Ok everyone time for another biggie announcement (you can tell I got things backed up after cancelling announcement week right???). This its all (almost) about the looks of things as I put out the call for a new LAMBsite design!
The Blog Blustering we did on the LAMB site gave birth to a bunch of cool ideas and I think it would be really cool to see what the design savvy members of our community can come up with us design wise.
Besides looking great I’m looking for a design/blog engine that is easier to maintain than our current Blogger one. Both Dylan and Rachel were far more experienced bloggers than me when they were Shepherds and I’m still struggling with a lot of coding (thank God for Dylan still doing a bunch of these day to day updates) and stuff like that.
I’m fine sticking with Blogger but it then has to be a lot more user friendly for a newbie like me. I’m also of course open to switching to a self hosted WordPress enviroment which I’m more used too.
So if you feel up to the task you have four weeks (19th of August) to come up with a suggestion for a new design. The best design will be asked to be used on the site without any endorsement. But I’ll make sure to plug you visibly on the LAMBsite.
I have never done stuff like this myself so I don’t know whats custom to ask when it comes seeing your suggestions but in the first stage of things I’m fine with Photoshop Images of how it could look etc.
So get your thinking hats and creativity belts on because its time for one of the biggest and most important challenges in LAMBhistory! I hope you are equally stoked as I am!
DEADLINE: August 19th!!!
WordPress is great, if you buy the customization, otherwise you’re extremely limited. What I would suggest is just messing around with ideas when you have time, and even slowly updating and moving stuff over. Doing a huge overhaul right away will be really difficult (I think, at least). Either way, if you need any help, let me know. As I have been messing around with a ton of wordpress blogs and my own blogger, I’ve become a little more familiar with how to do things.
The only suggestion I have for the new design is to reduce the clutter a little. There’s a hell of a lot going on and can be a little confusing.
I’d like to do a quick-cold switch between designs actually.
I agree with Nick. WordPress is the best, but a free-host blog is really limited to what WordPress offers, but a really good template won’t go over $100 from the ones offered in there.
I would also suggest picking a system and getting together everything (first host, then design, test content, then decide to move the Blogger content, and then redirect the URL.) Otherwise, it’s never gonna just work the way you want it to xD
Yes thats the game plan I’m was thinking Amy. =)
Here’s one of my favorites
http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/crisp/
My own experience is quite limited. However, as a reader, I agree that less clutter would be desirable, making the site not only more pleasing visually but easier to navigate. I suggest using tabs across the top to reduce clutter in the sidebars. Also, because posting is so frequent and posts can disappear quickly, you might consider a magazine-style format, where a number of the most recent posts are arrayed on the page–and can be taken in at a glance–before disappearing into the archives.
Yes top buttons were brought up in the Blog Blustering and I’ll try go with it for the new design.
Oh, and I’m also crazy about this one
http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/standard/
Joel, I’d suggest starting up a donate button for any costs for a new layout and such. I for one would donate like $5 or something via Paypal.
As a lot of you guys seem to think its a better idea with a premium theme rather than a customized design I probably should add one. I’ll do it tomorrow.
Can you clarify what you mean by user friendly?
What specific aspects of Blogger are you uncomfortable with?
I ask because migrating an established blog like this one won’t be an easy task at all.
Well my absolute biggest issue comes with banner widgets and stuff. Compared to WordPress there is too much code involved. Everyone in here seem to think its better to go with a premium WP theme rather than even doing a custom re-design.
User friendly= less cluttered. I know when I first discovered this site, I was incredibly confused as to what to do and where to go. There is simply too much going on with very little explanation. Just needs to be a little tighter and neater, and maybe under each feature have a quick tagline.
I’m a WordPress fan through and through but as a self hosted platform. I’m not a huge fan of the hosted version, just because it’s so limited. Something I found out when I was giving Dan a hand!
Though, a hosted WordPress blog is better than a Blogger one in my eyes. I just don’t like blogger at all.
I would throw myself at this project, but don’t have any time to do it by the 19th
Though, if you need a hand with anything, I’m throwing my hat in 
Been blogging for years on all sorts of platforms and templates and I know my way around Photoshop pretty well.
I obviously should have made it much more clear that the only kind of wordpress hosting I may be interested is self hosted and not on wordpress.com
The only way to go.
I’d have definitely been interested in knocking up a design had I planning a holiday for next week. Going to be out of the country.
There are quite a lot of good looking out of the box themes which you could use, depending on what you’re after. Then you can customise the crap out of them to make them look more like what you want. Sometimes that’s the quicker route to take than a complete redesign from the ground up.
I can have a look around for some free wordpress themes if you want. If you let me know what specifically you want out of the new look? Perhaps?
Considering the low interest on this post to even to a complete re-design I’m actually willing to post-pone it a couple of weeks if you could come up with a cool design.
Other than that I’m probably going with one of these premium themes and will try to customize the crap out of it. =)
I’ll see if I can come up with something then. If you use it, great, if not, no bother
If you migrate it’s going to be a big task… WordPress is a good platform but to transfer the whole site you will need to sit down with a programmer and get a theme Design for ur needs… You can use a good template as your starting point then get it edited to your needs… But this will not be a quick job if you want all your functions transferred and workin instantly… I have a dummy site for filmscope.net where I do all my testing before I go live and even transferring my site to a dummy site is a bit of a task…
If you want some hosting I have a server (Free) if you want to keep costs down… And you could my be use that money for the design…
Thanks yeah testing and converting is nothing I look forward to at this moment it will surely be tedious but I do look forward to when the switch have gone through.
I look forward to a new design here. I sort of stopped visiting here as often as I used to because I could find anything after the site had grown so. That is of course a good thing. But a nice hosted WordPress theme may be the way to go now that the LAMB site is so massive. I am hoping the design might not be so white. I just don’t don’t think it works as a movie site color, but that is just me.
Good luck!
BIll
I think white works.. I mean, at least the area where you have to read a lot of text, black text on a white surface is more calming and doesn’t make your eyes as tired! But more color in general could work. Just, please, please, don’t make any white text on a black surface – I know it is a favorite among the movie bloggers but I don’t know why.. my eyes get tired so quickly.
I, too, would hate that. It gives me a headache after a very short time. Can certainly look good, but it does a number on the eyes. Even white on grey is much more pleasing.