While I can design a website if absolutely necessary, I’m not a web designer. I don’t speak computer languages and don’t know my way around the Adobe Creative Suite. I’m more of a words gal.
But there is no worse feeling than crafting some great text and seeing it stuck on a terribly designed page.
Content is king but design is queen, my friends, and your personal or business website isn’t doing anything for you without both.
You can have great content, but if the page is too busy or the font is too small or the call to action blends into the background, your content can’t reach its full potential.
My new WordPress theme crush
I’ve been using a WordPress theme called Make by Theme Foundry for every site I make (my blog, this site, Gatien’s site, Baltimore Fun Hacks…). I chose this theme because they had a free version and I wasn’t ready to invest in a blog theme at the time; I was impressed by all the customization options offered under the free theme. I could really make my blog design my own without knowing CSS.
Gatien’s site, designed in Make
I’ve realized this year, though, that because of the way Make was built, it’s heavy. It’s slowing down my sites.
They’ve also decided to render the theme unusable if I don’t pay them yearly, even though I never signed up for a subscription with them. So now stuff on my blog isn’t working anymore and I desperately need to replace the theme. (So yeah PS I don’t recommend using this theme.)
So I went hunting for a new theme and in the process, I discovered the Genesis Framework by Studiopress. For those unfamiliar, it’s the most commonly used WordPress framework in the world.
What I see in Genesis
I first discovered my infatuation with Genesis child themes after looking up the theme of a few sites with site designs I loved:
The only other theme that came close in appeal for me was Divi. I mean, especially because it’s drag and drop so I could actually design and build the site without a designer who speaks code. Divi is just as speedy as Genesis… I have seen some really beautiful sites built in Divi… But here’s why I like Genesis better:
- In comparison, Divi sites feel “lighter” whereas Genesis sites have a weight – a sturdiness – them.
- The basic child themes in Genesis start out with better formatting for bloggers, whereas I think Divi formatting (by the way I’m specifically referring to the way Divi formats blog pages) makes more sense for businesses.
Will Genesis and I live happily ever after?
I NEED to change my theme. My goal is to have someone customize a Genesis child theme, but it’s hard finding the right person. Soon. Soon.