Here are the themes listed:

1. Facebook Lover

This is my favorite one and have attracted my attention immediately, the reason is obvious, it’s Facebook style, the social-networking site that is now more popular than porn.

2. Mental Disorder

I have had hard time choosing my favorite one between this and the previous one, what attracted me here apart from the very cool design is the small width of the theme which reduces left-right eye movement consequently increasing the reading speed and reducing the reading effort. And that background… sometimes is getting me out of this world for a moment or so, it’s like instant sci-fi, cool!

3. Papel Continuo

Eh, the good old times when paper was ruling the world :), a truly unique design, great idea.

4. Bigsweaterdesign

Run by Vincent Maglione, whose last name means “Big sweater” in a rough literal translation, he not just succeeded  in making a parallel between his name and the theme but also to build a wonderful, very interesting design.

5. Infinity

A complex, irregular design with real artistic touch, still very easy to navigate.

6. Jrvelasco

7. Lee Noris

8. Color Paper

9. So Suechtig

10. WebDesignerWall

© Igor for Blog Design Studio, 2009. | Permalink

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My situation at this moment – In a city that is so beautiful, greenery all around, big mountains and all in all a perfect scenic view with white clouds all over. And a place to hang out with people from all over the world, I’m sure by this time it would be pretty easy to guess that I’m talking about Manali (sheesh! what bad way of explaining the beauty and revealing a no secret – title says it already).

Coming back to the post, I was amazed to see the natural beauty at the very first day of the trip and after clicking these pictures, I thought that I would post them on this blog to let you see the beauty of this wonderful city. Apart from that, I thought that it would be cool to see these pictures in blogs as full background in design of the blog.

Well, I’m talking about the new design trend that websites are using these days, i.e. using a single image as majority of the design in the background. Bing, Flickr and a whole list of 80 websites that look incredible in this new design trend. I was thinking that we will try and release such kind of themes pretty quickly for our readers, so keep an eye on our free wordpress themes.
With that I would like to take your feedback on these kind of designs as it will help us in finding out that how early we should release the theme. I’m sure lot of positive feedback will make us release the theme pretty fast :)

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2009. | Permalink

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However, as WordPress theme designer I understand that there are few things that are just over hyped with Thesis theme and then there are two famous names associated with it. Thesis theme is a very good theme, however is it good enough to be called a framework?

I recently spoke to one of my friend (I will not mention the name here), who recently purchased Thesis theme and was going bonkers over all of its positives and that how many options it gave to him. Then I showed the options page of Atahualpa theme to him and the very next moment he felt cheated.

Then I told him that what exactly is the big deal about the thesis theme. I told him that he bought and paid for a theme which is beautifully designed, has clean code, has nice typography and has a brand value attached to it (brand value of Chris Pearson and Brian Clark). I told him that Thesis theme is worth every penny because of the hard work that has gone in building and marketing it, so he shouldn’t feel cheated and should enjoy the theme.

Honestly Brian! You are the big deal about thesis theme. There are themes that are equally good or are better than thesis theme, however what they lack is the marketing and brand value provided by you!

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2009. | Permalink

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Entries for the Blog Design Contest.

1. Were WP.
2. UBSN.
3. Rarst.
4. Aravind Jose.
5. Gary Viray.
6. Tech Buzz.
7. Smart Blog Tips.
8. Yield To Pedestrian.
9. SE7ENize.
10. Thou Shall Blog.

I would like to thank all the participants for taking their time out and entering in the competition. It has been a great experience and all the entries definitely a must read for everyone. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I couldn’t leave a comment or reply to the emails which you guys have sent, however I’ll ensure that this will be certainly taken care of. You may not see any posts for couple of days or may be 3 days, as I’ll be going out of town. However, I’ll try my level best to publish few posts.

Apart from the updates, the winners will be announced on 8th December, as the entries will be judged by our wonderful judges -

1. David Peralty.
2. Jeff Chandler.
3. Alex Cristache.

I wish good luck to everyone of you and may the best entry win :)

Update – Unfortunately, due to unkown reasons we didn’t get the email of Kevin. I’ve got the email and confirmation of their post, so here’s the link for the same. This entry is also part of the contest – Discussing Blog Design.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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Although, we firmly believe that a prize worth this much should have something interesting. Unfortunately I’m just not as creative as lot of other bloggers are and only come up with group writing contest only! Although, this one surely be worth putting efforts for!

What’s a group writing project ?

A group writing project is a collective effort by lots of bloggers who write on one topic (on their own blogs) which is chosen by one of the blogger (host) who holds the project. Here are some of the examples of some good group writing project -

1. Life Balance Group Writing Project.
2. Design you love group writing project.

Why should one join a group writing project?

The idea of group writing project is to socialize (find new blogs), find out what others think about the same topic and how exactly they portray it in different writing styles and here’s why you should join one -

1. Gain Link Backs – Generally the host of the group writing project gives link backs to all the contest entries and similarly by various contestants because a post on similar topic generally creates conversations and that’s always healthy for any blog.

