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…

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…

Project WordPress is a series of in-depth tutorials on creating a custom blog - step by step, and from scratch. Read about how to tweak WordPress to your liking, about useful and must-be plugins, working with PHP and CSS, and using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator professionally to create beautiful results: your very own, brand new WordPress Theme.

Part 1: WordPress Install, Setup, and Basic Optimization

In this first step of creating a whole new blog, we’ll take a look at wonderful WordPress and how we can set it up do do what we want. The standard install of WordPress is rather rudimentary, thus requires us to do a couple of adjustments, which, in our opinion, are crucial to creating a professional WordPress blog. Read on…

On a quick note: the last weeks have been quite busy for us. We’re working on several projects right now and things did get a bit stressful. That’s why we didn’t have the chance to post what we wanted to during the last two weeks.

But we have good news for you: we’re going to make up for it - big time!

One of the jobs we’ve been working on lately is the creation of a brand new WordPress blog from scratch. It included setting up WordPress, choosing, installing and customizing the best plugins, picking a basic theme, and remaking it completely including graphics, PHP and CSS. So basically, we created a new WordPress theme.

Here’s an appetizer:

What we’re going to do now is post the complete process of creating a WordPress blog here on Vibr8bros.com. This includes all of the above. The main pillars of this tutorial series will be:

• WordPress - installation, setup and plugins of choice;
• Blog Identity - creating the logo and identity of a blog;
• Blog Layout & Style - building the CSS and PHP on the basis of a basic theme to create a whole new WordPress theme of choice;
• Blog Graphics - creating the header and all graphics for the blog from scratch using Photoshop and Illustrator.

We will take it step by step and go through the complete process with you. We will talk about tweaking WordPress to your liking, useful and must-be plugins, working with PHP and CSS, and using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator professionally to create beautiful results. In the end, you’ll be able to apply the techniques we discuss to your own projects.

So, in the prospect of this great series coming up here on Vibr8bros.com - do you think you can excuse our recent blogging holiday?

Stay tuned…

Yet another download: Free Vector Badges saying “NEW”.

While we were working on a print ad for one of our clients who wanted a web 2.0ish design (yes, yes, we know…), we came up with a few vector badges stating the word “new”. We ended up using a quite colorful, yet simplistic version of the badge which represented the style our client wanted.

So what should we do with the other badges? Keep them for future “new” badges? Keep them for possible mutation into other badges or logos? Well, no sir! We decided to add a few more and post them here. Read on…