Do you have any suggestions for fonts that are a little bit fun, but could still work in a corporate environment? My department is doing a blog (I’m so excited!) and I want it to be attractive, fun, and friendly without looking too personal and unprofessional. – Lisa
I understand your dilemma – I work with this every day trying to keep our web presence at work from looking too uptight and stodgy. You want the font to have personality without being overpowering. I would go with fonts that have clean lines and stay away from ones that are grungy or hand-drawn looking for the main font, but you could use them for an accent on graphics.
How do you feel about WordPress.com versus Blogspot for layouts? I had a WordPress blog, and a Blogspot blog and I can’t decide which to use. I didn’t feel like there were ways to really personalize it. But I adored the tabs and pages you could do! Are there ways to personalize and get around WordPresses weird quirks? I like adding little pictures down the side of my layouts but I just can’t seem to figure anything on on WordPress because of their weird widgets. – Chelsea
Good question! Both WordPress.com and BlogSpot seem to have their good and bad points. WordPress.com has 100 + templates to start with and covers a wide range of styles. They allow some customization like changing out the header, number of columns and sometimes the background, but it’s difficult to really make it your own without purchasing a CSS upgrade.
Blogspot has less template options, but more ways to customize the style and layout. You can change out header and background images, and edit the CSS without an upgrade.
WordPress allows you to sort posts with categories or tags, Blogspot has a tag option, but not a good way to display them in the sidebar for your readers.
Both systems offer widgets (gadgets) for adding a list of archives, popular posts, etc, but Blogger has more options including Adsense and slideshows. Though you can always use text/html widgets to add anything you like in your sidebar…this would be the answer to adding pictures.
The support system at WordPress is fantastic. There has not been one question or problem (and I’ve had a ton) that I wasn’t able to find an answer to in the forums. Like me, WordPress users loooove WordPress, so they spend a lot of time helping each other and making widgets and plug-ins to enhance their blogs.
From a reader standpoint I’ve found the WordPress commenting system is much more attractive and easier to use. You don’t have to login to Google/Opentype/etc or wait for a pop-up window. WordPress has a clean form that lives right on the blog page.
I also find the WordPress dashboard to be more attractive and easier to use than Blogspot.
I am and will always be a huge fan of WordPress. If your plan is to grab a cute template, maybe pop in a custom header and get to blogging then I say WordPress. If you want to have more customization options then the question is free (BlogSpot) or $15 for a CSS upgrade (WordPress). And if at some point you might switch to a self-hosted blog I’d go ahead and start the love affair with WordPress now. But of course since they’re free you can always test them both for a while and see which you like better.
If you have a nerdy question a la blogging, WordPress, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, etc. feel free to leave it in the comments or email me at xosillygrrl@gmail.com (subject: Nerd Q&A) and I’ll post the answers next week!
Comments (10)
I love this post – I’m a big fan of fonts :-)
I’m just wondering though, what is the name of the font you use on your right sidebar? It’s adorable and I’ve seen it used a few places but I can’t seem to find it anywhere.
sillygrrl Reply:
January 22nd, 2011 at 6:53 pm
it’s called pupcat: http://www.dafont.com/pupcat.font
Q: How do you make the jump from being hosted by blogspot/wordpress to being self hosted? What is the process and advantages on being self hosted?
Ahh almost forgot, I don’t think there’s a google friend follower on wordpress is there?
Thanks for that fantastic list for both WordPress and Blogspot! The main problem I have with wordpress is the customization, so I’m trying blogspot now. I used blogspot like, 10 years ago and decided to see how much it’s changed…but that commenting pop up is annoying and unattractive indeed! Really, the most specific thing with WordPress was I wanted to put specific lists, and buttons and pictures along the sides in a 3 table layout and I had so much trouble with it.
@Mae Lu – Do those templates work on a free wordpress blog? I think for now I’ll stick with my blogspot (I’ve yet to write a blog entry though haha) and maybe snag my name on wordpress just in case.
sillygrrl Reply:
January 22nd, 2011 at 11:07 am
You’re welcome! You can add pictures, lists, buttons and Google Friend Connect using the html/txt widget in WordPress, but you will need to know a little html to do so. I used Blogspot about 10 years ago as well and it has changed quite a bit.
I love the font choices you show here. I like looking for different ones to add to my designs, it’s amazing how many different styles you can find.
Great tips about WordPress and Blogger. I started my blog on blogger, but I’ve had to tweak a lot of the code to make it look how I want and even then there are things I wish I could change. Maybe I’ll look into switching over to WordPress in the future. Thanks for all the great tips!
@ last question person, if you have $20-25 to spend on a beautiful template, gorgeous WordPress ones can be purchased from http://themeforest.net. There are thousands of inexpensive easily customizable wordpress templates with amazing design and functionality.
There are wordpress plugin’s that allow for Adsense, side bar customizatization, however, that would be for self-hosted wordpress blogs, which is the way I recommend. Self-hosted wordpress also allows for CSS/PHP editing. If that’s too hard for some people, though, I still recommend wordpress.com blogs (which I currently use, because I’m afraid switching to self-hosted and domain mapping/url re-direction would fuck with my ever growing traffic), over blogspot.
The technology is much more superior. Plus, Blogspot is so web 1.0 I can’t get my head around it! LOL!
And I agree with you, Sarah, the pop up box is so effing annoying.
Those fonts are BEAUTIFUL!!!
GAH – you always find the BEST fonts! Thanks for sharing them with us.
I think Blogspot is a fabulous place to “get your feet wet” in blogging, but I’m a diehard WordPress fan as well. (Admittedly though I’ve not used WP.com, only self-hosted WP installations… but I understand there’s limitations on the WP.com sites unless you pay for upgrades — bummer!)