January 11, 2012 By The Blog Designer Network

We are starting the year off right with an incredible giveaway you won’t want to miss!  From designers to bloggers – there is something here for everyone!  This giveaway runs through January 23rd, and there are only two requirements to enter!

1.  Share TheBDN.com!

Use the social icons below this post to share this giveaway on the provided sites.  You may share as many times as you wish and each one counts as an entry!

2.  Post a Comment!

After sharing this giveaway, post a comment telling us you did so!  Include a link to your social site or screenshot of your share.

Want more entries?

1.  Post in the forum!  Have a question?  Have the answers?  Rant? Rave?  Post in the forum and get an entry EVERY time you do so!  (No need to come back and comment!)

Prizes

1.  Font of Choice from MyFonts.com:  With thousands of fonts to choose from, finally get that one you’ve been wanting!  Up to a $50 value!

2.  20 Credits from iStockphoto.com:  From high quality illustrations and photographs, to cute backgrounds and patterns – we love the large selection you’ll find here.

3.  Genesis Theme Framework from Studiopress:  Our website is build on this framework, and we highly recommend it to designers and even bloggers for it’s ease of use, support, and customization options. (Or child theme of choice if you already own Genesis!)

4.  $25 Gift Certificate to MyGrafico:  Inexpensive and high quality backgrounds, patterns, and much more that you can use to build blogs and websites!

5.  6 Months of Hosting from BlueHost:  For excellent service and an easy set up, this hosting provider is an excellent resource for both current, and startup websites and blogs.

6.  Complete Blogger to WordPress Transfer:  Ready to make the switch?  The Blog Designer Network can transfer your Blogger content to a new self-hosted WordPress site!  Includes set-up of new WordPress site, transfer of posts, comments, readers, and domain re-direciton.  (Does not include hosting or domain name fees.)  A $125 Value.

7.  500 Business Cards from OvernightPrints.com:  With such speedy service, it’s pretty amazing that this company can provide such high quality prints!  Design your own, or hire one of our amazing designers (to the left, or under the designer directory) to make one for you!  Redeemable any time in 2012.

8.  6 Months of Sponsorship at TheBDN.com:  Let us help promote your business or blog with an ad on our sidebar!  We’ll even design the ad for you!  A $150 value.

9.  2 Full Hours of One-on-One Training:  Customize a training session that specifically targets the areas in which you’d like to improve!  From coding blogs and websites, to design – let us train you in the areas of your choice!  Redeemable any time in 2012 scheduled two weeks in advance.

10.  $150 Towards the Purchase of ANY Class Registrations:  Expand your knowledge with the various workshops we offer!  February and March classes will be posted soon, and will include an even larger variety of courses for every skill level.

Winners will be announced on Tuesday morning, January 24th.  Unlimited entries allowed per person provided the requirements are met.  Your comment must include a link to your social share or screenshot so we can see your share!  If for some reason your comment is not approved, we will e-mail you!  Shares on social sites that a) have no followers, b) are solely meant for giveaways, or c) are not listed in this blog post won’t count.  Forum posts must a) be a legitimate thread or b) legitimate reply to a thread.  You will be notified via e-mail if your forum post does not meet the criteria.

There will be 10 winners total, one for each prize!  Winnings ARE transferable!

All winnings are provided by the Blog Designer Network and are not sponsored by individual companies.  Some of the links within this post are affiliate links, and will generate a small commission for the BDN which we use for giveaways like this one!  We recommend each one of these companies based on their quality of service and products.  Thanks for your support!

October 25, 2010 By Dawn Farias

I cannot tell you how I ever came across the blog Your Wishcake.  I can only tell you that the blogger there, Kerri, makes me want to start a personal blog all over again (something I haven’t done much of for the better part of a year).  Her writings, photographs, and projects inspire me to tell a story, my story.  But for now, let’s talk about hers:

Twenty-six. Happily married. Has the tendency to channel Monica Geller. Not responsible for anything said after three glasses of wine.

These are the things I loved the most upon first arriving at her sight, in a very particular order:

1. Open, clean, inviting and original design.
2. Uncluttered sidebars with tidy sections linking to information that usually takes up that space: about me, blogroll, favorite posts, etc.
3. Fabulous writing.  This is a good, old-fashioned personal online journal.  Sure, she makes crafts and sells them on Etsy, but you Get It that her blog is more about writing and sharing then selling and marketing.

