This week I finished and launched the brand new redesign of Celebrity Baby Blog owned and operated by Danielle Friedland since January 2004. This redesign has been in the works for quite some time - since early December 2006, to be exact…

Danielle came to the table with a ton of great ideas for her redesign - some pieces that really extend her Typepad powered blog beyond its normal capacity. Her creativity and ideas really gave life to the project, along with the new 4 column css layout in - what else? Pink and blue, of course!

Using the ability provided by Typepad to mark a post as ‘Featured’ (or sticky) - I created a dynamic portion at the top of her main index page that will allow her and the authors of Celebrity Baby Blog to place the spotlight on a hot post that they feel should be up front and center. When they mark a post as “Featured” it appears on the top of the site:

When they do not have a featured post running - the box dissapears without affecting the rest of the layout at all. It’s a really super way to call attention to posts that are important or popular. Not too mention keeping them active long after the post would normally sink into the archives of the site.

Another really nice feature on this project is the ability for them to highlight hot posts and past featured posts on the front page. We accomplished this through the use of Typepad TypeLists. Two boxes live right underneath the “Featured Post” box to allow them to continue calling attention to blog posts that are hot, but not featured - - and to keep a listing of the last 5 (or whatever number they want) posts that were most recently featured in the “Featured Post” box at the top:

Danielle refers to them as ‘Call Outs’ - which makes sense because the boxes are calling out to her visitors to pay attention to what’s hot, hip and popular at the moment.

Another really nice feature appears at the bottom of every page, beneath the post listings with the header of “Don’t Miss These Articles” — this area pulls in the last 30 posts they make to the “News” category so that their readers can always see a listing of the most recent news posts:

Each of these features brings a fresh and updated feeling to the site - as well as a bit of excitement because its not your typical Typepad set up.

Danielle is very successful with her blog about celebrity babies, and their parents - - so much so that it is her full time job, second only to taking care of her own little one. She owns and operates Celebrity Baby Blog, Inc. and is a fantastic example of how bloggers can really turn their hobby and interests into a business. They keep pretty busy over there, and run a pretty tight ship - - but if you get the chance to visit, you’re sure to be entertained. Let ‘em know I sent ya!