Elite By Design Update
- December 19th, 2007
- COMMENTS 8
What
This is a post just to keep everyone up to speed on what is happening around EBD.
Blog Reviews
I am going to start with mentioning my free blog review. I definitely got some responses way quicker than I had imagined. In just a couple hours all 5 spots were filled up. What does this mean? It means that I have a choice to make - do I give away more free reviews after I write these initial 5, or do I start trying to charge $5-$10 for reviews? Let me know what you think.
Site Redesign
I’ve had some great feedback from a lot of other blogs in the 2 days since I released my new theme. While I will admit I haven’t had any sales yet, I am optimistic that they are yet to come.
Baller Blogger has written a great review of both my blog and my design over here. Check it out! I think it is absolutely great when other bloggers take their time and energy to help a fellow blogger. Baller Blogger has really shown me that they are involved in the community and I will most definitely be checking back there daily.
WPThemez has also featured my design on their site. You should check out their site, they feature some great blog templates. Oh, and don’t forget to vote for my design while you’re over there! WPThemez has also scored one of my free website reviews, so be looking out for that in a couple days.
Redesign Giveaway
I think that I may have started off my site redesign initiation the wrong way. I didn’t quite build up enough anticipation in the community to make it a successful launch. For that reason, I want to try again. I will be giving away one free Elite By Design theme without the credit link. Call me crazy, but I am giving away a $100 theme for free. This means that yes, you can use it on your blog, but note that the rules still apply and this theme can only be used once. If you want to give it away on your blog or sell it once, that is fine by me.
How will it work? Well it really is quite simple. For every review that is written about the Elite By Design theme, an entry will be added to a list of people who have also written reviews. Come January 15th, I will be randomly choosing one name out of that list.
What do you need to write? Well check out Baller Blogger’s review and you can get some ideas of how the review should be written. Just include a brief introduction to the Elite By Design blog, and then write what you will about my site design. You can get more information about Elite By Design here and more information about the redesign here. I am hoping that this will create a little buzz around the blogging community and get more people involved with EBD this holiday season.
When you enter this contest, it would be best to email me at Brian[at]elitebydesign.com with the link to the review. As soon as you do this, your name will be added to my list.
Come January 15th, one name will be chosen and one lucky winner will get a free Elite By Design theme!
Conclusion
Thanks everyone for your support - and let me know what you think of all these changes and updates.
All the changes are looking great. You seem to have quite the following already.
The free reviews are a great idea. On whether or not to offer more for free or charge a small amount, I would probably wait until a couple are up and see the feedback you get in the comments or the site you reviewed before making that decision.
I agree Gary. Thanks for the feedback - I was actually thinking of making sure that my free ones are up to the quality standard that most people are looking for. If I meet that standard and consistently write quality reviews, I will probably move on to a fee.
Thanks for the shout out. The design giveaway is a great idea.
So, I found no comment for Brian’s new theme until now, and I will take the honor to be the 1st one.
Overview:
I personally think that you will instantly like this template when the 1st overview. You can have a big space, clear header words, and nice color composition.
The header:
The header is nice, though I consider that it’s a little dark. Header category link in big font make it easy for user to navigate to what they need.
I especially recommend people to use right site header navigation menu. Why? We’re reading from left to right, so why don’t we design it that way like tons of other themes to make it normal? Well, because it will be NORMAL like others, and the other thing is most of us are right handed. We have habit to put the mouse point around right side of computer screen; and for most of computer that call “laziness” by the name of “comfortable”, such design will make you really “comfortable”.
Site title (I mean the row of “Freelancing, Website Designing, and Blogging” and the banner “What can I do for you?”. I’m no tech-guy, so I will try to describe it in a way that everyone can understand) :
It’s quite OK for glance; but I need it needs some more improvement. The font size of “Freelancing, Website Designing, and Blogging” is about same as category link, and can consider quite big in comparison with the site name right above.
2nd thing is : why don’t you put it in the same gray block? It isn’t it will make the banner “What can I do for you?” be more attractive? Anyway, just my personal taste.
The 1st block row:
I personally think it’s quite messy. The block “Feature Design” seem to be small, while “About me” take an unnecessary place, which can be save for a bigger “Feature Design” block, and come well with below body.
However, the search block with RSS link below is very well designed. Not many blog can have such lovely thing.
Body :
Just perfect. Everything come smoothly, from the Post title, Date’s font … to the very nice Comment block below.
Side-bar:
That’s good. Even better it’s in the right side, reason is same as Category Link. (Might be I’m a lazy right-handed guy).
Footer:
Good enough for no-claim.
Suggestion :
1. I would like to have a so called sucker-fish menu on Category Link. Wordpress is not used as a blog, it’s also a CMS. So when you have Category and some sub-Category, you may find a sucker-fish menu can be a great tool that help reader stick with your site.
2. “About Me” blog move to right side bar, to save place for “Feature Design”
3. Overall color composition is ok, but I personally think that white font inside a orange block makes it hard to recognize the content inside. And in the side bar, you can think strictly that Orange color title is quite hard to read in white background. I suggest Brian make some color that “stronger” or come well with white color (bright blue, may be).
Well, that’s all I can think about.
Hope that may help others as reference.
It’s great if you can give away your theme as the adward.
I agree with the above guy that some places is hard to read when you have a quick surf, because of white background and quite big font size
Thank you both for your input and thank you Nam for such an in-depth review.
I really do appreciate it and I hope to see you guys around the site some more with your opinions and feedback!
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