Hot News Introducting 2010 The Blogger Template Designer

We’ve added a fair bit to Blogger over the years, but one thing that’s been constant for some time has been our collection of templates. While a number of talented designers around the web have offered their own fresh and interesting designs that you can apply to your Blogger blog, our stock set has grown a bit stale, and you’ve noticed. You let us know — in the forums, on Twitter, sitting next to us on airplanes, even from across the counter at a Harvard Square stationary store, and we’ve been listening.

Today we’re taking a big first step in improving not just our template designs, but all the ways that you can customize the look and layout of your blog. We even made a video with jaunty music to show it off:

Here’s what we’re launching today to Blogger in Draft:

• 15 new, highly-customizable templates from our design team, split into four families: Simple, Picture Window, Awesome Inc, and Watermark
• One-, two-, and three-column layouts for each template, with complete control over the size and arrangement of the columns
• Hundreds of background images and patterns from iStockphoto, the leading microstock image marketplace

Try it Now
Go to http://draft.blogger.com/ to log in to Blogger in Draft. (If you’ve never been there before, Blogger in Draft is just like regular Blogger, except with new, in-development features like this one.) Click on your blog’s “Layout” link to go to the Layout tab. The link to the Template Designer is at the end of the row of sub-tabs.

You can use the live preview to see your new template without affecting your blog. When you find a new look that you’re happy with, just click the “Apply to Blog” button to publish it to the world. Note: You can backup your existing template ahead of time by going to Layout > Edit HTML. We recommend this if you have a customized blog design that you might want to go back to.

Classic template blogs: If you have a “Template” link or tab instead of “Layout,” you’ll first need to switch from Classic to Layouts before you can try out the Template Designer. Go to Classic > Customize Design and follow the instructions there. You’ll need to switch to one of our old templates first, but then you’ll be able to use the Template Designer to pick a new one.

Tips from the Blogger Team

• Get your links to match a background image quickly by using the Background panel’s “Main color theme” to adjust all of your blog’s colors at once. This works particularly well with Simple’s second design.

• With a three-column footer, you can fit in several gadgets to interest your readers after they’re done reading your post. For inspiration, read Derek Powazek’s post, “Embrace your bottom!”

• If you’re using our new Pages feature, put the Page List gadget in the wide section at the top of your blog. We’ve added unique tab designs to all of the new templates.
• Many of the patterns in the background image picker are semi-transparent, to let your blog’s background color show through. Look for the “transparency page curl” to see which patterns these are.
• The Attribution gadget (added to the footer by all new templates) is there to give credit not just to the designer and artist of the background image, but to you as well. Edit its settings by clicking “Edit” on Layout > Page Elements to add your own authorship or copyright information.

Get Involved

• Show off your new design on Twitter by tweeting your blog’s URL with the hashtag #newbloggertemplate. We’ll be looking for creative designs to feature in upcoming blog posts or as Blogs of Note.
• We’re taking feature requests. Let us know what else you’d like to see with our Google Moderator page. (And don’t worry: uploading your own background image is already filed and at the top of our list!)
• To report bugs or discuss the Template Designer in more detail, start a thread on our discussion forum. Include “Template Designer” in the subject so we’ll be sure to see it.
• Do you design templates for Blogger? Join our template designer group for documentation and discussion on working with the new templates, as well as details on how to get your designs into the Template Designer.

Over the coming weeks and months we’ll be adding new features, templates, and images guided by the feedback we hear from you.

Miscellaneous Notes

• The Template Designer is not supported on Internet Explorer 6, nor, for that matter, are the new templates. While we’ve made an effort to ensure that they’ll still be readable, the new designs are not going to look particularly attractive on IE6. We strongly encourage the very small number of bloggers and readers still using IE6 to upgrade to a more modern browser. For more information about browsers, visit Google’s What Browser? site.
  
