Cerulean Sanctum Design Overhaul—Input Requested
April 10, 2009
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, Blogging, Technical Functions : Trackback,
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Dear Readers,
I moved Cerulean Sanctum from Blogger to WordPress in April 2007. I’ve never regretted that move for a second.
After two years, and many changes in the power and functionality of WordPress, I think it’s time for me to replace the existing theme with a more contemporary one. The theme I use, a highly modified version of Regulus, has served me well but has not kept up with some WordPress and blogging advances.
I’ve been looking for a new theme for almost a year now. The WordPress 2.7 update sent some of that search back to the drawing board because it updated the way themes handled some features that originally had been available only through plugins (such as threaded comments, which I have been using here for a long time through the Brian’s Threaded Comments plugin).
Despite the availablity of thousands of themes, I’ve been disappointed in many that I have test driven. They seem to suffer from the same issues:
1. They break a great deal of what I have setup already, usually because they are inflexible and poorly designed.
2. They don’t employ all the latest features of WordPress 2.7.
3. They’re bloated with too many extras, which makes them load slowly.
4. They’re not SEO-aware.
5. They look stunning graphically, but their typography and CSS stylesheet are poorly thought-out.
6. They offer tight CSS and lush typography, but their overall look is too spare or dull.
In short, I’ve not been able to find a theme that overcomes those lacks. I’m not afraid to customize an existing theme, since I did that with my current one. But updating themes today can be a nightmare when a heavily customized CSS stylesheet is involved, a problem some theme designers are beginning to address, though not enough.
I have several ideas for the look of Cerulean Sanctum. I would like to keep it light and airy, so I’ve avoided the darker themes. I hate being limited to common fonts, too, so I’ve been exploring sIFR and other high-tech font replacement systems. Typography matters because I hate reading blogs with tiny, nasty-looking fonts. Cerulean Sanctum’s main font is too small as it is, so I’d like to make things bigger for ease of reading, but without the Kindergarten typography of some blogs.
Blue (close to Pantone Cerulean) and white would be the major colors. I’ve always liked the tan highlights I used in the current design, but I don’t have to go that way. I know colors can be altered in the CSS. I’ve thought about more minimalist themes, modifying the background pic to feature most of the color and a sky theme, but have not hit on one that has enough open left sidebar space to make my ideas work.
Anyway, what it comes down to is that I’d like to open this up to your suggestions. If you’re a designer or have been around WordPress for a long time and know what’s out there, I’d love to get some feedback. And even if you’re not, I’d like to hear your opinion.
This is what I’d like to find in a theme:
1. Current with all WordPress 2.7 features
2. SEO-friendly
3. Low bulk, fast loading
4. Great typography that scales well or plays nicely with sIFR (and others like it)
5. Contains blue elements, or can be modified to employ them
6. Light, airy, open look (though I will consider other styling if its really stunning)
7. Flexible, doesn’t break what should be a standard WordPress setup
8. Contains excellent extensibility, with all the standard WordPress hooks (and more, if possible)
9. Given the wide range of monitors out there, perhaps a fluid theme would be better than fixed-width, but I will consider fixed-width too
10. Done by an experienced designer with great coding skills so as to make it easily upgradeable and expandable in the future
I’m looking primarily at free themes, though I will consider a premium one that doesn’t break the bank. (My big issue with premium themes is you can’t see their back end and guts until you purchase them, and only then do you realize that you’ve bought problems.)
Thanks for your input. Perhaps soon you’ll see a different look that better serves readers here at Cerulean Sanctum.
Tags: Appearance, Blog, Design, Look, Theme, Themes, WordPress
Posts
Comments
Dan, I appreciate that you want to make the site appealing. But it’s the content that keeps me coming back. Just my $0.02…
Mark,
Thanks. I appreciate your feedback. As a writer, I know that content IS king.
On the other hand, as a proponent of the principles of Edward Tufte, I believe that the way content is presented makes an extraordinary difference in its ability to inform. And Cerulean Sanctum’s presentation of that content and accessibility to others can be greatly improved.
The current theme loads glacially for those with slower Internet connections. That must be fixed; I’ve received feedback from some that they don’t come here anymore because it takes so long for the site to load.
Also, the readability of the text has never been great, and it only gets worse at higher resolutions.
I’d like to move to a three-column layout or one with a single strong sidebar coupled with an info-laden footer. I’ve considered reducing the need to scroll, too.
SEO is an issue, as many newer themes add a great amount of juice to Google rankings. More people reading Cerulean Sanctum and finding information here when they search is a wonderful thing.
A new theme would make Cerulean Sanctum easier to use and more accessible. And accessibility keeps people coming back. Content may be king, but making it easier for that content king to reach the people certainly doesn’t hurt!
