Hey everyone and welcome to another fabulous guest post! Today, I have Olivia here from Fictionally Obsessed. Today she is here to talk about her blog design, what it is like to be her own designer, and also advice to people who are going to be creating their own blog design. She runs her own design shop, which has such awesome templates, so definitely check that out!

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Hello everyone, I’m Olivia from Fictionally Obsessed! I also run a design shop at Fabulously Chic Designs.

When I first started blogging, the word “blog design” didn’t exist in my vocabulary. I don’t think I cared much about the appearance of my blog until a few months after blogging when I started to discover more blogs and came across amazing blog designs. It wasn’t until then that I realized the importance of a blog design.

In my opinion, the blog design is as important as the content of a blog. As intriguing or amazing the content of a blog could be, the blog wouldn’t attract as much attention as opposed to if the blog itself looked aesthetically pleasing. The design and the content is like bread and butter, and bloggers should definitely put thought into the appearance of a blog.

Let me tell you guys a bit about the story of my blog design. At first, I wanted to hire a blog designer, but I really wasn't sure whether I'd be totally satisfied with the final design, since a lot of blog designers have this "one design only" policy (and moneyyy). After that, I started to experiment and play around with Blogger, and soon enough became familiar with the coding and the graphics aspect of blog designing. At that point, I could practically manipulate the design as much as I wanted.

BUT for me that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. I started spending  a lot of time on my design, changing it so often that I started to neglect the content of the blog. It's even worse especially for an indecisive person like me and being a blog designer.

I want my blog to look good, but I couldn’t seem to accept that I can only have so much. Every time I finished a design, I’d say to myself: "okay, this is the FINAL design, and I'm never changing it." And then after a few months or so, I would decide that it's time for change because of an awesome design for the placement of the slider, a fabulous place for the header, a unique background that matches with a graphic or whatever reason.

The moral of the story is that while the design of a blog is as important as the content, don’t neglect one for the other! While custom made designs can be expensive, a premade design is always an option. Or you could try to learn how to code and design graphics by yourself, and while this option is pretty tedious at first, it definitely is VERY rewarding in the end.

Personally, I’d read any blog that has an uncluttered design, the most important thing is that your blog design is unique, easy to read and navigate. It doesn’t have to be super fancy, sometimes less is more, but keep in mind that you want your blog to leave an image. If I had to give one piece of advice to people aspiring to design their own blog, the little things definitely matter a lot. Things such as page dividers, a signature, and just creative aspects on the blog make the reading experience a lot more fun and satisfying.

Thanks so much to Kaitlin for having me on her lovely blog!

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Thanks so much Olivia for being here today on the blog! What are your thoughts on her story and did you /do you plan on hiring a designer for your blog or are you going to do it yourself? I would love to know!