• The rounded corners and drop shadows used in several of the templates may not be visible in older versions of some browsers. Opera users will need to wait for Opera 10.5, currently in public pre-alpha release. IE7 and 8 users will not see these effects within the Template Designer, but will see most of them on the live blog itself.
• From within the Template Designer you can only move gadgets around, you can’t add, delete, or change their settings. Those features are still on the Layout > Page Elements page.
• Some gadgets, such as Poll, Reactions, or third-party Google Gadgets will not reflect color changes in the live preview but will after the template is applied. Others, such as Followers and AdSense, will not change colors automatically at all. It may be easiest to remove and re-add these gadgets to refresh their palettes, though you could also tweak the colors by hand by editing their settings.
• Customizations to widget templates will be cleared when applying a new template to preserve the new layout. If you have made changes to your widget templates, save them first by going to Layout > Edit HTML and clicking “Download Full Template.” You’ll be able to copy them back in as needed after you apply your new template.

Posted by Pete Hopkins

Comparison Of The Web Browser

Learn what a web browser is by watching this 1-minute video

Web browsers by year

A rough estimation of usage share by percent of layout engines/web browsers as of Q2 2009, see usage share of web browsers.

This is a table of personal computer web browsers by year of release of major version, in chronological order, with the approximate number of worldwide Internet users in millions. Note that Internet user data is related to the entire market, not the versions released in that year. The increased growth of the Internet in the 1990s and 2000s means that current browsers with small market shares have more total users than the entire market early on. For example, 90% market share in 1997 would be roughly 60 million users, but by the start of 2007 9% market share would equate to over 90 million users

Graphical time line of web browsers

Historical web browsers

This table focuses on OS and browsers of the 1990s and turn of the century. The year listed for a version is usually the year of the first official release, with an end year being end of development, project change, or relevant termination. Releases of OS and browser from the early 1990s to before 2001-2002 time frame are the current focus.
Many early browsers can be made to run on later OS (and later browsers on early OS in some cases); however, most of these situations are avoided in the table.

IIDA Foundation Announced Award Recipients

IIDA Foundation Announced Award Recipients
The Trustees of the IIDA Foundation announced the most recent recipients of the NCIDQ Tuition Reimbursement Fund and the Sustainable Design Education Fund.

The NCIDQ Tuition Reimbursement Fund offers IIDA Associate Members an opportunity to apply for financial assistance upon passing all three parts of the NCIDQ exam.

Thanks to the generosity of IIDA Members in the 2009 Designing for the Future Campaign, additional funds were allocated to this fund which made it possible to award reimbursements to seven individuals.

The Sustainable Design Education Fund was created to award tuition reimbursement to IIDA Professional and Associate Members who take and pass the LEED Accreditation Exam.

Easy entry level web designer jobs

One of the things that is missing from this site is a real logotype. I am not a very good logo designer since I have never created vector images, so I need help! I am now searching for a logotype designer who could help me out with creating a nice logo for the site (but also for printed media, merchandise and music albums).

Since andreas09 will soon be released and I have promised that it will be the last template that I release under the "andreasXX" series, it is now time to think about what to do next. I know for sure that I will build commercial templates for 4Templates.com, but that will not stop me from releasing more open source templates. I have got a number of suggestions for different things to do, and one suggesion was very appealing: "Do a number of trendy templates, based on the andreasXX layouts but with new images and a main focus on the actual visual appearance". I like that idea. Do you? Or can you give me a better suggestion? All ideas are welcome!

Professional web designers

I'm working on my very own links page, but until it is done, here are two great sites to check out:

Matt Deasy and Peter MacDonald have launched a new link site, a basic directory for web designers and topics related to web design. The site is called Bulletproof Links and it has got a good start with lots of useful links already. Visitors can add links by filling in a simple form. Simple, but very useful.

Andrew "dez" Fernandez has a great categorized web design link archive, which I have found useful many times. In fact, I like the site so much that I wrote to dez and asked him to add a link to my templates page – which he has agreed to do. That made me like the page even more! This is a must-have bookmark for anyone interested in web design. If you have comments about an this post please share with us, who is the best professional design now

Free open source or Professional Design ?

