In Part 1, I told you that Prose is the child theme I recommend for beginners or anyone who doesn't have a lot of background with CSS. Last time we talked about the basic layout options you have in Genesis (Dashboard –> Genesis –> Theme Settings). This time we'll talk a little bit about the design options you have (Dashboard –> Genesis –> Design Settings).
I went through it a bit quick; just start and stop as you need. The bottom line here is that it's a great idea to experiment with all the settings available to you.
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Video Notes:
The bottom line here is that you should experiment! Play around with the colors, fonts, sizes, borders, padding, etc. until you achieve a look that you like!
Referenced:
- Get Prose here.
- How to Customize Your WordPress Background Using Patterns
- ColorZilla is the Chrome Extension I used to grab the color from the image.
Here are some of my other posts you might find helpful in further customizing your site:
- How to Optimize Your WordPress Settings: Part 2 – good to know before you publish your first post
- Q&A: What Genesis Child Theme Should I Use? – the first post in this series
- How to Make a Photo Collage – an tutorial for creating a collage (that you might consider using as a header)
- How to Install Fancy Fonts for Free – another option to change things up a bit
- How to Change Your Genesis Favicon – recommended to further brand your site and make it more uniform
- The Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners {Free Download}
- Free Alternatives to Picnik – tools for image creation
- How to Make Your Home Page Static (Not a Blog) – in case you need a site that just gives basic info (check out AmyLynnAndrews.com which uses this technique)
- How to See Behind Any Website (Great for Tweaking and Design!) – a handy tool that might help in the process
More resources:
- Genesis tutorials and Prose Tutorials (available after purchasing Prose)
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
Other posts in this series
- Q&A: What Genesis Child Theme Should I Use?
- Q&A: What Genesis Child Theme Should I Use? (Part 2)
Four months I've been looking for the answer! Four MONTHS of occasionally seeking a simple solution! And there it was right in front of me, but since I didn't know what it meant – and I've had lots of OTHER things to learn about – I never tried it. And then your video. Huge sigh of joy!
So THAT'S what Secondary Navigation means!!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I've been trying to will that silly top nav bar below the header to no avail.
(Sure makes me curious if you know the answer to my other dilemma – one of many other: Why is my header font blurry no matter what I do when I create my graphic – used Picasa and Paint , and a combo of both just to see if that helped. Nothing. Fuzzy.)
Much thankfulness for your help!
Suzanne
I'm so glad I can help!
Regarding a fuzzy image, the first thing I would check is that you are creating the image the right dimensions (ex. 940px by 150px). Sometimes, the fuzziness comes from low resolution images, but oftentimes I find that using online tools always results in fuzzy images. I recommend using an image editing tool like Gimp (free) or Photoshop.
Thank you, Amy. I switched to Paint and for some reason that helped … and saving as a png file helped, too. Still looking into Gimp.
Hello again
. Under the Genesis section of my wordpress dashboard, my only options are – theme settings, Import/Export and README. Did I miss something? Is it just that I have a different theme than Prose?
Thanks Amy!
Yes. Only Prose has the Design Settings (and the other options you see of mine in the video are plugins).
So…where do we find the tutorial on making the full width header and footer in Prose?
Also, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the responsive design… If I specify widths via CSS (i.e. my ads are 300px wide so my sidebar has to be that wide), will it be an issue when viewed on a phone? Or is the responsive part done by percentages?
Thanks so much for this Amy. I just bought Genesis and Prose (through your link) … feeling excited but nervous at the same time. My blog is just about to have some big changes. Just had a custom header done for me from a friend so now will be able to customise it further and not be stuck with the limitations of my free wordpress theme!! Will be studying these tutorials a lot!!!
Hope it goes well, Michelle!
Hey Amy. I have purchased the prose theme but I want a custom header. The problem I am running into (and spending way too much time on) is creating the header. The prose theme allows for a 940 x 150 header. I've found an image that I love and have edited the comp in Picmonkey to include text but when I "tested" it on my blog, I had to crop it to the right size which eliminated 75% of my header. Maybe the comp image was too big? What size image should I be looking for to be able to add text, upload it and retain image quality? This has had me stumped for weeks, if not months. I feel like a real dummy for asking but I don't know where else to turn. I've searched for the answer everywhere and it doesn't seem that others are having this issue so I know I'm overlooking something. HELP and thank you!
No worries, it's a good question. You'll have to use an image that's 940×150 pixels. It sounds like maybe you're trying to use an image with normal portrait or landscape dimensions? If so, unfortunately, it won't work. You have to crop it to 940×150, otherwise, it'll always be distorted. I hope that makes sense.
I wanted to say thank you. One of the things I dislike most about themes is that there are so many and even when you find one that looks good – you just never know how well it'll work for YOU once you get a chance to "look under the hood" and that often times requires a purchase.
I would NEVER have thought about buying Prose because I don't know much about CSS at all and the little I do know about HTML – it wouldn't be enough to tweak the coding in a theme to suit me. So I would figure a barebones theme like Prose would be a nightmare – when in fact it looks like just the thing I need!
Thanks so much for the tutorials! I loved getting to see the behind-the-scenes options before purchasing – I wish ALL themes provided that.
I'm definitely going to subscribe to your blog. That Color Picker plugin sounds so awesome as well.
Thanks again!
April