Its been eleven months since I changed the design of this site. Anyone who has persisted with my drivel over the years can attest that this is probably the longest period that this WordPress installation has looked the same. That is when I hacked Srinivasan G’s excellent Evanescence theme into what its become here. I chose it because of the clean and clear code in the theme. It allowed me to expand upon it and build something that I liked. I can’t say that I won’t change again, but i still like what I came up with after all this time. I may change it a bit here and there to either “tweak” what I have or to change the color a bit to reflect the season. But, then again, I may not.
I checked out the websites of the commenters on the theme’s page and it looks like over 1/2 of them have kept the theme in use in its original design (which is quite classy, I must say). I think that Srini should consider that a success. And, although it really didn’t ever end up on my site in its original incarnation (especially since I snagged some code from another of his themes, which Ray uses), I am still content to use it as well.
So, have you kept the same theme? Are you happy with what you present to the world? Does it even matter to you?
Sure it matters to me, especially if it slows download speeds.
You know what I’m talking about, and that is why my site look s different now. After changing from my theme that sorta grew on me, I am happy to say I actually like my new look.
One of these days I’m going to make another one from scratch.
I often find that a fresh look leads to fresh thoughts and better articles. That’s why I try to change my website theme periodically. I think looking at the same colour combinations over a period of time has a strange effect on the mind which reduces our creativity.
But these are just my theories
On the other hand, I like my theme (Fluid Blue, also by SriniG) and can’t see me changing it. The problem with themes, IMO and it doesn’t count for here or for Hari’s site, is that designers often like to go nuts with the colours and layouts. A nice simple theme, with a main area, a sidebar and a header & footer is perfect for my needs. I also like the fact that it’s minimally coloured – it looks nice, the areas are separate but your not constantly seeing the layout – if that makes sense. Bit like a newspaper, if you are constantly remembering you’re reading a paper, you won’t enjoy it or take it in.
I’ve also modified the Evanescence theme for my site (www.dickdonohue.com) for all the same reasons that you did: clean code, easily to modify style sheet. I like the look of your site, too.
Sweet modification Dick.