In this part of Project WordPress, we are creating a layout for our customized WordPress blog. The blog layout strongly depends on the niche you’re in and how you want to appear to your readers. Every niche has its own preferred blog style that you have to consider before you start blogging.

Until now, we’ve already covered these parts of Project WordPress:

Part 1: How to install WordPress, set it up and do basic customization;

Part 2: Eight dead essential WordPress Plugins;

Part 3: 10+ recommended WordPress Plugins to make your blog prettier.

Part 4: Create Your Blog Layout

Are you starting a new design blog, or are you going to write about cool gadgets? Do you want to blog about your personal life, or are you in the make money online niche? Knowing how you want to position yourself in your niche is the first step for creating a custom WordPress theme, and should be considered before we go any further.

To show you what we mean, let’s take a look at four blog layouts that are very different from each other. We picked a blog from every one of the above niches. Click on the screenshots to enlarge the images - we noted a few things for each. We also provided a link to each blog. Read on…

…but this free eBook will get you a lot closer to that goal. In order to shorten the time until the next part of Project WordPress (which is coming up in the next few days), we want to point this excellent resource out to you:

Free Type Classification eBook by Jacob Cass

This 27-page eBook covers the 10 classifications of type and is worked up in a beautiful way. In any case, it’s worth a download. Here’s what Jacob says about it:

This book goes through the 10 type classifications with a brief history as well as the key characteristics of each. This book has been made to come back to for easy referencing and it looks great printed as well.

Jacob is a talented designer and we like his work very much. He blogs at Just Creative Design and released this great resource just a few days ago.

We like to spread some link love every now and then - and give you a heads up on cool sites and design blogs we like. Jacob is definitely a designer and blogger worth mentioning in our field.

In order to get the Free Type Classification eBook, you’ll need to subscribe to JCD’s RSS feed. There’s a password at the bottom of the feed which will give you access to the download page.

You can read more about the Free Type Classification eBook in this post on Just Creative Design. Go check it out!

This is the third part of Project WP, and the last one where we play pretty. After this, we’ll get into customizing a basic theme with PHP, HTML and CSS, and creating a blog identity with logo, icons & header. Expect Part 4 here next week, but for now:

Give us the Pretty one more time! 10+ Recommended WordPress Plugins to make your blog prettier

In our last post, we listed the 8 dead essential WordPress Plugins for you. Take a look at these non-essential, but still highly recommended plugins today. Note: all plugins have been tested by us for use in WordPress 2.5+. Read on…

In the first part of Project WP, we installed WordPress and set it up for our convenience to improve visibility and attract more visitors. Today, we’re going to look at 8 absolutely essential plugins that significantly contribute to our efforts of creating a successful WordPress blog.

Part 2: Eight dead essential WordPress Plugins

WordPress is a fantastic platform for bloggers. If you’ve been thinking about getting into blogging, but you don’t know what awaits you, rest assured, for we are here to help. In the course of this series, we’ll take it step by step and explain how to create your own blog - with your very own custom theme. This involves the design part as well as the part working with PHP and CSS. Read on…

Here’s a great add to your bookmarks: we came across the newly launched Design Resources Search Engine the other day, which we’d like to point you to real quick. Jump over and take a look: the Google custom search crawls through the who’s who of the web’s graphic design sites, communities and blogs. It’s better than your standard Google search, because the results don’t show Splogs and other crap, but only search results from sites that have been carefully collected by the web designer Sacha Greif, the creator of the search engine - including our site :)

Thanks for this great resource, Sacha!