2. Find new readers – A blog can boast about its popularity by gaining new readers and a group writing project is a wonderful way of finding lot of new readers because it generally tells you that who all are participating and who all have a blog (who doesn’t have blogs these days?).

3. Learn new writing styles – Everyone has a writing style and one can only learn new creative ways of writing when we read what others are writing. So, when others express their views on one topic, you’ll generally love the way they have presented the topic.

All said and done! What’s your group writing project ?

Our blog is about Blog designs and it only makes sense for us to hold a group writing project on the topic of “Blog Design“. So we encourage all of you to write something on your blogs on this creative topic.

Here are some of the examples of topic :

1. How blog design will change your blog’s value?
2. Why a blog design is important for your blog’s authority?
3. 10 tips to keep in mind before you get your blog designed!

I’m Game! What are the rules ?

Rules of a group writing are pretty simple and we want to keep them simple too. Here are our rules -

1. The article should be fresh and new. An old blog post will not be eligible for the contest.
2. The blog post should be at least 250 words long.
3. Give a link back the sponsors as mentioned at the bottom of the post.
4. Don’t forget to send an e-mail to us with the link to your contest entry {hello (at) blogdesignstudio (dot) com}.
5. Your blog should be at least one month old & should have at least 30 entries.
6. Your entry should come before 30th November (doesn’t matter which time zone, it should be 30th Nov.)

Why should I join ?

If at all the above mentioned reasons weren’t good enough for you, we’ve got few good reasons for you to join this contest and here are those!

1. Win a custom WordPress theme for your blog – Yes, if you are impressed with our blog portfolio then you should join this contest as you’ll be able to win a fully custom wordpress theme (work of reasonable amount) for free.

2. Premium Theme from Daily Blog Tips – Daniel has graciously sponsored a premium theme from Premium Themes Now. This is the second prize.

3. Consultation from Kevin Muldoon (BloggingTips) – Kevin has agreed that he’ll take out his valuable time and will give consultation to the first winner of the contest.

4. Consultation from Mayank (i.e. me) – I’ll give blog consultation to the third winner of the contest.

What else I need to do ?

As mentioned in the Rule # 3, you’ll need to give the link back (do follow link otherwise the entry will be considered void) to the sponsors of the contest with their choice of anchor text.

1. Blog Design Studio – the anchor text will be – “Blog Design” (sans quotes).
2. Daily Blog Tips – the anchor text will be – “Daily Blog Tips” (sans quotes).
3. Blogging Tips – the anchor text will be “Blogging Tips” (sans quotes).

Example of the paragraph -

This post is a contest entry of Blog Design Contest, hosted by Blog Design Studio and the winner will get a free custom wordpress theme. There are some amazing prizes by Daily Blog Tips and Blogging Tips as well.

Who decides that who wins the contest ?

The contest will be judged by three awesome bloggers who don’t need any introduction if you are any way connected to the field of blogging & WordPress.

1. Jeff Chandler, freelancer, problogger and the ultimate WordPress guru!
2. David Peralty, three year veteran full time problogger, currently providing business consulting relating to understanding the blogosphere.
3. Alex Cristache, awesome blogger and the amount of things you can learn from his blog are numerous. Has one of the best design in blogosphere too.

Now, start hitting the keys of your keyboard and turn on the tap of your creativity and let the blog juices flow as much as they can and come up with a creative post for this creative topic of “Blog Design” and don’t leave any chance of impressing the judges!

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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My little fun research shows that WordPress was part of WordTech Communications, which is/was a new, independent literary press in Cincinnati, Ohio!

Interestingly, there were 86 search results when searched for the keyword “WordPress” and even interesting that Google returned 3 results when searched for “WordPress themes”!

Although, it’s a different thing altogether that WordPress itself was launched in 2003. If you want to know about the history of WordPress then this wonderful article from WikiPedia will help you a lot.

Another thing which I found out was that back in 2001, Google didn’t know if I was available on this earth or not and now it knows that the most important Mayank on this earth is me! And yes back then Google didn’t know that who is the real Matt. Till few days back, Google knew that Matt Mullenweg was the real Matt, till it was replaced by Where the Hell is Matt.

Have you tried searching your name or anything you are passionate about ? Well, I can say that you should give it a try as this is definitely fun and a good time pass.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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Just chose the theme which you want to use and go through their detailed instructions on how exactly you can use WordPress as a photo blog with that particular theme. Most of the themes prefer to use YAPB (Yet another photo blog) plugin and it’s best if you can already download that and install it on your WordPress.

Themes which can help you use WordPress as Photo blog:

1. Grain : It’s a fixed width photoblog theme and depends on the YAPB plugin. It works as a classic photoblog and doesn’t display the several images at one time. If you are interested in looking at how Grain looks like, then the photoblog of the developer is one nice example.

