Trial & Error

Just when I thought I was done with my blog design….BAM! Wrenches, axes, and hammers get thrown my way. Let me explain…

A few days ago I realized (through a very reliable source in the WordPress.com forums) that it’s kinda important for your blog title to appear in your header/banner. Apparently for searchability and browser indexing purposes. Waaaaay over my head. Being that I have learned quite a bit in the trusty WordPress forums,  I trusted my source. One problem. My blog title didn’t work with my header. Meaning, I couldn’t center it. I couldn’t left-align it. I was stuck. Nothing looked good. Here’s where I had to start changing things…

I found a header that worked splendidly. It allowed me to center align my blog title just as it should be. Yay! I even had fun re-editing some pictures for the new header. Yay! But, here’s the kicker….

I had to then change margins, padding, etc. No yay. I managed to get everything just right. Yay again! OK, I’m a woman so naturally I’m pretty fickle…  I couldn’t change the header and NOT get the matching background!! No way. So, I edited this too. Voila. Problem fixed! Somewhat….

Realizing way late in the game that not all operating systems & browsers perform the same, I poked around Twitter and asked for volunteers to let me know what my blog looked like to them, on their PC’s and with their browsers. Thankfully, I had some gracious volunteers and I got some very interesting feedback. I (sadly) don’t own a MAC and I really wanted to see specifically what it looked like there. Like I thought, bad. My font was HUGE compared to what it should be and it wasn’t even the right type of font! I was starting to get ill. You design and set-up a blog/site with the intention of having others see it the same way, right? Back to the drawing board I went…

Sadly, I can NOT figure out how to get the margins to appear correctly on ALL OS’s & browsers. However, I did resort back to trying to get my arch nemesis, “TypeKit” to work on my blog. You may be asking, “What’s Typekit?” Well, before tonight I would have said never, ever, ever even think about it, as I couldn’t get it to work 2 weeks ago. Tonight was a different story. I. Got. It. To. Work. (Double) Yay! Yay!

From the Typekit website:

So here’s the situation: Every major browser now supports the ability to link to a font. That means you can write a bit of CSS, include a URL to a font file, and have your page display with the typography you expect. For designers and developers, this is a significant step forward. No longer will you need to trap your content in images or Flash just to express yourself visually. Pages will be more usable, accessible, and indexable. This is a massive upgrade for the web.

This is the idea anyway. This is HUGE for web designers. I’m  not one, but again I’m a woman… and I like things a certain way. My way!

So, in closing, getting my blog title on my header caused the perfect storm. A storm I’m actually glad that happened. Without doing all of this I wouldn’t have known that my blog was not appearing as it should on some OS’s. (Except the margin issue) Not knowing exactly if this was going to hold true and really show my blog as it was intended, I decided to add a little “Please Note” tab in my sidebar with a screencap of how it SHOULD look. It tells my guests what browsers work best for viewing my blog. I figured this would help when a guest is viewing my blog and it appears completely out of whack; I don’t want anyone to think I’m an idiot that hasn’t a clue on how to design a blog! Can’t ever be too safe!

Here’s the FINAL look of ImAprilE’s “A Little Of This, A Little Of That…”

Now to point you to where I received my NEW goodies from! The header & background came from ‘The Cutest Blog On The Block.‘ Such a “cute” (get it?) site for bloggers! If you’re in the mood for a little blog redecorating, check them out!

Let me know what you think! You like it? You hate it? You really don’t care? Let me know all of it! Thanks for bearing with me and my fickleness! (I think I’m FINALLY done with design now!)