Recommend me books for blog layout/design

[rdej47]

I've been looking to start a blog for a while but just haven't taken the time to do one up proper. I don't want to just use a template cause I think they're terribly bland, unless you expand on the original. I know good blogs from bad ones but as far as actually putting a nice looking one together I definitely need some guide to point me in the right direction. Can you guys point me towards some blogs/books/tutorials that you would recommend?

[scsheep]

How are your coding skills ? There are several good wordpress.org themes that allow full flexibility. Are you gonna be self hosting ?

[rdej47]

Computer science in high school and computer science 100 in university = no skill haha. I've been looking at squarespace or using iWeb, my focus is just having a nice simple layout that looks nice on the eyes. Zen Habits comes to mind where as lifehacker is something that i'd consider very cluttered and ugly.

[elliotg]

there is a book making and breaking the grid which goes really deep into graphic layout and interface [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Making-Breaking-Grid-Graphic-Workshop/dp/1592531253/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305848499&sr=8-1"]Amazon.com: Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop (9781592531257): Timothy Samara: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WbSuGNEjL.@@AMEPARAM@@51WbSuGNEjL[/ame]

Its worth a read if your really keen on the subject

[josh@firestorm]

http://themeshaper.com/thematic/ is a decently rated theme framework for wordpress. they also have a fairly active forum too.

unfortunately with all these blog frameworks (wordpress, joomla, drupal, etc), unless you are pretty proficient with CSS, and a little HTML (and PHP if building the whole blog database by hand) you're gonna find it pretty tough to accomplish what you're wanting to achieve.

there are plenty of really good (and customisable) themes out there, both premium and free - you just gotta dig, or be willing to shell out some $$$ for something. http://www.themeforest.net/ have a heap of really good stuff.

http://www.djtechtools.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25038 has a discussion about blogs etc if you want to have a read..

squarespace gets pretty good wraps from internet/technology industry people like kevin rose & leo laporte, the only downside is they charge by the month - but i think that includes hosting. it's a highly customisable blogging platform here's the link to their blog examples page of what some real customers are doing http://www.squarespace.com/examples/category/featured