Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books and Dani @ Literary Lion. Discussions pertain to topics related to reading or books. Share your opinions, and spread the love by visiting other “Let’s Talk Bookish” posts.

Prompts:   How much time do you spend on making your blog look nice? Is it more about making it functional? Did it take a long time to set it up? Are you still changing it around? Do you ever feel like your blog design is not properly appreciated (for example, are most people reading your posts via the Reader and not actually visiting your blog)? What are the best tools you use to customize the look of your blog? (Hayley @ On This I Ponder)

I am currently in my second iteration of my blog, but it’s still very similar with its simple banners and color scheme. I have no coding or graphic design skills, so it pairs well with my minimalist approach. (That’s how I’m justifying it. Ha!) My limited abilities means I focus on things like color and font a lot more than actual graphics.

I like themes and templates so it took a while to come up with a theme that I liked with what limited resources I currently had. Maybe just a few days once I started to think about changing it. Then it just meant creating the templates.

It doesn’t matter whether individuals utilize the Reader to read the content. I’m just happy they’re reading it. What annoys me is that the banners or any other graphics will sometimes show up with a dark background when it’s supposed to be transparent.

TOOLS:

I mention this in my 1st Blogging Anniversary post, but I will include my main resources here too.

• I use an open source program called Krita for what little graphics skill I have.
• I also check out what’s free on websites like DesignBundles or FontBundles. There’s also Creative Fabrica and The Hungry JPEG. Sometimes they have really great $1 bundles too. I’m pretty sure I got my dandelions from DesignBundles, but I can’t recall where my font is from.

What about you? What has gone into making your blog the way you like it?