extending from the style of the logo—being a little bit rock and roll, a little bit Buddha—I revamped this already established Wordpress.com blog to match Nate's style and influences. A few curse words were used to express appreciation for the new look... and that's a good thing! Rock on!
Bayou City Buddhist
Another blogger from the Buddha-Blog-o-sphere, Andy wanted to break his blog from it's original Op-Ed home on a local Houston Web Site and give it it's own identity. All while keeping his hometown persona and it's appeals intact. Mixing and matching ideas, Andy and I settled on a design that incorporated that Texan Bayou City urban sensation with a Zen twist, all done on the tumblog, Posterous. Check out the Bayou!
Form Is Empty
Following the sentiment and imagery of a popular Pali poem, this blog incoporates a Flash-animated header with a simple template to frame the content, which are gathered fragments from across the web. A psuedo-tumblog, accomplished with a self-hosted installation of Wordpress. Have a read!