Please visit Kerri’s blog, Your Wishcake, today.  Take a moment to look around, to read and to realize the heart and eye for detail that has gone into every bit of it.

May 13, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

In the past 15 months Beautiful Blog Designs has grown beyond what I ever imagined it would or could. And, with that growth has come new responsibilities and expectations for me. Each week I get emails from bloggers or designers requesting one thing or another, and for a while it wasn’t too much for me to handle. However, I have started some new ventures (which I will share at a later date) and I need to streamline and set parameters which will help bloggers, blog designers and me.

Please, please don’t take this post for snotty or full-of-myself, because I promise that is not my intent. I just have so much else going on that I needed change things so that I can better help those asking for service.

FOR BLOGGERS:

If you are a blogger, no matter the platform, and you would like me to recommend a designer for you, please copy the following questions in an email and supply your answers in a different color. I will respond as soon as possible (will vary from 24 hours to a week).

1. Do you need a full design or just some tweaking?
2. What blogging platform do you use or would like to move to?
3. What style would you prefer (scrappy, modern, shabby-chic, etc.)?
4. How much are you willing to spend? Less than $100? Between $100 – $200? Over $200?
5. What is more important to you – speed of design & launch or quality, i.e. do you have time to wait in a designers queue or do you want something quickly?

FOR DESIGNERS:
If you are a designer and you would like to be listed at BBD, please send me an email with the following:

1. Your design studio name
2. The URL address to your site
3. What blog platforms you design in
4. What lists you would like to be placed on (free templates, free backgrounds, premades, custom, etc.)

If you are a designer and would like me to publicize a giveaway on the giveaway page, please send me an email with the following:

• The exact HTML code in a TXT document, with the following information:
  • Your linked button
  • The giveaway item (and value)
  • The giveaway end date
  • Where to enter

I would like to keep the Giveaways page more up-to-date than I’ve been able to in the past six months and if you (designers) can send me that above information in a TXT document, I can easily do so.

If you would like to a sponsor spot on BBD, please email me. All the spots are currently taken, but I will add you to the waiting list and notify you when an spot comes open.

February 1, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

Today’s Beautiful Blog is a step back into Blogger-land, but we’ll get back to some beautiful WordPress blogs soon.

Last week I stumbled across Macey’s Daily Parade and just fell in love with the fun, playful yet beautiful design. It is a new look for this blog, run by Macey, and if she’s like me when I get a new design, she is looking at it every chance she gets.

 

Isn’t it just too sweet? Macey’s Daily Parade is about the daily parade that is Macey’s life – thus the cute and appropriate title! After reading a little bit on the blog, I feel like the design suits Macey to a tee. She’s feminine, fun and elegant all at the same time. 

Okay, what I love about this design:

• Calm, soothing colors yet fun and engaging
• Perfect mix of different design elements to match the blogger
• Unique and effective navigation bar (in the balloons)
• Lots of white which is easy on the reader’s eyes
• Clean, uncluttered sidebars

Macey’s design was created by the very talented Jackie at Memories by Design (this is Jackie’s second design to be featured).

Congratulations, Macey, on having such a beautiful blog! I know you’re enjoying your new design and hope you “wear” it for a long while – it’s perfect for you! If you would like to share this feature with  your readers either in a post or on your sidebar, here is a button for you:

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

January 25, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network

This week’s Beautiful Blog is delicious to look at and read, as it’s a food blog that shares all kind of incredibly yummy recipes. Buns In My Oven, run by Karly, a homeschooling mom of two, is a delightful blog that I stumbled upon last week and since I was wanting to do a WordPress run of blog features, I decided to bump her to the top of the beautiful list.

What I love about Buns In My Oven:

• Design is attractive but not too busy
• Background color is unusual but pleasing to the eye
• Blog loads quickly
• Clean, uncluttered sidebar
• Very functional navigation or menu bar that seems like it’s incorporated into the header
• Great content; posts filled with beautiful, helpful pictures

An added plus to Buns In My Oven is that Karly used an awesome camera and lens to take her fabulous food shots. If you enjoy photography, this blog will satisfy the camera bug in you as well as your sweet tooth.

Now, the designer who created the fun and functional look for Buns In My Oven’s is Temptation Designs. They offer designs for Blogger, WordPress and Twitter, so head over there if you like what they did for Karly.

Congratulations, Karly, for having such a beautiful blog! If you would like to share this feature with your readers, here is a button for you:

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

February 6, 2012 By The Blog Designer Network

We are excited to announce the implementation of the Showcase, which features the best in blog and web design!  Whether you’re a designer or blogger in search of inspiration, this page will be the ultimate place to find great design using any platform.

