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March 3, 2008

TypePad Introduces Blog Design For Dummies

Erick Schonfeld

34 comments »

six-aprt-logo.pngSix Apart just made designing a blog layout so easy that even a dummy like me can do it. On its TypePad service, it added a few more themes to bring the total up to: “100 themes, over 1000 professional designs, and an infinite number of customization possibilities.”

You can try it out here on TypePad’s new Design Assistant, which recently made its debut on Six Apart’s Movable Type. Pick a theme like “Camo Khaki.” Choose a Layout. Add your own custom CSS code if you don’t like the options TypePad gives you. And see how it will look on your blog. This beats the back-and-forth of having to pick out a theme and layout, apply it to your blog, see how it looks, and then go back to tweak.

Bringing Web design to the masses is something TypePad does particularly well. Wordpress has its own pretty templates too, of course. But blogs on Blogger seem to have the least variation. Which blogging service does the best job of making Web design both drop-dead simple and drop-dead gorgeous?

Which Service Is Best At Making Bloggers Look Like a Design Gods?
View Results

six-apart-design-small.png

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Six Apart
Automattic
Blogger
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:29 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. edward

    March 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 am

    Wordpress platform rocks, of course.
    But Wordpress.com’s free service is awful. You cannot even modify the CSS of a page without paying charges.

  2. Chris

    March 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 am

    With blogger.com, we can add our own templates and modify stuff, so we can have any design we like.

  3. txteditor

    March 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 am

    Your poll is confusing. Do you mean wordpress.com or wordpress.org? (They are different, ya know.)

  4. Yakov

    March 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am

    No wonder because it’s not clear why they acquired and then sold LJ http://blog.quintura.com/2007/.....-sixapart/

  5. Faramarz

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    I wish this was there for me 5 months ago. I had to take the time and learn the syntax and my way around the template, but i guess it’s a good thing, cause people are paying me to setup their templates for them. :D

    MovaleType is the creme of the crop IMO

  6. pdr tools

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:10 pm

    I like wordpress, stand-alone. I don’t understand why someone would develop anything on their free site.

  7. Patrick Traughber

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Tumblr.

  8. Mircea

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    In my opinion Wordpress (the downloadable version) is a better blogging platform…not because it uses PHP/MySQL (which is widely used programming language and database and you find plenty of developers) but also because it’s offered for free in packages like Fantastico (it’s VERY easy to setup from Fantastico..but setup of the downloadable version isn’t that difficult either).

    And because there are many PHP developers outhere you also can find tons of plugins and themes.

    Another open source (now) blogging plaftorm, Movable Type (http://www.mytestbox.com/blogs-systems-software-reviews/movable-type-open-source-blog-software-review/ ), is built on Perl programming language (which even if it’s one of the oldest web programming languages it’s complicated and you don’t find as many developers as PHP developers.

    It’s just came out as open source so I guess you won’t find that many add-ons to it…

    For serious blogging I would go with the downloadable versions instead of hosted versions like Wordpress.com or Typepad or Blogger.

  9. Scott

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    A lot of overlap in those 100 themes — e.g., same theme in 8 different colors shouldn’t really count as 8 separate themes. That being said, I like TypePad’s design management interface.

  10. Faramarz

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    Here’s the same thing for their movable type branch. it’s basically the same

    http://www.movabletype.org/design/assistant/

  11. Andy Gongea

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    This is good for the masses and for non commercial use. So … I think that mainly this is targeted at low traffic addresses. It is a good marketing idea but, these platforms should empower also the “strong” users.

  12. El Skoop

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm

    HONESTLY, IS THERE A WAY TO HACK INTO THIS WEB PAGE AND BRING IT DOWN? I THINK ARRINGTON IS TOO SHORT TO OPERATE A WEB PAGE. IF I WERE ARRINGTON I’D MOVE TO ARIZONA AND BURY MYSELF UNDER A LARGE OVEN.