First off, the XHTML/CSS templates that I have released through OSWD.org and on my templates page are not really supposed to look great. They are supposed to work as a solid ground for people who want to get a high-quality website online in a fast and simple way – in the spirit of OSWD.org, the site that got me started with open source template design. But the templates are also made as a tool for other designers who want to start with a working layout and add a great visual appearance along with their content. There is no need to waste time on building core layouts when the web is full of great open source layouts that works great…

The templates are built in a "one-size-fits-all" kind of fashion, which makes them suitable for many different kinds of websites. They are easy to customize, and very simple in code and layout structure. The more generic, the more useful they are so simplicity is an actual feature. The basic layout and details like valid code, accessibility features, low file size, and a simple navigation system are more important than beautiful images and flashy effects. I could of course do very specific and detailed templates, but that would mean that only a few people would find them useful. And usability is what the templates are all about.

Professional site design

Site design, on the other hand, needs to be very specific. Most commercial websites are created for a purpose. The more specific a site is, the better it fits its purpose. When I create a site design, I spend a lot of energy on details that many people will not notice – but that adds to the experience or functionality. While generic templates are never really unique, a commercial design must be something of its own, while people at the same time should be able to identify or relate to the company, the product, the event or whatever the website is promoting. The design must match (and enhance) the company profile and give a lasting impression of the general image. And it needs to be appealing to the target audience, which is normally defined by various demographic categories such as age, nationality, gender and income just to give a few examples. It must be fresh and striking so that it creates a curiosity and an interest for the company or product. If the site fails at any of these points, chances are that it may fail its purpose as well.

Details like valid code and accessibility features are often (sadly) low priorities to the clients, while graphics and cool effects is among the most important parts of the whole site. In order to provide a high-quality website, I need to keep a balance between the purpose and the functionality of the site. After all, web standards and accessibility are still important things even if many clients don't care about it. While I would rather build an accessible website with less features than a website with amazing features that doesn't work for everyone, it is not really my call. Sometimes I must accept that the site I build will not validate, which I would never do for the templates.

CMS – the Content Management System

Content management systems have become more and more popular over the years, and today almost anyone can have their own CMS to power their site. The open source systems are incredibly popular, and blogs become more and more common. The demand for new CMS designs and blog themes is big, and many people use open source web designs on their sites and blogs. In fact, many of the most popular CMS and blog themes were originally posted as free OSWD templates! The templates that I release are easy to convert to blog themes or CMS "skins". My templates have been converted to public themes for WordPress, Etomite CMS, LifeWithChrist, MovableType, Textpattern and sNews just to mention some of the most popular site engines. Some of the templates have also been used for commercial sites and custom CMS solutions, but in those cases they have often been strongly modified.

Whenever I build a commercial site, I often use one of these CMS or blog systems. sNews is my favorite for smaller sites because of its simplicity, while I prefer WordPress for larger websites because I know the system very well – but also for the many great plugins. But the custom-designed themes that I build as a part of a site design could never be released as a public theme. Not only because of the obvious design ownership and purpose reasons but also because the custom designs would not work for other kinds of sites – they are too specific.

Examples of designs

Here are a few examples of design work that I have made for various projects. None of these have been (or will be) available as an open source template, but if any of this gives you an idea for a template, please let me know and I may build it if I like the idea. Please note that some of these images are a lot smaller than the original designs and that there are no full-size screens available.

Conclusion

Open source templates and professional site designs are simply not the same thing. The difference is not only that templates are "ugly" in comparisation with site designs. The two things look different, work different, are made in different ways (where site design take a lot more time to do than templates) and they are made for totally different reasons. Templates are made for functionality, made with no other purpose than to help others. Site designs are made for a defined (and most often commercial) purpose. Designed sites look cooler, have more interesting features and their own "image", while templates are generic and neutral – with space for other people to add whatever "image" they want to.

And that leads to the explaination why I promote my templates rather than my professional services. It is simply because I do webdesign for the fun of it. I really like it, and it is one of my biggest interests. I've even worked professionally with web design (beside music production) for two years now, and I have learned a lot from it. But professional design is so much more than just the design, and all the related work take a lot of focus away from the creativity. There are more conditions (less freedom) and harder deadlines (less time for experiments), and huge expectations in the pro world. And at the end, in the best case scenario, the client is happy with the result. But template design is total freedom! No time limits, no demands, no expectations and most important: Thousands of people use each template – no matter how simple it is! It is encouraging, uplifting and truly inspiring. Template design doesn't give any money (other than your PayPal donations which I appreciate a LOT!), but gives me a lot of happiness…

I hope that this answers the question. Feedback and crazy ideas are welcome, as always.

