Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Basic two columned theme in tones of green. Might be used for a gardening blog or a site dedicated to “green” matters.

The movement towards sustainable design in our homes, and a thoughtful lifestyle to improve our health is all being bundled up in the concept of being green. More websites are popping up to deliver information or sell products to consumers. This trend is not going away. The concepts in this field will become mainstream; incorporated into our lives as normal procedure. In the mean time, we are left with simple sites designed in green. I was disappointed with the look of a few of these sites.To be green would really mean using a theme with a black background, but this does not go down well with users. (There are some wonderful themes created in black though).  I began playing with the idea of what could be a basic theme for a green site, and this theme is my response.

    There are a host of themes which can be quickly uploaded for a quick green site. I played with the new default theme from WordPress, twentyten, and I came up with quite a few good examples. Then I began to create one on my own. I mentioned that this theme could be good for gardening. For me, a sustainable lifestyle involves a great environment, which means plants that I can enjoy. Hence, my green blog would reference the natural world. I do not think the plant reference is too heavy in this design, but it is there.
    There are calls to action for our readers on every blog. However, we do seem to be attempting to sell more to our readers. That is fine; we all have to make a living. My problem is that calls to action are navigational elements which can interfere with other navigational elements. Cramming everything above the fold creates a busy design, which can loose the reader. I placed the standard menu bar on top to give the reader a quick guide to the blog on load. The header has the title and slogan over the image. I noticed that like twentyten’s layout, designs are using an image and the blog title and slogan above this image. This can be practical if you have a good image to sell your brand, but many sites do not. I thought the title/slogan position in this layout gives website owners a good image, and makes their title and slogan standout. Also, for navigation, I did drop down menus for a cleaner look.
    Website owners are trying to cram too much into their sidebars. Instead of having two smaller sidebars, I have one larger one to give space to the elements there.  I left the theme uncluttered by not using icons in places where I could have thrown them in. I love icons as a way to make a visually pleasing theme, but I thought that quite a few calls to actions are already busy enough. I think that I would add the advertisements in the sidebar, maybe. If I had an ebook that I was pushing, I would place this between the post excerpts on the main page or at the bottom of each post. I might have ads under the header for a post, but not on a page. The point is that more ad impressions does not always equal higher revenue. Smart placement of ads does.
   This theme is meant to fill in the screen of a laptop with a bit of a border. Again, many of these new green sites seem to be using themes developed for desktop monitors, so you have this box look common to the original blogs.  I think that the larger sidebar would be great for social media type widgets (the theme is widget compatible). One thing to note, as in all of my themes, I designed it with the idea for a business in mind, so the footer contains references to pages more common to that kind of site. Also, I always leave the RSS button there,so you can move it to where you want.
    Download Another Green World.   

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