Every six months or so I tweak the appearance of my Thesis Theme by swapping out the background and header images and adjusting the font colours to suit.
I revamped the site in the first week of May to a very busy and colourful graffiti skin but after finding that I didn’t like it anymore (too busy) I thought I would tone it down to something simple and pleasant on the eye…a Vintage newspaper and bird skin…Tiger in the snow skin.
Following are some before (Graffiti skin) and after screenshots.
Former Graffiti Skin
…1st revamp of May
Current Former Vintage Newspaper and Bird Skin
The 2nd revamp of May but one I will stick with for at least 6 months providing visitor feedback doesn’t indicate further changes are needed.
Image Attribution: I made a few adjustments to the sizes of the background images but apart from that, the real work was done by The Background Fairy. Thank you Karen.
Changing the Header and Background Image in Thesis
My tutorial on changing the background and header includes the code you need to do it.
Update: Tiger in Snow (June)
Thank you to those who commented on the difficulty reading text against an uneven background image/other than white. I have activated another background image and font colour assortment that I originally had in mind.
Your Thoughts
Please let me know what you think about my latest redesign. I don’t like to change the look of the site more than say twice per year but in this case I really made it too bold, bright and beautiful and I didn’t feel relaxed when writing at the site. I’m happy with sedate and beautiful and would love to hear your thoughts on the new (again) look.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Both revamps are great! As for me, I don’t really mind how your site looks site because I’m really after your good site content. More power to you!
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Some old test out there, looks good as it not slow down the page download speed.
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The second revamp is good but I find it is hard to read your writing because of the back ground. I always prefer white for content area but yeah — it may be just me. :D
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the revamp was extraordinarily beautiful… can’t wait for your future posts.
Hi,
Your new theme is nice, the header and banner are really good looking, The bird and the green font color make it appealing. The background is static, and the leftmost part of it is annoying, it makes the text hard to read. I am using Firefox. Btw, nice post :)
Okay. Back to sharp and crisp. I was going to go with this design to start with so after the honest feedback I have once again changed the background and font colours. Thank you to those who suggested returning to white. How is this now for readability, etc?
The design in Your second picture looks superb and no one can’t even judge that it’s build in thesis theme..
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I have to say I like the second one more than the current one.
All of them are unique and interesting, however.
That graffiti skin is very cool looking, thank you for sharing it with us.
The last design i liked most, because its background simple and clear. Although all the design and layout are the best. thanks for showing.
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That graffiti skin is very cool looking.Although all the design and layout are the best.
I’ve been here more than once and I think the original 3 column layout is still the best. I just can’t stand an animal’s image on a non-pet related site or maybe that was just me. White background is still the best.
I think the current Tiger one is probably the easiest tor read… however, I quite fancy the old parchment effect and bird design… something a little different!
Thesis Theme HQ is about to have a facelift soon…something a little different. Stay tuned.
I Like the Background,Font Color,Font and all but the Tiger in the image is what I think should not have been used.I mean that your blog is about Thesis and Themes,and you like to tweak Headers and Designs on a regular basis but this fact is not known by a new blog visitor of yours so he will not be able to correlate the image of tiger on the header of your blog with your blogs concept.
Agree. I am working on a redesign but have to stick with this background until I have the replacement ready. Hopefully I will have a replacement design in the coming weeks.
the present design looks cool and very much unique. i liked you 2nd revamp which also had a unique looks.