Featuring American Sloth-ic
This Week’s Topic: Blog Design
For those of you who have been following the blog for a while, you may know Sloth. (If not, this is a great time to get to know him.)
Sloth says hi!
While Sloth mostly loves to live the slow life, he also loves to go places! Throughout the years, Sloth has been on many adventures, like going on an Alaskan cruise, seeing The Hunger Games Exhibition, and more. Sloth particularly enjoys going to bookish events like BookExpo and other author signings. (See more posts with Sloth here and more photos here).
Look at how majestic he is.
With Sloth being the mascot of WLABB, it only made sense for him to be the muse of the new blog design. The initial concept was simply cartoons of all the WLABBers and Sloth on the banner, but this quickly switched into Sloth-overdrive.
The first thing I did while starting the blog design, was sketch out ideas. These are the very first concept sketches for the new blog design:
From there, I started looking for fonts. I really like brush fonts that kind of look like something you would see on a bullet journal Instagram page. I ended up finding a wonderful font called "Slow Life" on dafont. It was perfect - not only did it look how I wanted, but it was also called "Slow Life" which is Sloth-tastic! This is the font featured in the blog header as well as on the various new post banners.
After picking the perfect font, I started working on the base Sloth and the banner. But while I was working on the initial Sloth, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be great if we had Sloth-mojis????" And so nine initial Sloth-mojis have been made - they are featured on the blog background, but here's a bigger view as well:
Maybe there will be even more Sloth-mojis in the future...
While the theme is still definitely in progress (I mean, only Sam and Sloth have finished icons), I think it's really fun! I look forward to making even more Sloth-tastic additions to the theme.
But enough about Sloth (don't tell him I said that or he'll be mad), tell me about your blog!
What inspired your blog theme?
Let us know in the comments!
You drew all of those sloths!!! I am so impressed. Also, I love the sketches you did of you guys as well-- very cute!! I like your new design and think it fits your blog really good. It's a lot more modern and the colors are fun!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! It's definitely a nice change of pace.
DeleteSloth is so cute! It's fun to have a mascot--that's kind of what the girl on my blog is!
ReplyDeleteShe's so cute! I love when people have a symbol that goes with their blog (mascot or otherwise).
DeleteSloths are one of my favorite animals, so I love the redesign. I’m impressed that you drew all those sloths. I have no artistic talent at all.
ReplyDeleteAj @ Read All The Things!
Me too! Sloths are so cute. And thanks! :)
DeleteOh I love it!! The sloth emojis are the best. I really need to revamp my blog but I need to find someone because I am so not good with all ths stuff!!
ReplyDeleteI've seen a bunch of great services online from bloggers who also do design! I'm sure if you look around you can find something :)
DeleteWow, I love your new design!! Sloths are super-cute, imo, and it's cool that the mascot of your blog became part of the design, as well. Also, the sloth-mojis are EVERYTHING.
ReplyDeleteVeronika @ The Regal Critiques
We're obviously huge sloth fans here too haha. Thank you!!
DeleteI didn't know you designed all the sloths. Great job - love all the slothmojis are on your background. It's so cute!!!
ReplyDelete-Lauren
www.shootingstarsmag.net
Thanks! It was super fun to make.
DeleteI really love your new design, and I'm even more impressed now that I know you drew the sloths yourself!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I guess four years of art school paid off haha
Deletethe sloth-mojis are adorable. I like them. so what did your blog look like before the makeover? I'm a new visitor so I don't know. but it looks great!
ReplyDeletehave a lovely day.
Thanks! Before this, our blog had a kind of toned down look - the background was like a gradient of pea green and the banner had some roses on it. Definitely more of a "classic" look than the new one.
DeleteSloth’s are awesome! I love that a sloth is your mascot.
ReplyDeleteThanks! :)
DeleteI love your new design, it's so cute and fun! And that's awesome you did th drawings yourself! They came out so good. My blog design is just a simple template, I really have no skills so I wanted to keep it pretty straightforward.
ReplyDeleteSimplicity is great too! Part of the struggle with this one was balancing the sloths with not being too in your face haha.
DeleteThe slothmojis are so cute! I love the new look of the blog. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
DeleteSloth-mojis are officially the best thing about book blogging in general. You win, no one else need apply. I am so in love with the design- because it's adorable and so unique! And the drawings!! They are seriously incredible! I also had to go check out Sloth at The Hunger Games Exhibition because of COURSE. It might be the best thing I have ever seen? No, it definitely is.
