Stripes and Polka Dots

The next blog design I would like to share with you is the redesign of my personal blog, Stripes and Polka Dots.  I’ve always been a fan of simpler designs, so after blogging for two years all I had really changed about my blog were the colors, the width, the header, the post icon and favicon.

I decided that if I was going to be a blog designer, I needed a blog that was portfolio worthy!  When I was collecting inspiration for my new look, I knew I mostly wanted to stick with navy and gray, the colors I had used in the past, and add in one bright pop of color that was in the pink or coral family.

It might seem kind of strange, but I was honestly most inspired by things in my wardrobe.  The weekend before I redesigned my blog, my mom had bought me a new cardigan from Target that was gray with white polka dots.  When I did the background, I was mostly inspired by that cardigan and Brooklyn Bride, which has a similar background.  Although I think I found the final color swatch for the coral color on Pantone, my inspiration for the color was from another one of my favorite cardigans from Lands’ End Canvas.  The navy in the photos is a pencil skirt I also bought from Lands’ End Canvas, which I love.

One of the things I struggled with in the design of my blog was making sure that there were both stripes and polka dots in the design.  My husband mentioned in my old design that there weren’t any polka dots, which kind of settled in my brain and I couldn’t let it go.  Since the background was polka dots, I made the social icons wide rectangles in alternating colors, hoping that they would read as stripes.

As usual, once I figured out the color scheme and inspiration the rest was pretty much trial and error.