Professional Web designer debate

WordPress themes have become a major discussion topic recently, where the main threads have been sponsored links (and sponsored themes), credit link requirements, licensing options and usage rights. I have been tempted to write several long posts about this, but as you may have seen I haven't got much work done in the last couple of weeks. I'm back in good health again now, and will return to work next week. But for now I only want to make a few things clear about my own themes.

Free to modify, no limitations or obligations!

I have not defined any license for my themes since they are completely free in all senses. If I would have to put a license, the themes would go under the GPL. But I have never seen any need for that.

Just as with my free website templates, my WordPress themes are completely free to use without any kind of limitation or obligation. I kindly ask you to keep the footer credits, since it is a good way of giving something back to me for the work i have done. But it is completely voluntary, you are free to make any changes you may want to including removing the credits – or replacing it with your own.

No sponsorship slot sales

I get 20-30 offers for theme sponsorships every week. It is usually advertising companies or SEO agencies that want to place sponsored links in my themes, in exchange for a good amount of money. But I keep on turning these offers down, every single one of them, since WordPress founder and developer Matt Mullenweg has asked me to. I am not providing any advertising space in my themes, and I don't have any "sponsored link slot" that I sell to the highest bidder.

However, I do have regular credits placed in the footer.php of each theme. While I kindly ask theme users to keep the design credits, it is no demand or obligation. As said, theme users are free to edit and modify the themes in any way they may want to. That is why I don't get too mad when someone rips off my themes and posts lightly modified versions with altered footer credits. As long as the themes can help someone, I'm happy about it.

The "making money" part

While the theme sponsorship offers are very good and honestly painful to turn down sometimes, I am still happy as long as I have the option of having regular design credits in the themes I design for WordPress. Most theme users keep the credits, which sends visitors to this site. Since I have the commercial templates store (through 4templates.com) and the 8 text link ads in the sidebar of my front page, I make money out of the work anyway. I will never get rich from giving away my work for free, but I am able to keep this site online and hopefully soon give the site a proper update and a very much needed re-design.

I am also accepting donations over PayPal (click here for donation link), and thanks to your generous support I can spend a few hours every day on helping template and theme users for free. I am also able to work for free with customization and implementation of templates for different charity projects, and for non-profit organisations – something that has given me a lot of inspiration in return. With the new design, I will launch a "Thank you!"-section in the sidebar and on a separate page of this site, where I post the names and links of the people who support my work with donations. You are a great help, and of course I appreciate it a lot!

The focus

Depending on the outcome of the WordPress theme debate, I may possibly step back from the theme world and put the main focus on the website templates again. I will still continue to build WordPress themes (I have three new themes ready for release right now!), but I may not be able to provide the same amount of time to support theme users. But I don't know about that yet, it depends on the outcome of the discussions and the expected new rules and boycotts of themes that have "improper" links in them. I am not going to sit around if people see me as a bad-guy, because I hate that feeling. But if common sense wins over the angry demands, I will be happy to continue to build public themes that I give away (and support) for free. More about that later…

For now, this site is the main priority. I have built more than 30 WordPress-based websites in the last 6 months, including Tjuvlyssnat.se, but I still haven't implemented sidebar widgets into my own site! I'm still stuck with the same hardcoded menus and boring design that I've had for almost a year now. But that will change. I know I've said it before, and I know you don't believe me when I say it again. But I'll do my best to surprise you. I'm back from a period of stress and bad health, and the summer is soon here. I hope it will help me get the work done…

Final words and shorties

We lost a loved one two days ago. It is not fair at all. It never is…

Huge blog post coming up: "The fifth Lagoona album". I've been writing on that post for two months now, it will be fun to publish once it is ready for it!

Current number of templates that are ready for release on this site: 7. All new designs, not modifications of old templates.