Visual28-Personal Blog of Mark Aplet - Design, web, and other topics

I have designed websites for the better part of 7 to 8 years now. I am a designer and web developer, so I have a lot of experience being both the designer and the programmer. I  get to see both ends of the spectrum of web design. Over the years I have picked up a lot of tips to increase your productivity in the area of web design.

The most critical point of web design is the starting point. It all begins with the designer. The more informed a designer is, the more some basic steps are observed, then the more productive and profitable your next design project will be. Here area few tips to help designers create a better and more profitable design.

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Often times, terms like accessibility, validation, and compliance get tossed around by web companies or website owners of all sizes. Large or small. It seems that running a site though an automated validator is all that many people think is necessary.  Having recently developed carpal tunnel and using websites without the aid of a mouse, I find that many of these sites are not really accessible or useable to people like myself with limited mobility. There are some very simple solutions that can make your website as easy, or easier to navigate via keyboard than with a mouse. In the following article I talk about my usage of websites and how they typically fail users with mobility issues, and offer both design and programming solutions to overcome these problems. It's doubtful that any designers or programmers will get hurt from reading this article.

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Anyone following trends in web blogs will know that the celestial images are all the rage. So I felt Mango needed to keep up with the Jones' and have one of it's own. This theme called Stargazer did the trick nicely. I also added a few additional theme options so you can change out your blog to the nebula of your choice.

Here are some screenshots so you can see what the options are. Click a thumbnail to view a larger version of each screenshot.

I retooled the codecoloring css and had it overwrite the default coloring so that text can be read on the dark background. The red and blue text was way to geocities for me.

I had to cut my teeth on a css conversion so why not a free template. Mango needs the support anyway right. Fell free to send me feedback. I would like to hear what you think. I will convert a few more templates and once I get the hang of the mango code I will start doing some of my own designs. I have a folder full of designs that were rejected from previous clients that would make excellent blog designs.

Go ahead and download the stargazer template here for free. (updated May 29, 2008)