2. Photoblog themes by Taly : Taly has released 5 wonderful photo blog themes and are really wonderful to look at too. All the five themes are just awesome and I’m sure you’ll just fall in love with each of them.

3. Nishita : A theme dedicated to Brajeshwar’s Niece. With simple navigation controls and classic photoblog layout, it becomes the definite choice for simplistic theme lovers.

4. Monotone : Another gem from the Automattic (team behind WordPress). This photo blog theme automatically makes the background of the the theme to match the major color of the theme and thus gives a monotone look. So, every page may look different from another and that’s the beauty of this theme.

My blogging buddy, Ram has compiled a list of few WordPress themes which can help you run a Photo blog through WordPress.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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If you are a theme designer, plugin developer for WordPress CMS or a blogger who want to test new themes, plugin before pushing them in the production blog then the best bet is to install WordPress locally on your computer. That will ensure that you’ll be working much faster and will be able to test things quickly.

What are the benefits of setting up WordPress locally -

1. In case things go wrong : While trying things, it’s pretty natural that things may get out of control and that database can get corrupt or anything worse you may not even think of. Because you can test it locally, it puts you in control of the things.

2. Save your valuable time : You can save tremendous amount of time as you don’t have to upload any files through internet connection, which will be slow as compared to working locally.

Lets cook up the recipe of setting WordPress up locally on Mac OS X :

1) Ingredients required for the yummy stuff -

- 1 Cup of local web server like MAMP.
- 1 Cup of latest version of WordPress.
- 1/2 Cup Safari or Firefox.
- 2 table spoon of Mac Love.

Time Required : 10 Min.

2) Preparation of the meal -

- Put MAMP in the utensil : Simply install MAMP on OS X and launch the application and start Apache and MySQL. Then launch Safari or Firefox and open http://localhost:8888/MAMP/

Click on the PHPMyAdmin and create the database. Name it whatever you want, you can call it wordpress.

- Now mix WordPress with Mamp : Simply extract the WordPress to ../mamp/htdocs/wordpress/ and edit the wp-config.php file in your favorite text editor and fill these information -

Username : root
Password : root
Host : localhost:8888
Database : wordpress

3) Add the Mac Love and cook it for 5 minutes -

- Install WordPress : Simply point your favorite browser to http://localhost:8888/wp-admin/install.php and follow the WordPress installation steps.

4) Serve with Coffee -

Now that your yummy dish is prepared and feels tempting, to make it more delicious serve it with Hot Coffee and you’ll have the best time of the day.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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There are few reasons as to why I shifted from Chyrp to WordPress 2.6 and biggest of all is that now WordPress offers the ability to post images, videos, URLs pretty quickly and makes it easy for bloggers to use WordPress as Tumblelog. With that, I presume that they’ll improve Prologue theme to ensure that it can be used as a better tumblelog or will look something like tumblr blogs.

There are quite few themes which can help make a WordPress installation look like Tumblr based tumblelog or a chyrp based tumblelog and I would like to feature those themes over here -

5 Best themes which can be used as Tumblelog in WordPress :

1. Artueel Theme : This theme comes with PSD to help you edit the graphics and has greenish look over white background. Looks really simple and nice. Here’s the demo.

2. Elite : This is a dark colored theme which isn’t clearly a tumblelog like theme however it’s a very clean theme and has great color combination to ensure that the theme looks soothing to eyes as well.

3. Blog.Txt : Although, this isn’t the best tumblelog kind of theme too, however the simplicity of this theme and the options it provides are good enough for us to include it in this list as well. Although, I would prefer a better typography & better styles if we want it to use as tumblelog.

4. Tumble-Hybrid Deuce : This is a mod of ever popular Sandbox theme and is one of the best tumblelog style theme. Although, I didn’t like the left alignment of the theme, it would have looked far better if it was center aligned.

5. T1 Tumblelog Theme : T1 Tumblelog theme is by far one of the best designed theme as far as tumblelog in wordpress are concerned. That’s my personal opinion.

In the upcoming posts, we’ll talk about the hits and misses of WordPress 2.6 “Tyner” and will tell you about a bug too, guess what it’s a secret as of now and if you can find out the bug then we’ll feature you in our posts too.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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1. Blogtxt : This is one of the best minimalist WordPress theme and thanks to Scott Allan Wallick, who has provided not only Blogtxt but many more minimalist themes.

2. Grid Focus : A beautiful theme with White and Grey combination.

3. Silhouette : This WordPress theme is designed by ever popular Brian Gardner in WordPress theme designer community.

4. Modicus : This is one of the gem produced by Robert Ellis and I’m sure you’d definitely love this 3 column theme.

5. Tarski : This is an elegant and flexible wordpress theme. It’s got fully widgetized Footer and the best part about this theme is it’s documentation. I’ve not seen any better documentation for a WordPress theme as it’s been done for this theme.

© mayank for Blog Design Studio, 2008. | Permalink

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