[Photo credit]

As you can see if you are an old blog visitor, I’ve changed the appearance of things around here. This time, I didn’t create my own theme, I went the classic “buy a premium theme” route, and I’m quite happy with the results. My past experience with my creating my last two themes was very helpful; I learned a lot about the inner workings of WordPress, even though I didn’t create the theme completely from scratch, I went the Sandbox route (who starts any coding project now a days with out some sort of recycled code, anyway?).

I decided I didn’t want to redesign a code myself and rather spend that time writing instead of designing. So I searched the web a while, exploring the premium WordPress websites out there until I found exactly what I needed; a subscription site with a all-you-can-download model with a very good price point. Elegant Themes, $20 for a year, where I have access to their growing library of themes, all of which are professionally designed and supported. I will also have access to all their new themes, for as long as I’m a paying subscriber. 

I modified the included logo of the theme I decide to use using the included PSD file, which is extremely helpful. Then I read the readme file included with the download and installed the theme. Everything went smooth and without a hitch, but if something were to arise, their support and forums are awesome (I had to seek help using another theme for an upcoming project). 

If you are on the market for a new theme, and a free theme or making a theme yourself aren’t really an option, check them out, you can see all their themes as demos and their support for installation is great.  Since I can use as many themes as I like, I’ve started a new secret project, something I’m trying to keep under wraps until its ready to launch. Oops.

#Disclaimer#: I discovered they have an affiliate program so I became a member and if you end up buying, I’ll get a commission, nothing big, but worth monetizing if possible. I wouldn’t be writing about them if I wouldn’t think their product is awesome, and hey, I’m a paying customer myself. I’ve also added a 125×125 link on my sidebar. 

I did it. I bought a nice domain name (did I?), I set up WordPress and a new theme and I’ve setup a new blog for my girlfriend. She’s a behavior therapist that works with autistic children and I thought that the premise of a blog from the perspective of a therapist would be interesting. There is quite an extensive network of autism-related blogs out there, but most are from the perspective of the parents of autistic children. Check out the site at http://autismchronicles.com. After setting up the new blog, I thought that the documenting the whole process of starting a new blog would be interesting, so here goes.

1. Found a subject matter. I think this is the most important step for anyone planning on starting out a new blog. I’ve seen many blogs out there without a defined subject matter, which I guess isn’t wrong, but I believe that successful blogs have defined subjects matter, i.e. JohnChow.com, making money online, Gizmodo: gadgets and technology. In my case the subject matter for this new blog is quite clear, as I said, my girlfriend will blog about her daily experiences with autistic children and autism in general.

2. Got a domain name. I aimed for something memorable, short and relevant. Finding a good domain out there is not an easy task, so need be be creative. Also, try to stick to .com’s and .net’s.

4. Installed WordPress. I like WordPress and they have a huge momentum behind them. The WP community is very active and very helpful. For me, installing WP is very easy, thanks to Dreamhost’s one-click-installs, but most hosting providers out there offer automated ways of installing WP. If your host doesn’t offer this, I would suggest heading over to WP’s official docs.

5. Got a theme. In this case I used Adii’s recently launched unGrid theme. I did a bit of customization by means of creating my own logo. Also, in the beginning don’t focus too much on the design of your blog (there are plenty of very attractive free themes out there), but focus mainly on your content. Its your content that will keep bringing people back to your blog, not the design. Either chose one of many freely available themes, design your own or hire someone to design it for you. If you are low budget I would stick to a free theme, which can be easily customized. More on WP can be found here.

6. Forgot about monetization (at least at the beginning). Sure, one motivation for starting a blog is probably the making-money factor, but in order to make money you need traffic so again, focus on your content. For Autism Chronicles, I have not placed any ads and I’m not planning on doing that anytime soon.

7. Started blogging. My girlfriend will be the primary author on this blog, since she’s the one with the experience, but I will contribute by helping her socializing online (linking and participating on other blogs) and by posting autism-related articles in the news.

I launched this new design about 2 weeks ago, and just until now I realized that I needed to write about it. First, let me give credit where credit is due. I did not write the entire theme by myself, as a matter of fact, I didn’t write any of it, I just modified and added lines of code (mostly CSS). I did all this thanks to Sandbox, which is basically a clear canvas for people who want to start out making WP designs. I did run into some trouble making the whole thing centered, but nothing too complicated.

I started out with the new logo design in Photoshop CS3. Tried out some new fonts (after installing 4200 of them, which I had archived) and came out with the new JJMELO wording. Then I took one of my favorite pictures (the biplane, original here) and turned into a vector file with Illustrator CS3. Then I made a shield (learning how to use the pen tool in Illustrator) and put the plane on top. After that I installed the Sandbox theme then used Dreamweaver to modify it to my liking and about 4 hours later, this is what I got.

• Upload unlimited files (up to 1GB each file) 20 at a time.
• Unlimited Downloading of files (so you can share the link!)
• No waiting in between files.
• Set up personalized banners for files (for free)
• No premium accounts, everyone gets all the bandwidth (huge pipe)
• The wait is only 5 seconds for members and 10 seconds for non-members, while we prepare the download.
• Unobtrusive ads and no hassles asking you to join for a daily/monthly/annual/ fee.

We conceived it about 2 months ago after seeing how the many other free file host suck. We decided to launch the first phase as an experiment, at the beginning of September, sprinkling in a bit of Adsense here and there. Along the way, we added new features, like personalized ads, which were a big hit with the file uploaders.

A month later, we saw huge growth, bigger that we had imagined. We had made a nice amount of $$ with Adsense, so we decided to redesign the whole thing, add a bunch of features and include different type of ads (of the adult type). We worked on the redesign and the new features for a whole week, spending the most part of the day and night on it. Now, lets get to the before and after shots.

Main Page:

Before:

After

The first thing you notice about the redesign is the new logo. I like to think that the new one is a bit more modern. It did take longer to design.

Old Logo

New Logo

The account page has been completely redesigned. We’ve sprinkled AJAX magic in it through-out. We eliminated tables and changed the colors. Also, the uploading feature has been included directly in the account page.

Before:

After:

The upload page been moved and is now our secondary way to upload. Now this is what you get when you click on the Upload button (and agree to our ToS first):

The download page, where the grand majority of the ads get displayed has had a complete overhaul. It was probably the one that took the longest to redesign. Unfortunately I didn’t get a screenshot of it, but here’s the new version (but trust me, the old one wasn’t great).

And this is the Download page you get when the file (or the user) has been tagged as adult-content.

This prevents (or at least makes people verify) that they are 18 years old or over.

This is the “adult” file download page. NSFW

Notice that all the Google Adsense have been removed, and the “adult” themed banners get displayed (we also have the ability to track each one the the banners to keep and eye on their performance).

Another big improvement we’ve made is the search page. We relied on tables and it wasn’t to eye pleasing. Take a look:

Search Page

Search results

Now, the search feature is directly on the main page, as week as on the account pages, so there’s no need for a separate page for the main search feature. This is how the results are displayed, with the adult filter on:

With the adult filter off:

So, hopefully we’ll be able to grow a lot with all these new features and the redesign. We spent only only about a week redesigning this thing from scratch (which doesn’t seem a lot, be we’re just a team of 2). Check the site for yourself, or rather why don’t you go over to Dumbfiles, and sign up today! Its free!