Anyone who follows this blog will notice that I’ve changed the theme recently. This was done because I finally admitted to myself that I’m not a particularly good web designer. Whilst I understand HTML, CSS and javascript I lack the design skills to weave them together into something that looks really good. That’s ok. In matters of design I’m prepared to defer to those who have had proper training and experience.
Instead, I’m now using a free wordpress theme called LightWord. The design is far superior to my previous attempt, if somewhat generic. However, I can now tweak this theme to my own needs without worrying too much about all the little details that I would miss if starting from scratch. This approach appeals to me because it’s an example of one of the central pillars of good programming: Code reuse. There are literally thousands of existing themes out there, so starting from scratch would mean repeating the work of many, many people. Seeing as I don’t plan on making design work part of my professional portfolio any time soon, I’m perfectly happy to borrow existing works (within the terms of their license) and bend them to suit my needs.
I used to feel like I was destined to not be any good at design, until this post set me straight:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/why-arent-you-really-good-at-graphic-design.html
Also, I love that you managed to find a theme that still has practically-invisible rollovers