Design Disease - Professional Blog Design

I am not marketed enough

Elena — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:40:02 +0000

For the last few months I discovered my weakest point and that is communication through this blog. Not being a native English speaker moved all my attention to design and design only. I thought this is enough but it isn’t so and this is my conclusion …I am not marketed enough (See other Blog Designers) …and this is all my fault.

Are you agree with me on this? Should I start selling Premium Themes? I would like to know what do you think about my work and if you theme lovers have any advices for me.

Here is my report for 2007.

InSense | 11th Oct 2007 | 2634 Downloads
Gossip City | 11th Oct 2007 | 5642 Downloads
Smashing Theme | 19th Oct 2007 | 2268 Downloads
Illacrimo | 5th Nov 2007 | 3572 Downloads
Christmas Days | 12th Nov 2007 | 4137 Downloads
Dilectio | 9th Dec 2007 | 6297 Downloads
More then 25 Unique Blog Designs for my clients and many more.

Just that.

Dilectio Wordpress Theme

Elena — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:33:34 +0000

I made a new fresh wordpress theme for the readers of Smashing Magazine.

“Over the last year Elena, the creative mind behind Design Disease team, has designed a number of free WordPress themes, as the Smashing WordPress Theme we released as a present for our readers during our One-Year-Anniversary in September’07. Afterwards we’ve contacted Elena and asked if it’s possible to design another Wordpress theme for our readers. Elena agreed.

After we’ve discussed the details of the design and the main aims we wanted to achieve, Elena started to do her magic. The result is a fresh, clean, user-friendly and playful Wordpress theme “Dilectio” — a smashing Christmas present for Smashing Magazine readers.”

Update 12.01.2007This theme is availble also in :

and also a version for Blogger (Thank you Francisco)

Blogger Version

5 steps to something that will sell

Elena — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:18:43 +0000

Quite often, I see large, big titles such as: “10 Steps towards improving your blog’s design” or “5 Simple steps towards an astounding blog design”, or others alike.

I don’t really mind the title as much as I mind the simplicity tackled by some when treating this subject. I think that those who use these “best-seller like” titles should rather focus on the design of their own blog sites since, in most cases, these sites have an awful design.

Moreover, when receiving advices from such people, whose web sites have been erroneously designed, one begins to wonder if or why those precious advices have not been already implemented into the sites promoting them.

Initially being attracted by the large, “best-seller like” title, you discover at a later date that the web site’s owner, a self-proclaimed “theme guru designer”, also provides a “Premium Themes” offer, inconveniently crowded and displayed in the sidebar. Well, well. Isn’t this my lucky day? I reckon that this site has everything I need in order to start designing my blogs just like a theme guru designer.

On the same subject, I remember that once I began debating on the subject of sponsored themes, those who nowadays promote their Premium themes started pointing their finger at me, while instantly assuming the position of saints and mighty defenders of the WordPress blogging platform.

Oh, and let’s not even get into the concept of “Premium” service, product or whatever. Such a concept reminds me of the days when web hosting providers used to sort their offer into: Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Premium. Now that’s boring and utterly with no personality!

So far, I had decided not to express online my opinions and approach on certain subjects. However, I’ve decided to break the silence and focus on the WordPress themes I’m designing or have designed, as well as on some general — or more detailed — subjects, such as the one displayed above.

TaTa

Christmas Days - WordPress Theme Release

Elena — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 09:17:27 +0000

I’m proud to announce the release of a new theme called “Christmas Days”. This theme is a season theme for WordPress created by Design Disease. The theme was created because most of us celebrate Christmas, and I wanted to make a gift to all bloggers around the world. The theme has been tested on WordPress 2.3.1 with Firefox , Opera, Safari and IE6/7. It validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

Theme
Once you’ve downloaded the theme and extracted the files, upload the folder to your wp-content/themes/ directory. Next, go to the ‘Presentation’ area in your WordPress administration panel and activate the theme.

Plugins
I’ve included the following plugins with the theme (in the plugins folder):

flickrrss

Just upload everything in the plugins folder to your wp-content/plugins/ folder and activate the plugins from the ‘Plugins’ page in your administration panel. The plugins are customised to match Christmas Days theme.

License
This theme is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Please keep the design credit.

The theme is Widget Ready.

Enjoy.

Celebrific - Gossip City - WordPress Theme Release

Elena — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:18:13 +0000

Yes we did it after the so many requests.

The Gossip City theme is ready for download.

Enjoy.

@Celebrific

Gossip City is a theme for WordPress created by Design Disease. The theme was created based on what people would want to see from a gossip blog.

Plugins
I’ve included the following plugins with the theme (in the plugins folder):

Logo
By default, the theme displays your Web site’s title and description in the header. If you want to replace that with your logo, it’s easy to do. If you look at the Logo Instructions.txt you will see how easy it is to change the logo. PSD Source for the logo is also included.

License
This theme, like all themes released by Bloggy Network are released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Please keep the credit and the links from the footer.

The theme is Widget Ready.

Enjoy.