ReplyDeleteThanks!! The Hunger Games Exhibition is definitely one of my favorite Sloth adventures.
DeleteWow! Totally cute! I love the sloth-mojis! How cute are they?! It sure brightens your blog and gives us the fabulous tongue in cheek feel I lve about your posts. ♥️ I was inspired by my desire to be a writer and all the studying I did for it... now I can’t review a book without seeing it through the lens of a Writer.
ReplyDeleteThank you! That's so cool that you took that inspiration into your design!
DeleteI just love the sloth emojis! They are absolutely adorable! And I do love brush fonts as well. I love this redesign so much!
ReplyDeleteThanks! (Insert kissy-face Sloth-moji here)
DeleteI smile every time I visit your site and see those sloths everywhere. I'm super impressed that you sketched them yourself. I need to do something more with my blog layout but I just have no artistic skill whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I think you can definitely do something fun with your blog without drawing it all yourself - sometimes it's just a fun background print that's available for free use or a new color palette.
DeleteThe sloth emojis are so cute! I only just now realized that the sloths in the background represent different emojis and that just made it all the more adorable :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! We wanted the background to be subtle but I feel like noticing all the emojis is like a little extra treat :)
DeleteSOOOOO CUTE!
ReplyDeleteThank you!!
DeleteThese sloths are honestly so cute! The design looks great. The fonts are nice and bold. Good job!!!
ReplyDeleteHave a wonderful weekend, Sam. =)
Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!
Thank you! I think the new fonts are definitely an improvement on readability for the headings.
DeleteSloth-mojis? Haha, those are so unique. Your new banner too! I have a cartoonish one as well, so I get where you're coming from (though mine got developed like that quite by chance). I also love the little blogger icons. Great job!
ReplyDeleteYour theme is so cute! I love that color palette - super different and fun!
DeleteSo cute! I just bought my niece a sloth birthday card.
ReplyDeleteI change my blog so many times. Whenever I get bored with blogging it helps me out of a slump. Thankfully everyone puts up with my nonsense lol
Karen @ For What It's Worth
Sloths are pretty awesome, and most of my friends have come to associate me with them. I am always getting tagged in sloth things online. Change can be good. A fresh design is like a fresh start.
DeleteOMG, the sloths are just TOO TOO CUTE. Love the redesign!! :)
ReplyDeleteI think it really fits my personality.
DeleteI LOVE these cute little sloths. What a perfect mascot! (I'll confess that I may have called him a hedgehog in one of my comments earlier, but now I definitely see my error. LOL!) And I think the emojis are adorable!
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction
Thank you! I am quite pleased with my gift. Now I just need to convince Kiersten to make me a few more banners.
DeleteI adore the new theme. I was excited to head about it and it looks awesome. Sloth theme is on point and I am loving the Sloth emojis too.
ReplyDeleteHow could you go wrong with sloths? I am thinking of getting his little kissy face emoji tattooed on my wrist. It would remind of sloth, who is fantastic, but mostly of my daughter.
DeleteI like your design and it's so fun and playful. Gotta love sloths <3 I used to have an orange and green design for Olivia's Catastrophe - my two favourite colours. But in a survey people consistently mentioned liking lighter designs so I went with a light pink for my move to Wordpress. I love it, and it has grown on me. I use orange font for my questions at the end of the posts like I used to do though, and try to keep my favourite colour incorporated in small ways.
ReplyDeleteOrange is really an underrated color. It's my favorite too, and it's just not used enough. Though Kiersten being a Syracuse alumna is a HUGE fan of the color.
DeleteOMG this is the cutest blog design ever!!! I never thought that a blog could have a mascot, this is so brilliant. You should definitely add more Sloth emojis!
ReplyDeleteI have also been tweaking the look of my blog just recently. New header and social media icons and I added a blog button. I have no cute and interesting inspiration such as Sloth here. I just generally worked around my favorite color, mint green. :)
I just visited, your site looks great! I love this design, because I think it captures the quirkiness that each of the WLABBers has.
DeleteI love the sloths!! Sooo cute! My blog has mostly stayed the same through the years. I have made a few tweaks here and there but it has mostly looked the same :) I prefer a minimalist style, too.
ReplyDeleteThis is the third design for WLABB, and by far my favorite, because it's all Kiersten's artwork, and well, sloths. I tried to talk her into a white background type site, but Kiersten was not having it.
Delete