It was 2004 when I did the first design for Pia at Courting Destiny - until today, she had been using that same design for the past 3 years and decided it was high time for a change. Her blog has become well-known for its design over the years - she has a retro/pin-up kind of look going on that she just adores.. so this time…

Pia wanted to keep the same pin-up gal we used in her last design - a beautiful retro pin-up work by Alberto Vargas. She also wanted to keep the original color scheme of pink and greens. However, she wanted a more updated/modern design while still keeping the retro feel to the site. She also wanted to pare down the site from a 3-column layout to a 2-column layout with a minimalistic approach to the content she had in her sidebars. She had a lot of links, blogrolls, webrings and various bits and buttons that we ended up putting on separate pages for her, in an attempt to really clean things up.

Personally, Pia really wants to focus on her writing and works of fiction and stories. I kept her personal writing goals at the forefront of my mind while working on her latest design and layout, and provided her with a clean and simple layout that was still in keeping with all the pink and green retro goodness that her site has become known for.

Pia had this to say in her recent post about her new design:

I read everything I could on blog design and thought that Lisa Sabin Wilson, had to design it. She understood how important it was to me, and rushed the design. One that I loved–the 200 blogs and other things I sent her helped a bit.

Lisa asked the greatest questions. I described my apartment wall colors and furniture to her.
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Lisa’s genius lies in understanding design visions and making them come true. I’m a form function and total design freak.

Some of you know too well that I can spend paragraphs describing one chair. Obviously I loved answering Lisa’s questions….

~ Read the whole post here.

I always have a good time working with Pia - she brings so much energy and enthusiasm to each project, it’s hard not to have fun!

To Pia, herself - thanks for letting me dabble in your space on the web once again!