When I was in high school and college, I used to change up my blog designs quite frequently. I wasn’t as prolific as some of the other people I followed, but when I felt things were getting stale stylistically (probably somewhere every 2-4 months), I wouldn’t hesitate to head into Photoshop and the stylesheets and switch things up. I was happy to do it. I was excited to do it. It might have taken me a day or two to figure out what I wanted… and there were definitely times I felt like I was butting heads with my vision versus my Photoshop skills but I largely proceeded without fear.
I didn’t know to be afraid in those days. I was just doing what felt like fun.
Then, I graduated from college and became a real paid for my skills web developer and everything changed.
Suddenly, my life went from messing around with Photoshop and CSS to make my blog look pretty to using Photoshop to slice up someone else’s design and using CSS to replicate what was in the picture, usually resulting in a fight with a designer somewhere down the line because something was 1px off or I eyedroppered the wrong shade of blue out of the Photoshop file because no one gave me a colorsheet to work from.
I was working on teams to build small to mid sized websites using Drupal. Things were constantly about collaborating with others to get the job done. My life became about best practices and standards. Everything was always about doing things the right way over the easy way.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing… because it isn’t. It’s the way things have to be to have a large web project run smoothly. However, it had a rather grim downside for me.
Fear and complacency.
It wasn’t very long after I went professional that my blog began to suffer. It was no longer fun to retheme my blog, instead it was a terrifying proposition. My job involved implementing designs that other people made. I had quickly become used to the fact that I was relying on others for the blueprint of everything I did… I’d open Photoshop and sigh and say to myself, “I’m not a real designer,” and then I’d give up.
As if it somehow mattered if I was a “real” designer or not when it came to my blog.
I considered hiring the job out to someone else, but couldn’t bring myself to do it for something that I essentially knew how to do myself… even if I found myself believing that I wasn’t all that capable.
I bring it up because I’ve been unhappy with my current theme for quite some time. While I love how it reflects my New Yorkerness, I’ve been not loving the color scheme so much. It’s so drab. I dread the moments where I have to actually go and look at it.
I’ve been sitting with Photoshop open on my machine for the greater part of the week… Largely feeling at a loss about what to do about my “I hate how my blog looks” predicament. I vented to longtime blogger friend, Aubrey who commiserated with me on the whole feeling fearful and inadequate in regards to design skills and we reminisced about the time when we didn’t care, we just did.
And now… We just spend our overthinking it instead of just doing it.
Which leads me to yesterday evening, with the goal of creating a new layout in my head… I found myself browsing through fonts on the web looking for some inspiration. I downloaded and installed a bunch of new ones, and all of the sudden… The look I wanted came together. No overthinking. Just playing around and seeing where it went… and I think it went somewhere good.
I went to bed this morning with a mockup in hand and a plan… and I couldn’t be happier.
The new theme will probably be up by the end of the week, if not before…. Be on the lookout for it!
Looking forward to the new theme.
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I’m certainly looking forward to getting it done!
What a great post and a great attitude! You go girl! And I can’t wait to see your new look.
shaina longstreet recently posted..Giveaway: Blog Header
Thanks, Shaina.
Very insightful, as most of the time trying to force anything creatively (or otherwise) usually sucks all the fun out of things and it shows. When it finally hits you, it flows.
I’m jealous, as I am technologically stupid and my blog is visually lame as heck, but that’s me.
Abby recently posted..Verdict: Not Guilty
So very true!
Your blog doesn’t look that bad, and besides the content is what really carries it (and you’ve got some great content from what I’ve seen… I so need to buy your book!)
Thanks for the comment on my blog! The sweets were *quite* yummy :] And good luck with the redesign!
-Zie
It sucks that both of us feel this way about our skills as designers and overthinking everything we make. I seem to have an issue with overthinking what I write, too; I seem to have the same problem with both design and writing when it comes to my blog. It’s pretty annoying because I just want to DO and not overthink. I’m happy to see you’ve been writing a lot more, and I’m excited to see the new layout!
Aubrey recently posted..Dad.
I could have sworn I replied to this… Oh wait… You know what I did? I commented on the staging copy on my local machine.
And I can tell you that because you know what I’m talking about.
Not overthinking the writing is slowly getting easier again. There are still some topics I don’t know whether or not I should talk about… but I find that if I try and write about cooking and crafty things, it also pushes me to actually go do those things rather than sitting on the computer… That’s how I used to motivate myself back in the day… and well… nothing wrong with that, right?
I hear you. Some days I wake up and look at my current blog layout/theme and think, “I can’t possibly look at this for one more second!” Eight hours later, my new layout/theme is done. Lol. I just can’t leave my theme alone sometimes, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It’s just means I’m a creative, emotional soul, and it sounds like you’re probably the same way.
As a design student myself, I’m still at the “playing around with things is fun” stage, but I get where you’re coming from. There’s a saying around our lab that the worst person to design for is yourself, partially due to the fact that you now know all the endless possibilities for your design, and partially because you’re not merely relying on someone else to tell you want they want you to design.
Jennifer M. recently posted..The Letter A – 6/365
Yep. That’s totally where I was at with the last one. The desire for having something new to look at finally outweighed the “I’m not good enough to do this.” that I’d be feeling.
That’s totally true about designing for yourself. Sometimes it’s hard to know when to stop and say, “You know what, this is totally good enough.”
Geez, I use the word totally too much.
I know where you’re coming from on that. I went to college for art education so while I’m not a professional graphic designer I know enough about it to pull my hair out trying to get things perfect. Sometimes knowing more about something can make things worse than just knowing a few things because then you can keep it simple without thinking “but I can do BETTER”. Plus knowing that how the blog looks affects how people feel when they read your stuff doesn’t help. It’s an overthinker’s nightmare.
I just started a new blog and I’m still fighting to get the right design for it (plus learning all the buttons stuff and whatnot). Hopefully I figure it out before I go bald!
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