1.  How are designs chosen?

We browse the web in search of great design, and pick the sites we like best.  From graphics to code – everything is considered and every platform is fair game.

2.  What criteria must be met?

The design can use any platform, but we prefer WordPress, Blogger, Squarespace, and Typepad.  Obscene or profane sites won’t be listed.  In each showcase submission, we link to the designer, the site itself, and identify the platform in which the design was built – so if any of those change we may not keep the design listed.

3.  Do I have to submit a design to be considered?

Nope, we keep a close eye on great design so you may just find a design or two of yours in here.  If you find one that you’d rather have us remove, just let us know and we’d be happy to remove it!

4.  How can I make sure my design gets in the showcase?

You can read our Tips for Showcase Submissions page, where we briefly cover things we look for in great design.  Then you can e-mail us via our contact form, or tweet @the_bdn or use the hashtag #BDNdesign.

Good luck, and have fun finding and creating great design!

May 1, 2011 By The Blog Designer Network

Whether you’re a seasoned typography nerd, or just getting started in the biz – choosing fonts is one of the best aspects of design.  As you continue to tap into the fonts provided by Photoshop or Illustrator and search online for typography to download, a “sixth-sense” starts to emerge.  Suddenly every logo, every letter printed on a pizza box, number on your cell phone, ampersand on a billboard – piques your interest.  Eventually you’ll find yourself easily identifying said fonts.  Usually aloud.  To your significant other…your children…your eye-doctor when he asks you to read the “third line” from the top.

We’re going to call this the “font-dar.”  It’s like “radar” only more geeky.

Of course not all fonts faces can be easily memorized (but we can sure try), so it’s easy to see unfamiliar typography in familiar places!  But there’s an easy and awesome solution.

It’s called What the Font

Simply upload the image of your font and identify the highlighted letter!

Found at a retail store on a lotion bottle.

Font:  Miss Lee Gates

Found on a menu at a restaurant.

Font:  Sensual Bold

Pretty awesome huh?  Go try it!

Note:  The links to the above site are non-affiliate links and the BDN is not compensated for suggesting this site.  It’s simply awesome.

April 3, 2011 By The Blog Designer Network

Deluxe Designs specializes in blog and graphic design. We design personal and professional blogs including craft, mommy, photography, small business, and fashion blogs, but certainly do not limit ourselves to these. Using the Blogger platform, we provide user-friendly and finished looking design templates and work with you from beginning to end. Visit us to learn about other services such as Facebook welcome pages, logo design, Etsy, business branding and more. We love clean and elegant styles!

February 15, 2010 By The Blog Designer Network Last week I asked for readers to share blogs they thought were beautiful and if they would like to write a guest post at BBD. Bekah was the only one who took me up on the offer, and she has done an wonderful job!

Guest post by Bekah from The Word Crafter

This week’s Beautiful Blog feature is Aspire, a blog formed a little over a year ago by a thirteen-year-old girl named Hannah. It’s a place where she shares her musings on her faith, her daily routine, and her life.

What I (a follower since it was first started) love about Aspire:

• The background is simple, but elegant and a fun design.
• Engaging and personal posts that keep you coming back to read more.
• It’s easy to read—white background, organized sidebars.
• Aspire is very organized and efficient, with a navigational bar in the header, and archives and labels near the top of the sidebars.
• The site loads quickly.
• Tag line in the header so that you know immediately what the blog is about.
• Follower gadget is up on the top of the page, so it makes it very easy to sign up as a Follower.

Her posts have lots of variety, which keeps the blog interesting and fun. Hannah designed her own blog, being self-taught in html code and design. She also has designed my own blog, and made countless blog buttons for others.

From Amanda:

Congratulations, Hannah, on having such a beautiful blog and beautiful followers who love you! If you would like to share this feature with your readers, here is a button for a post or sidebar.

Thank you, Bekah, for sharing Aspire with us. You are also a talented young blogger, and I am glad to have met you!

Please Note: To see more beautiful blogs, head over to Designs So Pretty, where a beautiful blog is featured almost every day!

Here you can find a list of various design shops around the web. From blog and web templates, to digital scrapbooking kits, and even print material.

To link your shop, provide the URL of the SHOP page on your site with a corresponding graphic. (You may link more than one shop on your site as long as they have different items.)