Christina Loves is a new blog owned and maintained by Christina Jones of b5media.com - she also runs the insanely popular eBeautyDaily Beauty Blog. Christina approached with her ideas for the concept of her blog design, wanting something a little out of the ordinary than what you normally see on a typical WordPress blog…

Christina is a true ‘girly girl’ and wanted a LOT of pink - balanced out with clean white space that provides a sharp display of her content, sponsors and other elements.

Usually, blogs present content in a chronological fashion - displaying the most recent posts on the front page, with archived lists by category and by date in the sidebar. For her blog, Christina wanted something different and fresh.

The front page of her blog presents her content in a topical, rather than chronological, fashion - using a method that has become so popular with WordPress blogs called “Magazine Theming”.

At the very top right of her site, she has chosen 4 categories that she wants up front and center: Beauty, Fashion, Gadgets and Life. I created customized navigation elements for those 4 categories that have a pretty cool display when you hover over them (check it out!).

Next up is a navigation bar with the static pages that she has created - - and again with the cool hover effect when you hover over the links in her page navigation bar.

The next section is a nice tabbed navigation using jQuery technology that allows the reader to read her featured post of the day and displays her most recent and most popular posts - all without leaving the front page. Kinda nifty!

The final section of her home page consists of two columns. The left column displays posts that she has chosen to feature on her front page. Using category displays and the use of custom fields to jazz up those featured snippets with cool images and graphics, we’ve displayed three featured posts for her in this section. The right column displays the most recent post from each of the four categories I mentioned above - - and, again, using custom fields to give her the ability to add snappy graphics and images that compliment her content.

Her sidebar is clean and organized and allows her ample space to display her advertisements, sponsors, email subscription options, tags, blogrolls and.. well, whatever she wants to display here ,really.

Christina Loves was quite a project - both from a design AND development standpoint - and I had a LOT of fun with it! Christina was thrilled with the way it turned out, as well! When I showed her my first, preliminary design ideas and compositions - she said:

Keep a goin’ girlfriend, its gorgeous!

And when it was all finished up and launched on her site, she had this to say:

I really love this site Lisa - it feels like me. Thanks so much - I am so ready to get it up and play with it!!!!! m very excited about this theme and learning how to use it. You’ve done a great job. xoxo C.

I had the fabulous opportunity to run into, and hang out with, Christina at the 2008 South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin TX in March of this year. I was there to speak on WordPress and my book, WordPress For Dummies. It’s not often that I get the opportunity to meet my clients face-to-face and this opportunity was golden! Christina and I hit it off amazingly well and I’m looking forward to seeing her in Austin in March ‘09.

Thanks, Christina!