Have you seen my new blog design? I am absolutely in love with it! And Clay Griffiths is my new hero because he’s the designer behind the new Headway theme (as well as the son of my friend Grant Griffiths) which is the theme I’m now using.
Now on the surface, it may not be obvious why I’m just so tickled with Headway because you’re just seeing the standard stuff – header, sidebar, posts, footer. The beauty of it is under the hood. Kinda like seeing a beat up rusty old Camaro then popping the hood and seeing an absolutely immaculate 502 big block engine! (Ladies, keep reading, I’ll have an analogy that makes more sense in a minute.)
But you can’t make a car look pretty just by throwing a kickass engine in it. So just imagine if, by turning the key in the ignition, the exterior magically transformed and you were left with a shiny custom paint job. That’s how easy Headway is! Well, not literally…but close.
From the minute I installed the Headway theme, it took me all of about 30 minutes to get it looking the way I wanted. Thanks to a “drag and drop” layout editor and theme options that allow you to choose font styles, size and colors right from the menu, what usually takes me a couple of hours was done in a fraction of the time.
I didn’t have to tinker around the CSS at all. In fact, I only added one single line of code and that was to use a tiled background image instead of a solid color. One. Freaking. Line. You can also edit each page’s layout so that, for example, your ‘About‘ page doesn’t have a sidebar but your ‘Blog’ page does.
Now, with all of that time I saved, I spent some time playing around with different layouts, widths, colors and other style changes. Changes are easily made, whether its the location of your navigation bar or whether the ‘Comments’ link on each post goes under the post title or to the right of it. No minor detail overlooked! Even adding a favicon (that little image that shows up in your browser’s menu bar when you visit a webpage) was as easy as just pasting the link to the location of your icon file.
I’m sure there’s a lot more to it that I haven’t discovered yet and I had to force myself to move away from the laptop because anyone who knows me knows how much I love customizing WordPress blogs. I can totally see myself changing my blog design like I change purses. (See, ladies? You know what I mean, right?)
Don’t just take my word for it. I want you to see what others have said about Headway and how they’ve customized their own blogs using it.
- Here’s my good friend John Haydon’s post about why he switched to Headway. He’s got some great videos that will let you take a peek under the hood. (See the differences in how his blog looks compared to mine? Headway works great for both business and personal blogs…not that mine’s “personal” but it certainly doesn’t look as ‘professional’ as John’s.)
- Danny Brown is also using Headway but not just as a blog theme. He’s donating 50% of any profits he makes from affiliate links to the 12for12k.org charity.
- And another post from another friend, Michael Martine a/k/a Remarkablogger who, even though he’s a devoted Thesis user and has not switched, is still very impressed with Headway and has a better detailed explanation of why than I do.
- Of course, you can always get more details and take a tour at the Headway Theme website.
P.S. Just a quick disclaimer…yes, those are affiliate links and I would earn a small commission if you were to purchase Headway through those links. My opinion of Headway, however, would be just as high even if I never made a single penny from singing its praises.
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Hey there April,
I’m felling the love with you, for sure!
I’m pretty much in the same boat as you – I know some CSS and HTML but I really don’t have the time for it. It’s a big reason I moved away from Thesis, as much as I liked that framework. Headway does make it incredibly easy to make changes on the fly, and I’m finding new stuff every day.
I’m currently setting up showcase examples on sub-domains, so hope to share them with you and everyone else soon.
Love the new look and keep it funky!
Danny.
I don’t know If I said it already but …Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read….
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking your feeds too now, Thanks.
I’m Out!
I run Thesis and just got Headway. I don’t see how you are making changes to your layout without adding a LOT of CSS code. I must be missing something. From where I sit I am going to spend hours and hours working on Headway just to get what I already have with Thesis. Actually, I came to have another look at AprilTara because you have the same kind of layout I am using now with Thesis. I’d like to keep that with Headway but I am lost at sea. If I have to write the CSS myself then I don’t see the point in using Headway at all. Anyway, ironic that seeing your blog was what sold me on Headway in the first place.