Blog Makeover 1

Project: Blog Makeover 1

Completion: 1.5 days

First Stardust Lores header

Before I started this blog, I already have a vision on what kind of design I'm going to employ.  I'm usually a sucker for flamboyant designs but with Stardust Lores, I wanted a minimalistic look so I proceeded to brainstorm about:

• the template to be used
• whether a graphic is needed or not
• font type to be used
• blog background
• color branding

After an unaccounted number of hours and after abusing Google so much, I was already on the verge of pulling my hair out because I can't seem to find a good template for my new blog. For a fleeting moment, I regretted the fact that I didn't strive hard to learn CSS and HTML coding because then, I wouldn't have been facing such a dilemma.  After contemplating the choices presented to me by Google, I reluctantly decided to use one of Blogger's pre-made ones under the Simple templates (can't remember whether it's the black or white or red template).  And thank the gods, after playing with the CSS editor, I realized that one of the three is the right one for me.

Can be found in the Blogger Dashboard>Template>Simple

Regarding the use of graphic, I decided to use one because the header would look so empty without something that would break the monotony of the header text.  I don't know how the others can make a header-with-text-only look so fabulous but I assure you that I am not at that level of awesomeness yet. The next problem was looking for the right graphic to use.  Since the name of the blog is Stardust Lores, I searched for a graphic that would look like a cluster of small stars swirling beautifully. Obviously, I didn't find one but maybe that's because I was only interested with free graphics, heh. Anyways, after scouring my favorite design resources sites, I've managed to stumble across a lovely swirling leaves graphic in Deviantart.  Upon seeing it, I immediately thought, why the hell not? Those shining golden leaves looked like stardust.

Swirling Leaves by Diza-74

With the graphic out of the way,  everything just fell into place.  I settled with the Signerica font type from Dafont and my color of choices were `#666666 and #249fa3.  That just leaves me still in need of a blog background but I wasn't too worried since I know that the best place to look for a pattern that would complement a minimalistic appearance is Subtle Patterns.  My expectations were satisfied as I immediately found the Seamless Paper Texture Pattern below that simply looked amazing.

Seamless Paper Texture Pattern

And so, with Blogger's Simple Template and the pieces that I've managed to gather, I was able to create a minimalistic looking blog.  I just fiddled with the CSS editor (I did not even touch the "Add A CSS" part in the advance section) and presto, a pimped Stardust Lores came to existence .  Forgive me for not being able to provide a screenshot since I haven't really thought of chronicling my design journey during the blog's first makeover.  It was only when I started the third makeover that I thought of including the whole process in this blog. 

Ps. The picture I used in my profile is a wonderful creation by Ofpink that I've found in Deviantart while I was searching for my design pieces.