Thursday, March 17, 2016

Blog Mistakes & Evolution

Monday night around 6pm, I thought it was about time I updated the header over here at Hit the Ground Running. Little did I know, it would cause a little stress and take two hours of my time to fix.

To keep a long, boring story short, what happened was that I considered turning my blog blue instead of its usual purple. Rather than changing the colors manually, I fiddled around with the template, and the next thing you know, the blog was restored it its original settings, which meant it was coral!
I shouldn't have clicked that...
Luckily I had saved the specs for my backgrounds, headings, fonts, etc. So I dug out my external hard-drive and set everything back like I had it, one setting at a time.
And this is why we back things up. I was so relieved I still had this!
Then I played with the header. Choosing pictures is really hard! I felt like all the running photos were redundant, but I wanted to pick photos that were important to me currently and more recent than in the old header. 

I also cleaned up the text a little; I wanted a simpler look to go along with my focus on simplicity in my running this year. I'm not a graphic designer or artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I did okay.
The pictures I settled on are: me after PR'ing the A1A marathon; Kristin and me crossing the finish line together after running the Gasparilla 15k; me contemplating life at one of my favorite running spots; me and Matt on my birthday at the A1A half; me doing my two favorite things at once.
My header has been through quite an evolution as I've gotten more into blogging. Here's what it used to look like way back in the day:
This was the first time I ever created something like this, and I was pretty proud.
Then, I decided my photos needed to be more fitness oriented, so I got rid of the headshot.
Of course, then I discovered PicMonkey and loved how streamlined I could make everything look! I never liked the space between all the pictures in this one, though.
Anyway, once I had the photos figured out, I finalized the look with a new subheading and uploaded it...only to decide that the background was a smidge too dark. So I remade it all over again. And then I decided I didn't like the zoom on one of the photos, but by this time it was 8pm and I wasn't going to waste the rest of my night on this thing!

Just kidding, I fixed the zoom, and it took me another 30 minutes because I was having trouble matching the background color perfectly again.

Now...back to contemplating the color scheme...

When's the last time you updated your blog's look?
How did you choose your header pictures?

ABK

24 comments:

  1. I love the new look! I was going to tell you in a previous comment but I think by the time I read the whole post and wrote the comment I forgot to mention the update. :) This is the first time I ever noticed the pictures changing, isn't it funny? But looking back at your other headers, I REMEMBER them. I have never updated my blog's look. I am not very techy. I would be afraid to screw it up. It would be fun to put some updated pictures on there. The ones I have are 3-8 years old!!!

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    1. I forgot I used to have the original two headers; I made them in paint and they're so low quality haha! I can't believe your pictures are so old. It's time to spruce up ;o)

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  2. Love the new look!!! If you ever need help with the coding, that is what I teach every single day so hit me up. It looks great! I update mine monthly because I seem to have blog design ADD!

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    1. Ah, maybe I'll take you up on that! One reason I stick with blogger over wordpress or something self-hosted is because I have NO tech skills whatsoever. I'm impressed with myself for even being able to customize my template haha.

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  3. its fun and scary to look back on our old blog designs! and its so hard to pick/settle on one design. I updated mine a few months ago and actually got rid of the header... I need to make a better one because I feel naked without it ;)

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    1. I love the streamlined look of blogs without busy headers, but mine looks really odd without one!

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  4. It's hard enough to blog, let alone think about the design! Although I do want to update my header with more current photos. All it takes is time, right?

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    1. You just need an hour (or three, if you're me) to hash it all out and decide which pictures you want! I'm sure I make it harder than it needs to be.

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  5. I was thinking that my blog needed a new look, but every time I mess with it, I screw something up. It is a bit painstaking to get things looking good again. I love the new look of yours!! Super cute!

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    1. It definitely seems to take forever to make things look JUST how you want them. Maybe if I weren't so picky, it would be easier!

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  6. I tried moving mine over to Wordpress but I don't know much about it yet and screwed it all up, so at Blogger it still sits. I love yours!

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    1. Ah, same! I can't do wordpress because I don't have any skills whatsoever for coding and self-hosting. I love how easy blogger is to use.

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  7. Ha! I have been there! The last time I changed my blog header, I ended up deciding to move my blog from blogger to a self-hosted site, change the whole look, and change the blog name, and a few months later it was done. One thing definitely needs to another! Love your new header!

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    1. Oy, see I can't do an update that's going to have me out of commission for months! I'd give up and just leave the blogging world lol!

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  8. Love your look! We did an update last year around this time. Although there is a lot more to do, I am always hesitant cus I am not techy either and fear I will mess something up. Oh, and I still don't understand the concept of "backing up" the blog.

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    1. I don't understand backing it up, either! I have word documents and photos backed up on a hard drive so I can reference all the specs for my header and blog, but the blog itself isn't backed up at all.

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  9. Love your look! We did an update last year around this time. Although there is a lot more to do, I am always hesitant cus I am not techy either and fear I will mess something up. Oh, and I still don't understand the concept of "backing up" the blog.

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  10. I love the clean crisp look! When I read this the other day I thought about the time I wrote you privately to ask you how I could make a blog header like yours! :-) Thanks again for all your help !

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    1. Aw, I remember that! Your header looks great. I toyed with the idea of putting the words over the pictures like you have, but it was too hard to read mine!

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  11. I've planned around with a few looks on the bog and I think I'm finally ok with the one I have now. I would like to add more pictures to the home page but I get nervous about messing around with it too much. I never thought to save my settings somewhere so I'm definitely going to do that just in case!

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    1. I've found saving the settings is really helpful, even if I just send them to myself in an email!

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  12. I like the new look and collage! I would love to freshen mine up soon.

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    1. Thanks! I feel like you just updated yours recently, but time is really tricky these days so maybe it wasn't that recently after all haha.

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  13. Love the new look.

    Thank goodness for Wordpress... everything is pretty much automated for me and I would be lost without it. I have ZERO skills on the graphic design front. :O

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