Entries Tagged as 'Web Design'

Quick and Easy Changes to Your WordPress Theme : Change Your Website Colors in CSS

example of kuler colors
The easiest way to get a different look is to change colours in your css file. Use an HTML editor and the find/replace function.
Copy your entire css file ( found in Presentation—> Theme editor and usually called stylesheet or style.css or similar.
Copy the entire file into an html editor ( don’t use Word which can sometimes change or add characters in code). Save.
Make sure you keep copy of your original css file ( or any file) somewhere before you make changes.

Find a color (using a hex color chart) you are going to replace and choose the colour you want to replace. Use find/replace function to edit. Test.
Keep going until you get look you want, It can be tricky you may find a styling will make text disappear or colors look strange.

Are You Color challenge and don;t want to go through the hassle?
You can find some very nice color themes online.
Kuler.com has gorgeous color themes available for free. I particularly like Firenze and Blueberry juice. You can also custom design your own themes. This is the best tool of its kind .
Also MediaZeal’s Color Planner

Test colours before you apply theme with many of the free color picker tools available, like yaflaColor

Did you personalize your free Wordpress theme by changing colors? I would love to see them- post link and theme name in comments section. This is a dofollow blog and your link in comments section will be followed.

Helpful Tools For Changing Your WordPress Blog


Free CoffeeCup HTML Editor.
PSPad – a freeware code editor
Bluefish editor
Hex Color Chart

For The Logo and Graphics Challenged- Logo Series


I am good at a lot of things- i am even GREAT at a handful of stuff ( I kick ass in Rock Band!) and have several niche blogs where I have successfully branded myself as an expert in some obscure and not-so obscure fields. One thing I would never have the cajones to do it to pass myself off as any kind of expert in graphics or logo design.

I am for ANYTHING that will take mystery and pain out of designing a business logo or graphic. I just wrote a post about an image editor Picnik that really is designed for people like me.
I will often see post in blog about designing you own logo and been a bit hopeful.. only to read it and then feel a cloud enter my brain when they start to use terms like “layers” and “gradient tools”.. and I go back to my logo free life. So I was dubious when I stopped by and checked out Anita Campbell’s posts on Small Business Trends starting with Help, My Logo is So 1999!

The article series wasn’t what I thought- it is not another DIY logo tutorial . Anita describes the process she goes through in creating a new logo using the HP service Logoworks who claim to design a high quality design starting at 99.00. A great price and an option worth giving serious consideration. ( Note- yes I KNOW I am logo free- it has been in the works for months now and been a difficult process – read my brother-in-law the graphics designer is now doing it…..)

Anita takes some of the mystery out of creating a business logo and her logo series is a must read if you are considering getting a professionally designed logo for your site or blog. There article is well written and has unusualy good insight into the process. The post comments also contain good info so take a peek.

Win a FREE Logo Package

Anita also is having a random draw to win a Gold logo package worth $399 from HP, visit her site and comment on which of her logos you like best for a chance to win.

How Do You Add Google Adsense Code to a .tpl file?

Working with some template files (.tpl ) files this week and came across problem with Google Adsense code not showing up.

AdSense Code Not showing Up?


My Adsense code was not showing up when I pasted into some .tpl files
.I knew I was supposed to do something but took me a bit to figure out. The answer was pretty straight forward, need to add literal tags. Literal tags prevent a section of the template from being parsed, placing the contents directly into the template.
Basically- this is all you need to know:

{literal}
ADSENSE CODE HERE
{/literal}

You can open up the .tpl file in notepad or edit in your ftp client as well.