Happy Friday, everyone!
If you’re the type of person who prefers to go to individual blogs instead of just reading everything in the horribly-impersonal WordPress Reader, you’ll notice that things look a little different around here today. It really hasn’t been that long since the last time that I changed my blog’s theme, but I just wasn’t feeling that last one. I liked it – I thought it was fresh and clean – but there were things about it that bothered me a lot, such as the fact that the menu options could only be seen by clicking on an innocuous little button in the middle of the screen. So I decided to have a browse around and I ended up falling for this theme, which is called ‘The Eventbrite Multi Event Theme’.
I’ll admit that while I really like this one, there are still a few things that vex me. For one thing, the color scheme and font options cannot be modified unless you have a paid WordPress account; because of this I couldn’t get the header to be properly visible against my background image, thus the fuzzy-looking Photoshop version. The second thing (and this is a much bigger thing) is that there doesn’t seem to be any “Leave a Comment” message available; you have to actually click on the title of the post to bring you to that post’s individual page, and at the bottom of that page you can leave a comment. As I don’t get very many comments on the blog to begin with, I’m concerned this may be a poor move for me, since people will likely look for the comment button on the main page, not find it, and give up.
This brings me to my mini-rant of the day. When I wanted to start this blog, I chose WordPress because it seemed to be the site with the most options and easiest-to-use system. I do still enjoy the ease with which I can whip up a post and share it on different forms of social media with very little effort. However, in recent months, as I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how I want my blog to be represented, it has become painfully clear that the free themes are anything but. Sure, you can pick one and have it just work all by itself, but if you want to customize anything you still have to pay. And that would be frustrating enough, but the options are not cheap. In order for me to simply have the ability to change the color scheme on this particular theme, I would have to purchase the ability to customize themes, for which the cheapest option is $30 per year. That’s right, not just $30, but $30 for every year that I want to continue to keep my color scheme. That might not seem like a big deal to some people, but considering that you’re just paying for access to a couple of lines of code, it seems pretty outrageous to me.
So I guess what I’m really getting down to here is that you may see my blog changing face a few more times in the near future, as I struggle to find a free theme that I don’t feel the need to customize. I’d really love to keep this one, but I just think the comment issue is going to be a problem for me, so I guess it’s back to the drawing board!
What do you think of this theme? Do you have a favorite WordPress theme? What do you think of the paid options? Please share!
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The paid options (which you can preview without buying) aren’t really worth the money. I’ve played around with them before, and the font choices are not extensive, and so the only real benefit I saw to it was, say, the ability to change the font color.
UNLESS you know how to do CSS. Then your options would open up a lot more.
But there’s quite a bit of customization you can do with just backgrounds and header images. You don’t have to have the WordPress-generated font, for example, in your header. You can make it invisible, and then just make yourself a custom header image where you include whatever text and font you WANT.
Also, I did the Blogging 201 session that WordPress had a few months ago, and one suggestion that was made was to make yourself a second, private blog where you can test themes out without having to constantly change your main one. I’ve done that, and have been playing with a lot of options lately.
I totally don’t know CSS, and probably won’t take the time to learn it anytime soon. lol
What you described with the header is actually what I did, although it didn’t come out that great because my original picture wasn’t big enough to save at high quality. It’s all moot now anyway, because I changed the theme again. lol I did take your advice and used a second blog to play around first. Thanks for that idea!
I think most of the themes make you read the individual post as opposed to the ome page, to leave a comment. I find myself clinking the link to read the post to leave a comment. Played around with different themes but kept coming back to the 2011 theme for the for the simplicity. I won’t pay for one. I’m too cheap.
Right there with you on the cheapness. Although, I don’t consider it cheapness because the cost is outrageous considering it’s just a little bit of extra code. It’s not like it’s a product that’s taking up room in a storehouse somewhere or something. >.>
I guess they’re afraid if they offer too much for free no one will pay for the subscriptions. I’m with you though, it’s not like it’s product taking up space. It’s just some colors on a screen.
It’s really annoying. It’s like those video games that make you pay to unlock content that’s ALREADY ON THE DISC. It’s like, come on man, that’s just skeezy.