  13. Jack Meoff

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    I think that it is a good marketing idea and that for a non-commercial use we could load up sheep to sell them at the market for candy or round buckets to place outside of the third story window where the slow people are found to have large units which often don’t work but simply look good.

  14. nj

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm

    This is awesome… so much better than the traditional way of applying a theme, saving changes and then opening up your blog in another window. Movable Type recently released a similar system:
    http://www.movabletype.org/200.....stant.html

  15. Michele

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Is that poll closed already?

    I’d have given Typepad my vote anyway

  16. Joe

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    Blogger seems to have been the first to build up momentum, but Google seems to treat it like an after thought.

  17. YouYap

    March 3rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm

    I like wordpress better.

  18. little girl

    March 3rd, 2008 at 1:04 pm

    Typepad roxx :D

  19. Lin

    March 3rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm

    Why pay (six apart) for what you can get for free (google blogger)?

    All these blog platforms are just recycling the same templates adapted to their own particular software.

  20. Lin

    March 3rd, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    BTW, “blog design for dummies” means that you’re a dummy if you pay for typepad!

  21. dan carlson

    March 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    that is indeed pretty slick. much quicker than the back and forth i had to do between the blogger template editor and my actual blog to finish my blogger site: http://dansonofcarl.blogspot.com/

  22. jenny

    March 3rd, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    There are plenty of great Blogger blog designs.

    2 I have found that I have no relation to are

    http://darkufo.blogspot.com
    http://bloggerbuster.com

    They don’t even look like blogger templates.

  23. greggman

    March 3rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    Wow, is everyone here an idiot. He didn’t ask which is the better platform. He asked which makes you look like a design god. Blogger arguably has the best designs out of the box. Sure, you can use any of the 3 platforms to design anything you want but that wasn’t the question. Gees!

  24. Jose

    March 3rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    Hi everyone,

    Well, since I don’t know HTML or any website editing language, I relly on already made templates. Although I’m somewhat satisfied with what I’ve made with Blogger, I’ve seen blogs that are really well structured and pleasant to look at.
    One day I may try another platform. It will even be good to enhance my search engine exposure.

    Have a nice week,

    José

  25. Wes

    March 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    I use none of the platforms above but if I were to use one of them then I would go with Wordpress because their designs look very practical.

  26. Wordpress Rocks

    March 3rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm

    Hell

    Techcrunch likes wordpress better.

    this very blog is built on wordpress.

    nuff said.

  27. Ed

    March 3rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    nothing really impressing. a lot of the themes are just changing color tones.
    i think
    lifesterblog.com has this kind of theme design long time ago

  28. blogforreal

    March 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm

    TypePad rocks! Tried Wordpress, but too many limitations! TypePad changed my life…

  29. chrisco

    March 4th, 2008 at 1:47 am

    Isn’t TypePad the AOL of blogging software? I don’t understand why pay for something you can get for free. I switched to WordPress and I love it. Better functionality, easier to use…. and free.

  30. UI Guy

    March 4th, 2008 at 10:31 am

    @dan carlson
    Agreed! The user interface for this tool is simple, elegant and very effective. I’ve written 10 points on why this tool is so effective from a UI perspective:

    http://immotion.net/blog/post/.....stant.aspx

  31. blogthat

    March 4th, 2008 at 11:46 am

    TypePad rocks because it gives you complete control over your blog. Wordpress.com while free, only gives you some customization in only a few of the themes. It’s a lot of hype.

  32. GO TYPEPAD!!!!!!

    March 6th, 2008 at 11:02 am

    Typepad is awesome.

    People will judge you by the look of your blog and you need to know exactly what your blog looks like to your readers. Wordpress does a slimy and underhanded thing where registered users don’t see the ads they put on their blogs. Since you have to be registered to have a blog with them, you don’t see the ads on your own blog! How crazy is that? How can you be happy about your design when you don’t get control over it and don’t see what it really looks like??

    There’s no question on which to choose — GO TYPEPAD!!!

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