Sometimes You Should Listen to Your Own Advice: My Header Redesign
Simple is best when it comes to design.
That’s something I say in Blog Design for Dummies. It’s something I say when it comes to writing . (Why say “utilize” when “use” works just fine?)
But sometimes we equate complexity with value. Complex sentences mean we’re more intelligent. Complex designs means we’re more talented.
That’s not always the case. And in many cases, complexity just makes things, well, more complex.
Sooooo, if you look at the top of my blog, you’ll see I took my own advice and simplified my header!
Truth is I’ve been wanting to do this for a LONG time! But I just couldn’t come up with a better alternative.
So I just sat on it until it came to me.
Well, I didn’t exactly SIT on it. I’ve been tinkering off and on, but I was never happy with any of my designs (and some of them took HOURS I’ll never ever get back *sniff*).
When I launched Blog Clarity, I wanted bold jeweled colors and triangles. That’s all I knew. So I created a secret board on Pinterest and started pinning cool designs for inspiration.
However, this weekend a design idea – THE design idea – clicked with one single pin.
In case you’re curious, I only blurred this because it was about someone’s hot yoga class. Totally unrelated!
Layers WITH transparency. BOOM.
In all the iterations I made of my blog header, I had tried layers. I had tried transparency. But together? That was apparently the key. So I started redesigning.
What I Didn’t Like about the Current Header
- The gray background: At first, I didn’t want another white background like Momcomm, so I had convinced myself that I needed gray. But it muddied the bright colors too much.
- Harlequin triangles: While I spent waaay too long making that triangle pattern, I always thought it was a little harlequin. And harlequins are too close to clowns. And I hate clowns. Enough said.
- Header was too tall: A tall header pushes all my content down so I wanted something skinnier.
What I Love about My New Header
- White!: Aaaaah, it’s like a breath of fresh air. Feels immediately cleaner.
- It’s not a full-width header: I wanted my social media icons within the header area to free up the sidebar. Luckily, the Metro theme for Genesis already has a widgetized header so it was relatively easy to add. I also wanted a way to introduce the fact that I offer e-courses. So I created a graphic with another tagline of sorts and included some triangles to reinforce the header design.
- Fewer triangles: This is my favorite. With fewer triangles, it’s more impactful and clean. The overlapping triangle with the transparency also adds some depth.
- Menu: If you remember, my old menus were black, really just because I wasn’t sure what to do with them with such a heavy header design. With a more open design, it was easy to add colors to the menu without it being garish.
- Different social media colors: My previous icons were pink which looked pretty in my sidebar, but were overkill in my header. So I changed them to a light blue.
Did I bore you with all the designy talk?
All that to say, my original header was pretty, but wasn’t simple enough for me. So almost six months later, I finally designed something that works. *drops mic* *takes a nap*
