new design

So for most people, having a new blog design to start the year is uncommon. I don’t wanna say it’s something that I am looking forward on doing every year but for the third time in three years, I have always introduced a new design to refresh the blog and cater to my *new needs.

Now welcome to MelvinBlog 3.0! If you’re reading from your RSS, its time to come out of your shells to visit my actual site or you can look at this screenshot(click for a larger look):

As you can see, this blog still sports that magazine look although much more cleaner and less cluttered than the previous one.

Why Change?

First and foremost is to refresh the look of the blog. The Colormatic UBD theme has been in this blog for over a year now and we all know people get bored with same design over and over again.

The second reason is to clean things up. If you look at the mainstream blog redesign these days, you can see that most of them have started cleaning up the clutter. For instance, ProBlogger’s new design emphasizes a better spacing and lesser elements. Shoemoney’s blog is also just sporting a clean theme now.

When I decided to go to version 2.0, I had a lot of things in mind including some elements that I want to add that I haven’t added before. With that, I settled for ColorMatic, in which I can pretty much put a lot of things in one place without having users to scroll down.

A year has passed and I realized that some things aren’t really worth putting into the blog. With that I had to find a template that I can work with that still is a magazine theme, yet sports lesser clutter. Another factor that I always consider is that I don’t want to look like a mainstream blog (one which looks like another). So that’s why I settled for this design.

Websource Theme

The theme that you are looking now is called WebSource theme. It comes from ThemeForest.net and specifically a guy named DDStudios. You’re wondering why I didn’t go with top notch themes like StudioPress, Thesis, WooThemes, and etc. The reason as I mentioned above is that I hate being mainstream. Most bloggers would just want to jump into something just because a lot of people are into it.

Also as always, I did some minor customizations in the codes so to make sure that the blog will extremely look unique.

For me as long as the theme works, doesn’t have that much bugs and is greatly structured, then I’m in to consider it. And to add, Websource looks extremely unique while also fitting my needs and requirements.

The redesign isn’t fully complete yet. As you can see, there are some elements that still look weird or you may visit a certain page that looks odd. In fact, I don’t even have a logo yet as I’m planning to implement a new one for this new design so my designer is currently working on it right now. Let’s say the site is just 50% done and I’m just excited to launch it right away. 😉

The Old Look

So for the last time, let’s savor the old look for MelvinBlog which is also known as Version 2.0. This theme from ThemeWars has done a lot of good things, made me good money and helped me engage my content more to my readers.

So that’s it. I will just let you find for yourself some new features and elements that I added and/or that comes with this new design. Please also expect that there might be some bugs or minor flaws (as mentioned) that I haven’t found out yet or I’m currently fixing so please bare with it for the moment. 😉

As always you’re opinion matters a lot to me. 🙂

By now you probably have realized that this blog has been sporting a new design and a completely different layout. And as always any change deserves an explanation. 😉 So in this post I would try to do an in-depth explanation about this new design and how it came out to look like this.

MelvinBlog’s New Design

I lied when I stated that the new design would probably be implemented next year. Anyways, obviously the new design uses a magazine template which enables easier navigation and making good use of spaces. At first I totally really oppose the use of magazine themes for this blog for some reasons but after seeking for professional advices, I just got myself convinced!

The theme I am specifically using is Colormatic Theme, a theme created by ThemeWars which is owned by the super popular Unique Blog Designs. As of course, there are many magazine-styled themes by other companies but I guess UBD has sold the concept of this theme well to me and so I did purchase the developer’s license.

Anyways, the one prop I always get from the former theme is that it looks really peaceful and tranquil. I guess people like the light colors of it and I, myself think that the blending of color on that theme was good. So basically what I did was to try to carry out as much color schemes/combination as possible and import it in the new theme.

Better Navigation

As you can see the homepage of the blog showcases not just the latest post but also the best posts from the blog. It has the featured content at the top most part and the recent blog posts at the left. I also have four sub footers in there in which I have difficulties filling up with.

The unique part of this theme is the built-in blog navigator widget, the social network in the sidebar and the recent tweets. Do take note that those are not plugins but built-in widgets that comes within the theme.

This is the first time I have had a list in the IM niche and although I am with Aweber for long, I never really intended to have one until I realized the need of it last month. And that was one reason the change of theme has become imminent.

So this current layout has basically met my plans with the newsletter placement and as you may notice it’s very very visible. Feel free to sign up in it (it’s free) and I am promising to over-deliver to you, giving out the best stuffs that I’ve never yet put up here. You might not want to miss that.

Better Ad Placements

The new theme benefits advertisers as well. All the ads are shown on EVERY page/post and it just means maximum exposure for them. It’s also taking lesser space now as opposed to before yet is more organized.

I don’t have any plans on increasing the number of ads/ad spots in this blog (yet) as this blog is not created solely for getting monetized. But I am planning to increase the price of the ad spots since the current price is the price for about 5-6 months and obviously the blog has grown a ton after that period.

The Sidebar, Testimonials and Facebook Fan My Blog

Well this theme is preloaded with 4-5 different layouts and this one I’m using has two sidebars in homepage and one in every page/post. Using the sidebars is so easy because it’s widgetized unlike my former team. And as you may notice different widgets show in different pages of the blog (I would talk that in my future posts).

There’s also that testimonial part in the latter part of the sidebar. These are testimonials from some of the loyal readers of this blog and if you feel you can add one, then please hit me up in the contact form.

The facebook fan my blog widget is one that’s been recently used by a lot of bloggers and have left me wondering “why not?” So currently all the fans are my friends and classmates and so if you’re a frequent reader and a subscriber here then why not give the author some kudos by hitting up the “become a fan” button? 🙂

Overall Feel and Your Suggestions

It actually took me close to one week to test different color schemes and layout before deciding to fully implement this one. My designers and I still had about 4-5 custom implementations to make this theme more enticing. We’re still waiting for something to finally put together all those piece. In the end I really feel it’s all worth it and I feel more excited than ever! It makes me want to go to every page of the blog and feel the new look of it.

I also think it’s time to say goodbye to the old theme. I really like it and I’ve told you that lots of times here. That greenish organic theme from PremiumThemes.Net made me good money, helped the blog grow and had its own ups and downs. I’m a guy who appreciates everything and here’s the final look the MelvinBlog V1 powered by Organic theme. Click for a larger look…

So now it’s your turn. I’ve asked some of my friends about the new design and now it’s time for you, my audience to speak out your mind and throw your suggestions and critique for this blog. I could very well appreciate each and every suggestion that I can get from you and let’s hope it’s a win-win situation for everyone here.

MelvinBlog 3.0 – A Fresh New Design