Critique my blog

silvine

I'd love a review or some feedback about my blog: www.workreadplay.com

Graham

Far, far too busy. Your content almost fades into the background.

The yoo-theme you started with looks quite good with their sample content, lots of photographs with a couple of paragraphs beneath. I just don't think it works at all for your style of in-depth, text-rich posts. It's as if all of the nice bits from the original theme have been removed leaving you with 2 columns, a mis-matched header and a large section of laminate flooring.

When picking a WP theme, it's really important to try and visualise what the theme will look like with your content. A photo heavy theme usually won't work so well with text-heavy content.

I'd recommend a fairly plain theme that won't detract from the content. Preferably a theme that isn't reliant on photographs to lift it.

Why the blue colour block behind the blog title?
Why the wooden background?
I'd replace the Social media icons.
Why limit the from page to a single article/post?

Here's a theme that would work well with text based content but you'd probably need to sling for a stock-photo for the top of each post:
http://themes.okaythemes.com/browse/?theme=pocket
You could always take a screenshot, load it into photoshop, remove the photo section and see how it looks.

This one isn't really to my taste but it appears to work better with text content:
http://themeforest.net/item/min-a-minimal-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/57155

silvine

Any chance you can recommend a YooTheme theme? I still have access to most of Yootheme themes and they're responsive which is a real plus. That said, I really like the first theme you picked. I might install it on another Wordpress install and test.

I designed the social media icons myself but I agree, they need to be fixed.

Is there anything else I should remove? My goal is to go for a minimal look and feel that pushes the content forward. I put one post on the home page as this is my favourite blog: http://zenhabits.net/. I like using pics though so his theme won’t work.

That's actually my second crack at a logo. I put the blue block behind it so it looks quite similar in colour and style to the rest of the site.



Thanks for the feedback.

dharma200

I enjoyed the read but it is far too text heavy... Think you could review and do pointers in half the length... Remember people have relatively short attention spans, most reviews I would read would behalf the size of yours,perhaps break up the text with an image or two. Hts

Graham

silvine wrote: »

Any chance you can recommend a YooTheme theme?

Just had a quick scan and to be honest, I wouldn't recommend any of them. All of their themes are aiming to utilise WordPress as a content management platform for a more traditional web site. You're producing a blog, you need a blog theme.

You must have put weeks/months into writing your current content. For the sake of $50 make sure your theme encourages people to stick around and read it.

silvine wrote: »

I designed the social media icons myself but I agree, they need to be fixed.

You and I appear to have about the same level of artistic ability, unfortunately for both of us it would be graded somewhere around 0. Go find some free ones, buy some stock ones or pay someone with talent to produce them for you.

silvine wrote: »

That's actually my second crack at a logo. I put the blue block behind it so it looks quite similar in colour and style to the rest of the site.

Please refer to my previous answer.

silvine wrote: »

Is there anything else I should remove? My goal is to go for a minimal look and feel that pushes the content forward.

The theme.

Your site is ALL about the content, make sure the content is front and centre all of the time. You're almost looking for a theme that blends into the background. The current theme is wearing a pink frilly hat, green flared pants while it sings and dances all over your content.

dharma200 wrote: »

I enjoyed the read but it is far too text heavy... Think you could review and do pointers in half the length... Remember people have relatively short attention spans, most reviews I would read would behalf the size of yours,perhaps break up the text with an image or two. Hts

I'm not sure whether I'd agree with Dharma. I think your content is fairly spot-on length wise unless your planning on applying for a job with the MetroHerald, in which case remove all the words with more than 6 letters and limit yourself to two paragraphs.

Dharma does make a good point about including images/screenshots when/where appropriate.

silvine

Thanks for this. I'll research some blog themes and post back for feedback before I switch.

silvine

What about this : http://demo.studiopress.com/focus/colors/gray/

this: http://demo.studiopress.com/minimum/layouts/cs/

or this:http://demo.studiopress.com/balance/colors/red/

?
My intention is to go content/sidebar for the layout.

Graham

None of those would be my personal choice, but that's a personal taste thing. Any of those are an order of magnitude better that what you have already.

Personally I wouldn't go for a Serif font for the main content as I think they're slightly harder to read by again, personal preference. I'm sure you could change that anyway.

If I absolutely had to pick, I'd go for either the minimum or balance theme. I don't know what it is about the 'focus grey' theme, but it makes me think of leatherette folders with clear plastic sleeves. I expect article one to be todays lunch specials.