Our Blog: where do you stand?

Corporate Blogging 101: Blog Design Templates

By: Jerry Gennaria | 10/22/2008

Fifty milliseconds. According to a study by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard of the Human Oriented Technology Lab at Carleton University in Ontario, participants were able to form an opinion of a website within 50 milliseconds, or 1/20th of a second. That study, published in Nature, shows that visitors will form an immediate, emotional first impression based on your site's design. So what does this mean for your new blog?

First, it should not derail your blog while you scramble to engage information architects, designers, usability experts or other web development professionals. It does mean, however, that you should take some time to consider the look of your site and how it supports your company's brand. One of the benefits of blogging is how quickly and inexpensively you can get started, and, thanks to templates, that can include the design of your site.

Most blogging platforms (covered previously) include the ability to install and apply pre-made templates. These templates define the look of the site and in some cases portions of the functionality. For the purposes of this discussion we will talk about WordPress, although most of the principles also apply to other platforms.

By default, WordPress installs two sets of templates, called themes. A theme is actually a collection of individual templates that share a common look. These templates may be entire pages or even just parts of a page. For instance, the Footer section at the bottom of this page is a separate template which is “included” into all of the main page templates. This type of system allows you to update common elements of your blog in one place and have the change automatically reflected across the entire site.

The default WordPress theme is based on the famous Kubrick theme originally developed by Michael Heilemann and Chris J. Davis. The Kubrick theme has been ported and modified for almost every major blogging platform and the innovations pioneered in this theme, and its successor, K2, have been incorporated into hundreds of other themes.
Many first time bloggers choose to use the Kubrick theme without modification. We certainly have nothing against the stock theme (this blog uses it), but we recommend that you spend a little time customizing it for your brand. Fortunately, with the advent of standards based web design -- using techniques like Cascading Style Sheets – it is pretty easy to modify the stock theme. In fact, when creating the Where Do You Stand? blog we updated the banner graphic to match the firm's brand and main website and modified the fonts and colors in the style sheet. These simple changes – along with the use of custom avatars – transform the stock theme into a Standing branded theme and best of all, the time and cost were minimal.

If the default themes don't meet your needs or capture your imagination, consider the hundreds of other themes that are available. Downloading and installing these themes is relatively easy and there are tutorials and documentation to help you find your way. We've included links to a few of them at the end of this post. In addition to the multitude of themes available, you might also look into plugins – tiny add-ons to your blog that add functionality like statistics, calendars, Flickr and Twitter integration and much more.

One of the great things about blogging is how easy it is to get started. That ease, however, is obvious when you consider the percentage of blogs that continue to use the stock WordPress, Moveable Type or Blogger templates. It doesn't take much effort, however, to differentiate your site from the masses. We suggest that you take advantage of the “easy” factor to get your brand or company out there, and, as your blog gains traction, consider engaging a professional web designer to build a custom theme or a custom site to better meet your needs.
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WordPress Themes
http://WordPress.org/extend/themes/
http://www.wpthemespot.com/
http://topwpthemes.com/
http://wpthemeland.com/
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/

WordPress Tutorials
http://lorelle.WordPress.com/2007/09/08/kubrick-and-k2-WordPress-themes-collection-of-theme-tips/
http://max.limpag.com/2006/09/01/how-to-convert-any-web-template-into-a-wordpress-theme/
http://www.wordpresstutorials.com/
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons
http://ithemes.com/tutorials/
http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/

WordPress Plugins
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
http://wp-plugins.net
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/general/useful-wordpress-plugins/
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/12/best-wordpress-plugins-for-power-blogging/

Jerry Gennaria is vice president of Interactive Media & Technology at Paradowski Creative, a frequent design partner for Standing Partnership's client work.

Posted in Brand Positioning, Digital Communications