I’ve been tinkering in the background the past few days with ideas about a new theme for my photoblog and what you are currently looking is what I came up with. I wanted something that was simple, but unique and since I do enjoy being creative, I thought I would look at redesigning the theme from the ground up.

The various aspects I wanted to use in my new theme:

• Darker Layout – Hopefully to bring out the photos I take. I do not take vary many dark photos so I thought a darker background might help bring them out a bit better. If I do have a photo that might be too dark, I might put it onto a white background (the photo).
• Wider Layout – I went with a 900px wide layout that allows for me to post 800px wide photos. Bigger is better right? Majority of people these days have at least a 1024×768 resolution on their monitors (if they don’t they should look at upgrading). The downside to this is that Flickr does not allow for an 800px wide option. They have 1024 and 500. Perhaps if I only upload 800px wide images, then I can just hotlink to the original size instead. So in the meantime, photos that I will be using in posts for this site will be uploaded directly here.
• Simpler – I removed the sidebar from the layout. In this case, I didn’t think a sidebar would be really worth having, and it would cost me screen space too. I still allow for people to leave comments, I just do not show you the recent comments or top commentators. I kept the Recent Photos, Popular Photos and created simple graphics for RSS, Flickr and Twitter. I moved the Categories to the bottom (in the footer), though I might change that at a later date.
• Thumbnails – I also took the code I created for my main blog (www.tyleringram.com) which will take the first <img> tag it sees and will thumbnail it for the archive section of this theme. If you click on a category, it will list the first 5 posts within that category. It will also display a thumbnail of the first image it finds and uses that along with the excerpt for that particular post.

The above photo is a request of Robyn’s. It also doubles as an example of a 800xp wide photo which is the  maximum width.

The above photo was taken at the fringe of Stanley Park near the Parks Board office in English Bay. The Herons are nesting all over the place. There are probably about a dozen nests per tree, and at least a dozen trees are currently being nested in. Next time you’re in the area, just look up. You will probably see them! Careful though, walking directly under a heron can be a very messy experience if you’re not too careful.

So what do you think? Please feel free to comment on which ever aspect of the new theme you might like, hate or perhaps needs a bit of work.