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Coming Soon: New Look for the Blog

Flashes of inspiration always seem to come when I'm not feeling well. After more than a few false starts on the redesign for the blog, I finally hit upon a design direction that I'm happy with! All it took was a trip to the ER the night before Thankgiving.
 
Design inspiration
 
This time last year I started redesigning the blog. In between then and now I continued working a full-time Marketing job and welcomed my daughter into the world, so the redesign took a little longer than originally planned.
 
If you've been a reader over the past year, and you read the blog via a browser versus an RSS feed or smart phone, you may have seen the baby steps: a new About Me and bio photo, new social media buttons, and new right-hand column headings in August.
 
Before I got too far along in the redesign, I wanted to get feedback, so, I participated in a blog audit. Three people, who had never read my blog and didn't know me, gave me feedback and constructive criticism. People agreed the writing and tone were engaging. Their main suggestion? More of my personality and pictures of me. The area that needed worked was the blog's look and feel. While I had a design people liked, it wasn't apparent why I'd chosen it. The templates I'd chosen to distinguish the four main themes (food, fashion, family, and Marketing/Social Media) when viewed side by side felt like they were for separate blogs. And... the images I edited so carefully for each post were too small! So, it was back to the drawing board both literally and figuratively.
 
Tomorrow I'll be sharing with you a new color palette, a few designs for the new masthead, and a couple of blog post layouts. (Earlier this month I shared the mood board for the redesign.) I'm pretty excited about the new direction and hope you will be too. (My business cards for Alt Summit SLC will share the palette and basic design elements. I won't be revealing them until I'm on my way to Salt Lake City, but they should definitely help me strike up conversations.)
 
How are you doing on your resolutions and goals for 2012?
Are you moving some to 2013?
 
Ciao Bella!
Eden
 
P.S. This week's mantra is: If I dream it, I can build it. It's going to be a tough one. Here are the solutions to last week's scramble.
 
Solutions to #Scramble
 
Credits: All layouts designed by and images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

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