Anyone who has ever visited my website before will notice a (major) redesign in terms of colors, arrangement and homepage content. Sometimes it's a minimalistic design, other times it's a dynamic burst of colors. In this article, I try to take you behind the scenes of my 7 year old website and hopefully offer some useful tips and tricks for your own designs. You will also notice that I've included several questions that you've asked via the contact page or the Facebook Page Messages. Got more questions? Get in touch with me here, or here.
Timeline:
In 2008, I created this website/blog and at that time it was linked as the default www.abijahgupta.blogspot.com
Since I was fairly new to the Blogger world, I started posting random funny pics and other articles on this one. At that time, I used to have another blog titled "Angelic Delight" which was basically my online database of all the recordings I had been doing so far.
In 2009, I merged all posts from Angelic Delight to Abijah Gupta and thus this became my primary music website.
In 2010, I registered for a free .co.cc domain and this website became abijahgupta.co.cc
In 2011, I purchased a commercial domain and since then it has been linked as www.abijahgupta.com
Q: What kind of knowledge does one require?
I'm a Computer Science graduate with good working knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. If those three terms sound weird to you, DON'T WORRY! It's not as bad as it sounds and I will show you great ways to incorporate pearls of wisdom found in the vast ocean of Le Interwebs.
Q: Why did you choose Blogger?
Since Blogger is owned by Google, I decided to create an account here since it would be easier to link within the vast realm of other Google services. I also liked the overall simplicity and the option of being able to customize the template (more on that, later) via simple HTML and CSS
Designing and updates:
I've always been passionate about web and graphic designing and thus from the day it came into existence, I've played around with multiple settings/outlooks multiple times. Blogger offers a good variety of gadgets that you can directly add to your blog. In other cases, it lets you add HTML code which is helpful in displaying content from 3rd party apps (Facebook page box, Twitter timeline etc.)
For graphics, I've been using Adobe Photoshop since version 7.0. Interestingly, I had been using Microsoft PowerPoint for graphics before that! I know it sounds weird but for a totally inexperienced beginner graphic designer it seemed like the best choice. I even have a video that shows how you can design a music cover art using Microsoft PowerPoint!
Here's an album I posted on Facebook showing some of the website designs I've gone through:
Q: How do you go about a redesign?
I usually look at my entire website at a glance and then try to highlight the top 3 things that I dislike about it. Then I look at how big of a change I'm looking at.
For example, that short list could be:
1. Header Image is too big/small.
2. The font is not legible enough.
3. The design is too confusing and/or content arrangement is not very user friendly.
Based on this list, #1 and #2 are easy fixes and won't require a major change; however, #3 would need re-organizing the structure and hence more work.
The next step is usually the longest for me because I try to picture in my mind the exact design that I want. Mostly I 'draw' a blueprint in my head but sometimes I revert to the traditional pen and paper for the same.
Once I know the EXACT design that I want, I go ahead and start making changes.
How to prevent an #EPICFAIL!
In my initial days of designing and customizing, I created a duplicate blog with the same posts and designs as the original. I would make the changes to this mock site and then if I liked the final result I would redo them on the LIVE version.
If you're new to designing or are still experimenting around, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND to have a mock test site for making changes.
More tips and tricks
There's always comfort in the fact that you're not alone and that is specifically true when it comes to any kind of programming, designing and/or customizing. In my initial days, I spent countless hours on trying to fix issues till I googled up the issue and found solutions in the form of video tutorials, other blog posts or even dedicated forum topics. Most of the times, you can even find pre-written code snippets which you simply need to copy and paste into your own HTML code.
As a follow up, I will be doing a video session where I'll build a music blog/site from scratch. Once done, I'll post a link to that article here.
In the meantime, feel free to ask questions in the comments below or get in touch with me on the contact page and/or Facebook page.
Timeline:
In 2008, I created this website/blog and at that time it was linked as the default www.abijahgupta.blogspot.com
Since I was fairly new to the Blogger world, I started posting random funny pics and other articles on this one. At that time, I used to have another blog titled "Angelic Delight" which was basically my online database of all the recordings I had been doing so far.
In 2009, I merged all posts from Angelic Delight to Abijah Gupta and thus this became my primary music website.
In 2010, I registered for a free .co.cc domain and this website became abijahgupta.co.cc
In 2011, I purchased a commercial domain and since then it has been linked as www.abijahgupta.com
Q: What kind of knowledge does one require?
I'm a Computer Science graduate with good working knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. If those three terms sound weird to you, DON'T WORRY! It's not as bad as it sounds and I will show you great ways to incorporate pearls of wisdom found in the vast ocean of Le Interwebs.
Q: Why did you choose Blogger?
Since Blogger is owned by Google, I decided to create an account here since it would be easier to link within the vast realm of other Google services. I also liked the overall simplicity and the option of being able to customize the template (more on that, later) via simple HTML and CSS
Designing and updates:
I've always been passionate about web and graphic designing and thus from the day it came into existence, I've played around with multiple settings/outlooks multiple times. Blogger offers a good variety of gadgets that you can directly add to your blog. In other cases, it lets you add HTML code which is helpful in displaying content from 3rd party apps (Facebook page box, Twitter timeline etc.)
For graphics, I've been using Adobe Photoshop since version 7.0. Interestingly, I had been using Microsoft PowerPoint for graphics before that! I know it sounds weird but for a totally inexperienced beginner graphic designer it seemed like the best choice. I even have a video that shows how you can design a music cover art using Microsoft PowerPoint!
Here's an album I posted on Facebook showing some of the website designs I've gone through:
At an average, I make one minor change a week and almost a full redesign once every month!These are a handful of screenshots from various points of time ever since my website went LIVE in 2008.
Posted by Abijah Gupta on Monday, August 31, 2015
Q: How do you go about a redesign?
I usually look at my entire website at a glance and then try to highlight the top 3 things that I dislike about it. Then I look at how big of a change I'm looking at.
For example, that short list could be:
1. Header Image is too big/small.
2. The font is not legible enough.
3. The design is too confusing and/or content arrangement is not very user friendly.
Based on this list, #1 and #2 are easy fixes and won't require a major change; however, #3 would need re-organizing the structure and hence more work.
The next step is usually the longest for me because I try to picture in my mind the exact design that I want. Mostly I 'draw' a blueprint in my head but sometimes I revert to the traditional pen and paper for the same.
Once I know the EXACT design that I want, I go ahead and start making changes.
How to prevent an #EPICFAIL!
In my initial days of designing and customizing, I created a duplicate blog with the same posts and designs as the original. I would make the changes to this mock site and then if I liked the final result I would redo them on the LIVE version.
If you're new to designing or are still experimenting around, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND to have a mock test site for making changes.
More tips and tricks
There's always comfort in the fact that you're not alone and that is specifically true when it comes to any kind of programming, designing and/or customizing. In my initial days, I spent countless hours on trying to fix issues till I googled up the issue and found solutions in the form of video tutorials, other blog posts or even dedicated forum topics. Most of the times, you can even find pre-written code snippets which you simply need to copy and paste into your own HTML code.
As a follow up, I will be doing a video session where I'll build a music blog/site from scratch. Once done, I'll post a link to that article here.
In the meantime, feel free to ask questions in the comments below or get in touch with me on the contact page and/or Facebook page.