Installing a new WordPress theme is both easy and challenging, as I was reminded over the weekend when what I’d thought of as a quick job, installing the new Vertigo Blue 3 Column theme, consumed a large part of Saturday for me.
It’s easy, once you have the hang of it, because you just have to:
It’s challenging if you have already spent time configuring whatever was there before and have to re-configure for the new theme. It is almost certainly not challenging, or not very, for people who know more than I do about manipulating widgets. But for me, making sure everything is working as I want it to in the sidebars, footer and header is a non-intuitive time-consuming and task.
So I like to use themes that, as well as being functional in the way I want and creatively designed in a style that I see as congruent with my business image, do not tax my very limited knowledge of coding too much.
Narrows the range!
And I like to use themes where there is some indication that the person who created the particular theme is willing to provide some support in language sufficiently non-technical for me to be able to apply the advice.
Even narrower.
So I was really pleased when, some time ago, I discovered some great themes by Brian Gardner.
I really liked Brian’s Vertigo series, but could not at first work out how to change the header from the default mode to having my own words on it. I’ve found out the hard way that WordPress theme designers handle this aspect of the design differently.
Brian’s support forum gave me the solution, with a thread “How to change the “Vertigo” title. Some basic work with PaintShop Pro and I was there: not prizewinning stuff, but it works.
I’ve had some very positive feedback on the new layout, from a few people.
Given the time involved for me in these changeover exercises, I don’t have any intention of changing themes again on this site in the near future. I’m also thinking about using one of the Vertigo themes on my Thinking Home Business site (there’s your blue Vertigo as here, red, and your basic black, as well as having 2 column options).
Brian Gardner also does customized themes. And if you are looking for a newspaper/magazine sort of layout for your website/blog, check out his very economically priced Revolution theme, which looks to me like it makes excellent use of the broader range of WordPress’ content management capability.
If you have any suggestions as to how the site can be improved, they will be welcome. Can’t promise to make changes that tax too much my limited technical knowhow!
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
Subscribe via RSS 
I want to use Brian’s 3 col Red Vertigo theme but I’m not sure how to change the header text.
I see you mentioned the support forums, but they seem to be down, or at least the web address is not valid.
Any suggestions on how to make the change. Thx!
[Reply]
Hi Dee
Well, as you see I’m not using Vertigo now: I’m using Brian Gardner’ Silhoutte theme. But here are some notes on how I changed the header text with Vertigo:
At this stage I can only give you some basic suggestions, about changing the
text on the header.
In the images folder for the theme, there are two key image files and each has a copy: header.gif + header_blank.gif and logo.gif + logo_blank.gif
You open the header_blank.gif in your graphics program and then put your own title in.
Then you open the logo_blank.gif file and put something there, or leave it blank.
I used an old version of PaintShop Pro (I think it may now have been taken over by Corel).
I then gave the edited files new names, so as not to overwrite the _blank files: you could call them anything, say header_m.gif and logo_m.gif
Upload the edited files, delete header.gif and logo.gif, rename header_m.gif as header.gif and rename logo_m.gif as logo.gif
I tried substituting an image of myself, with exactly the same dimensions as the logo.gif but it was either too big on the screen or it appeared double. I’m sure there is an easy solution, but right now I don’t know what it is.
I hope you find this clear and helpful. Let me know if you think I can be of further assistance.
[Reply]