Step 2: Change the Look and Feel of Your Blog
Now that you have created your blog, let’s work out what you want it to look like…
 CHANGE THE LOOK AND FEEL OF YOUR BLOG |
If you think of your blog as an online planner, you will quickly realise that you need to give it your signature look and feel.
This means choosing a THEME.
When you have logged in, you will see the Wordpress “behind the scenes” section, where you can make changes to your blog.
By clicking on the “Presentation” Tab, you will see a list of options. Click on the tab called “Theme”.
The “theme” determines how the blog looks and how much you can customise it. The default theme is Kubrick and is a good easy option.
Let’s make some quick changes to your blog’s look and feel (using the Kubrick theme):
- Change the Header Colour - the “header” is the blue section at the top of your blog page. Change its colour by clicking on the “colour header” tab in the “Presentation” section. You can change your Font colour, Upper colour or Lower colour by clicking on each button. Save your favourite. Go ahead and try it!
- Change the Header Image - Want your own photo in the header of your blog? Click on the “custom image header” tab in the “Presentation” section. You can browse for a picture then upload it into your header. On the next screen you can crop the image.
Images of exactly 760 x 200 pixels will fit perfectly. If you need to resize a picture Pixresizer is a great FREE tool! - Change the Contents of your Sidebar - the sidebar has all of your great links in it. Click on the “widgets” tab in the “Presentation” section. You can click, drag and drop any of the widgets into your sidebar box. By clicking on them you can rearrange their order or by clicking on the “configure” button in the widget, add text or images. Start by dragging the following widgets into your sidebar: Search, Pages, Links, Categories, Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives and Calendar.
Remember to keep Saving Changes and clicking on the View Site button to see how your blog looks!
Note: There are a range of themes to choose from and each will give you different options, based on the areas: Widgets | Extras | Custom Image Header | Color Header | Edit CSS
To find out more about choosing your theme, go to Wordpress’ F.A.Qs on Themes.
