Personal Blog Template Design for Adventure/Travel Blog

Travel & Hotel

I am an avid world traveler, adventurer, and learner. In the last four years, I've travelled to 30+ different countries, including visits to each of the new Seven Wonders of the World. I'm adventurous by nature and my activities have included hiking the Inca Trail in Peru, horseback riding in Iceland, camping in the deserts of Jordan, and hitchhiking my way through Morocco. I also enjoy learning new and unusual skills. In the last year, I've done skydiving, flying trapeze, skeet shooting, auto-crossing, cycling, horseback riding, tactical handgun training and many more random activities. Some longer term activities include ballroom dancing, rock climbing, and software development. I try to embody the jack-of-all trades, Renaissance man philosophy.

http://www.bloggerthemes.net/2009/12/memorybook.html http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/bulletin-board-blogger-template.jpg The two above sites have a variety of evoking imagery in the header. While none of the actual imagery is interesting to me, I like the idea of a blended collage of random but related images. http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/panorama-blogger-template.jpg http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/notebook-blogger-template.jpg Like the first two, these third and fourth examples encompass the entire page. That is, the main content is "wrapped"in the theme of the page http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/letter-frame-blogger-template.jpg In the above, like the postmark as it evokes the idea of travel (and I have a habit of sending postcards to close friends). The header also has a picture frame which could serve a place to put the periodically changing image described previously - though I would prefer a more subtle approach than a picture frame. http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/christmas-new-year-eve-template.jpg http://media02.hongkiat.com/blogger-templates-most-wanted/edens-garden-blogger-template.jpg In the two above, I appreciate the fact that the dates of the entry are clear - though I'm not a fan of any other part of the design/color scheme in the Christmas and Garden themes.

As I continue to travel and learn on my adventures, I would like to start blogging to capture and share my stories. The goal of this project is a design for a general blog page. The layout need not not follow standard convention (i.e. main content column, sidebar menu) - creative layout is appreciated. There should be some area though for: navigating the blog archives, small ad space, linking out to external sites (e.g. online photo album). I would like the design of the page to convey the adventurous, worldly, random nature of my activities. I intend to make blog entries chronicling places I've traveled, lessons I've learned, and general adventurous thoughts. Many of these entires will include inline pictures. Additionally, I would like to be able to blend in a picture from my most recent trip into a small part of the background of the site. The picture should not be the focus of the design/layout and the picture need not be show in its entirety (i.e. it doesn't have to be an empty rectangular space) - in fact, I would prefer if there were a visually aesthetic way that different images could be incorporated into the theme over time. I don't want to limit the creativity here - but as an example to attempt to convey the idea - if the header had large text, any open letters (O, P, D, B, etc) could for example "peek" through to the image behind the word. The idea would be to have a small, subtle way to change the appearance of the theme to reflect recent travel. Any such picture would likely be a city-scape skyline view or scenic panorama shot.

Target platform is Blogger.com; age range is 28-32; I'm a male. Key characteristic to convey would be adventure.

Every design category has flexible pricing for all budgets. Web page design starts at $599.