Showcase Your Brian Gardner WordPress Theme
Just a little fun experiment I having for those who would like to showoff their blog – but the fine print is that it must be using one of my themes:
- Blue Zinfandel
- Downtown Java
- Dropshadow
- Silhouette
- Vertigo
- Vertigo Blue
- Vertigo Electrified
- Vertigo Red
If you want to add your blog to my showcase of WordPress themes, please go there and fill out the form! I will approve all of those who submit and are using my themes.
What’s Next?
I have been tagged by Char and will be answering the six questions from her When it Comes to Design How do you Define Success post.
Things to Do on a Three Day Weekend
A few months ago I made a post about things I did (or lack thereof) on a four day weekend. Well, seeing that we just got done with a three day weekend, I thought I’d write another one.
Here in Chicago the weather was appalling on Saturday, so we did a lot of running around. Spoiled my kid rotten by buying him everything he wanted at Toys R Us – a DVD, a slip and slide, a tricycle. Once in a while I get into one of those “my kid is the best thing in the world” moods that I literally tell him he can throw anything in the cart he wants. One of my downfalls as a parent…
Sunday was more of a fun day, as the sun made an appearance (as did the warmth). Lots of yard work, lots of sitting on the back patio and watching Zach do all kinds of 3-year old things. Daddy, watch me jump from the top of the slide, watch me step on a bug, watch me throw dirt…
Monday was work day, believe it or not. Woke up at 5:00 in the morning and went on an 11 mile walk with a friend of mine that is doing the Chicago Breast Cancer 3-Day with me. He’s quite the trooper, and we will probably be the first people into camp each day on the walk.
I did manage to do quite a bit of work for clients this weekend, which is really a relief. At times, I find myself overwhelmed with so many open projects, but I felt a sense of accomplishment by taking care of some loose ends.
For Those Who Love Coffee WordPress Themes
Since I had nothing better to do with the two hours of free time I had last night, I decided to take some of you up on your suggestions of designing a coffee WordPress theme.
Most know that I am a diehard Starbucks addict, and can’t live without my triple shot Grande Toffee Nut Skim Latte. Admission is the first step to recovery, so I’m making progress!
In all honesty, I had planned on doing one of these coffee WordPress themes for quite some time, but the overwhelming response to my post asking my visitors to help me for my next theme pushed me over the top!
Anyway, you can take a look at what two hours of free time and using my Blue Zinfandel theme as a starting point resulted in.
Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce the Downtown Java WordPress theme.
Help Design My Next WordPress Theme
I’m always up for doing fun things, and instigating conversation on my posts – so why should this one be any different?
In the next week or so, I’d like to release another free theme to the public, and thought it would be a cool idea to let my readers help me design it.
So if you have any ideas, suggestions or want to show me features of a site/theme that you really like, feel free to leave a comment and help me out.
The Things We Think, and Do Not Say
One of the best things about being a designer is getting positive feedback, and emails from people who are using your themes that say “Awesome theme, I use it on my site!” It’s really encouraging to hear stuff like that.
Now…
One of the worst things about being a designer is when someone leaves negative feedback, or worse yet, calls you out for having too many irons in the fire.
Time for me to be humble.
I want to thank the Chris for doing that. And since I know that it came from the very best of his heart, I feel comfortable bringing this up.
It’s very easy to become to entrenched online – whether it be blogging, designing, affiliate marketing, etc. With so many ways to participate on the internet, we find ourselves technically obese and not technically starving.
Too much information. Too many ways to burn an RSS feed. Too many blogs to read. And once in a while we find ourselves at a crossroad and need to make a decision.
So I’ll take a page out of Jerry Maquire’s famous mission statement, “The things we think, and do not say”, and use that for inspiration on the direction of my blog.
Fewer clients. (or in this case, fewer projects.)
I decided to log into my Feedburner account this morning to see how many subscribe to my feed – sometimes I feel as though nobody reads my blog… but was amazed to see that 161 people are currently subscribing. That woke me up, and made me realize it’s time to start making my blog #1 on the priority list.
So, as a result, I’m planning to narrow down my workload, and focus more on my site. That will include more blogging, more tips on design, more themes and more neat stuff to come.
From the heart, thanks Chris!