If I could ever figure out how to move from blogger to WP easily, customize the theme, etc. (i.e., find someone to do it for me since I’m lazy), I always thought I would use this theme. I’d probably also use the Disqus comment system.
But I have no idea if this meets your technical specs … best wishes.
Rick,
I was able to do the Blogger to WordPress transition back in the WordPress “Stone Age.” Now the import feature is exceedingly advanced and I suspect you could make the transition seamlessly, so long as your new host was a good one.
I tried the theme you mentioned once before; it broke an enormous number of things in Cerulean Sanctum. I was surprised, too, as the theme came highly regarded. I suspect that it would be great if you were starting from scratch, but that was not my experience with an established blog.
related question.
The words on the left edge of the comments are frequently missing on my screen and I often have to copy and past a comment on a Word document to see it on full. (This happens with both Firefox and Explorer browsers) Is there a reason for that?
Robbo,
I’ve had several people comment on this issue. Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce this.
I have viewed the site from several independent locations on different OSes and browsers and cannot reproduce the issue, either. Looking at the site through browsershots.org does not show it.
I am convinced it is a problem isolated to Windows-based computers. Some people who had a problem in IE did not have it in Firefox or any other browser, so you are the first to tell me that you had problems in Firefox.
I can’t explain or resolve the issue. Yet another reason why I need to get a new theme.
Selecting a good WordPress theme is difficult and I admit, the official WordPress theme viewer at the WordPress webpage makes many themes look worse than they are. In order to really see the theme, I have to go to the official theme site and see it before buying.
Plus, I get the RSS from planet.wordpress.org and they have new themes highlighted occasionally and it appears as if all the themes are now looking the same or the author takes a theme, makes one mod, and calls it a new theme.
I never really find the ‘perfect’ theme and am fearful of pulling the trigger on purchasing a paid theme like Revolution, studiopress themes, or the graph paper press / Monochrome type themes because I fear that it will not look like I thought it should look on my site or I inherit unexpected problems and the support is little to none.
I end up having to do some extensive mods to the CSS, graphics, fonts, etc. and add all in one SEO pack. Even though I like the one I am currently using, It is not 2.7 friendly in reference to threaded comments and some plugins that are widget based will mess the sidebar up. I have also found that certain themes show up differently between Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Safari.
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One thing I have always noticed about your blog is that you always use at least one picture in every article to enhance your content and subject matter of the article. I always thought that one of the ‘magazine’ types of themes where they use the picture within the article as a thumbnail on the frontpage (and some use the same picture as part of the front page ’slideshow’) would suit your writing style very well.
Onward,
I’ve resisted the magazine-style themes because I’ve not thought they fit my type of content well. I write long posts, and the magazine format is really geared for snippets, a couple paragraphs here and there.
I’ve used the Theme Test Drive plugin in the past to view this blog in another theme, but have had problems with this plugin conflicting with another one, and I don’t have the time to debug what plugin or combination of plugins is causing the glitch. I’ve setup a separate development site for any updated Cerulean Sanctum, but I’ve not been able to find the right theme to make it worth my while to do serious development yet.
Theme Test Drive is a very neat concept and works when you initially activate it. Deactivating it is a different story
When I am testing out a new design, I have to disable the plugin after experimenting because I have seen it conflict with WP-Cache to the point where dumping the cache in WP Cache would not resolve the problem. Disabling and re-enabling Wp Cache resolved my problem.
Good luck in your search
Onward,
Theme Test Drive used to work perfectly. Now it throws all sorts of errors, even with caches cleared and WP-Supercache off.
I’ve heard great things about Thesis. You probably have too, I’m assuming. It probably is a bank-breaker at around $90, but it seems very flexible CSS, and it’s been touted as one of the best themes regarding SEO. Find it here
Blessings,
Greg
The buzz on Thesis is huge, Greg. Sadly, the child themes that have been developed for it are almost universally poor, at least in my opinion. And while I am okay at editing existing CSS files, I am not equipped with the skills or software to build stylesheets from scratch.
Sorry, Dan, but I read your feed. What you have now is lovely, but I don’t see it often, and honestly, it’s your insights (as well as your readers’ insights) that have me coming back. Best wishes!
Thanks, Cristy. Even though you don’t come to the blog itself very often, what would you like to see me improve in Cerulean Sanctum?
dan
as a long time ‘lurker’, i too,appreciate you thoughts and challenges
God bless
wayne
Thanks, Wayne. Hope all your blogging at The Thirsty Theologian goes well.
It sounds to me like you really need a custom built theme. Try E. Webscapes – Lisa literally wrote the book on WordPress . . .
Dan, I recommend Thesis. It costs a few bucks, but it is continually updated and allows for quite a bit of customizing on the fly.
Happy Easter all.