The Importance Of A Little Blog Refresh.
My colour palette inspo.
To celebrate my blogs first birthday last month I had a little redesign. Nothing radical, just a few changes to the colour, an addition of an Instagram bar and a couple of little tweaks but it made all the difference to the way I feel about my site.
And now here I am a month on and I'm feeling the need to get a little bit happy with the design settings again - which was the whole point of the redesign.
I have always been one of those people who gets bored with design and layouts easily. It's the creative person in me that craves change to the things around me and the reason I'd switch my bedroom so much as a child.
I like the things around me to reflect the person I am RIGHT NOW so whilst I didn't repaint my bedroom every 6 months, I'd move the furniture and add difference accessories regularly to reflect how I was using the room at that time.
It's why I got bored of my old bullet journal, because I stuck to the same layouts week in week out and now I've started mixing mine up in my new notebook, I immediately love it more.
It's why I sometimes have a massive cull on my phone, jiggle all the apps around, change my background and my themes and the way I organise it. I like things that are old to feel new.
I like changing the configuration of my phone because it feels like getting a new phone you don't quite know how to work every time. I like changing how I use my bujo because it excites me to come up with new designs and layouts. I like changing my house because it feels like a new way to use a space I've already got.
So naturally that extends to my blog.
In the year since I started it I had one MAJOR redesign and one slightly smaller tweaking; effectively 3 designs in the year. And that might seem a lot, but I was itching to get redesigning when I did them. I put my tweaking off until it's first birthday because it seemed like a logical time to take my site offline for a few days but I was ready to get cracking on it in November.
So the idea that I have now created a design that means I can just give it a refresh every time I want to is very appealing to me.
I changed up my old layout by taking away the sleek black logos and the pink highlights we all love and brought in a bit more colour. My announcement bar, my sign off, my sidebar, my header...they can all be changed in colour and font and that tiny tiny change can have such a huge impact on my site.
Right now this minute, I'm not changing it. But next week I will be. And that's simply down to the fact I don't have time right now (but lol do have time to whack out this little post) but next week in celebration of my spring like new Instagram theme I'll be having a little colour change.
That 10 minute job will change the way my site feels and looks and the one thing I wanted from my new look blog was the ability to change it with the seasons. I'm already thinking pink sometime near the summer and red or pine green for Christmas; there goes my need to change again.
In my eyes, a blog refresh is as important as a big blog redesign job.
We have it drummed into us the importance of our 'brand' and trust me, I know that to be true but I think there's a common misconception that it means we can't change how our sites look or what core colour we're working with.
How many times do you see 'rebrand' used when someone just means a redesign of their blog. Hell, I've probably said the same thing.
A blog redesign every once in a while (every year in my opinion FYI) is important to how we grow. You wouldn't want to be stuck on that layout from when you started back in 2012 would you? Blogs move with the trends and there's a definite theme to our platforms. They all have common elements and those elements are bound to change in the next few years as blogging changes.
Which is why it's important to also have the capacity to have a refresh every once in a while, to change things to make it work for you without having to have a major design haul every 3 months. Nailing a blog layout that you LOVE but also gives you the potential to slightly play with the features or the colours is the best combination you can have in my opinion.
And does that change your 'brand'? In my opinion - no.
If you've got a solid title/logo you always use and you keep your social media photos the same throughout each platform it's that in addition to your photography and your words that create your brand - NOT the colour of your blog.
