braincell soup

Note: I am writing this more for myself so first off I don’t lose the linked post I talk about in this post. As well I think it is a valid discussion bloggers should be having.

The blogging world is wide and varied and when it comes to blog layout we are seeing some shift away from the typical top to bottom reverse chronological displays. More of the news type sites are experimenting with a magazine style made famous by Brian Gardner with his Revolution theme for Wordpress.

On the whole though the reverse chronology layout of content remains the rule of thumb for the vast majority of bloggers. However there are rumblings that this hallowed ideal of blogging may not be the best for that majority of bloggers and one of the best posts I have read so far on the subject is by Chris Pearson.

Darn near every blog is the same, and this is thanks to the fact that just about every Content Management System (CMS) on the planet has the same default IA structure for blogs. Generally speaking, blogs are presented in reverse chronological order – that is, the newest, freshest content is presented first.

Unfortunately, this setup is speeding towards antiquity. It works for news sites, but unless your site falls under this heading, then I’m going to suggest that this is likely not the best setup for you! With that in mind, what’s the problem here?

Chris goes on to lay out a really good argument as to why bloggers should seriously consider bucking the status quo of blog design and start thinking about their content from the incoming reader’s point of view.

I know it has got me thinking.

I love this button.

When developing themes for Wordpress, and other such blogging packages, finding just the right color scheme can be a real pain in the ass. Well I ran across something today that could make that job a lot easier.

The web site is called ColorSuckr and what it does is allow you to enter a URL to a picture, or to search and select one from the Flickr stream of which some are provided on the main page.

To give you an idea I selected the following picture from the ones provided on the main page:

And in return ColorSuckr provided me with the following suggested color scheme

There is also a Firefox Add-on as well as a BookMarklet to help on the fly. The only thing I would really like to see is the option to pick a file from your local hard drive and if one was to really dream – a desktop version of it.

All in all though this could be a pretty handy tool for trying to figure out a nice color theme for your next Wordpress theme design.