The Day 7 assignment is create and upload a simple header, or test out a few different backgrounds.
Unfortunately, the Greyzed theme doesn’t allow headers or backgrounds.
So, I’ll take a look back at some of the headers I’ve used over the years. LiveJournal didn’t allow for any that I can recall at the time I was there. (If they did, it cost money.) VOX called them “banners”.
There was a group at VOX totally devoted to “banners”, as they were called. Various artists contributed pictures already cropped to VOX’s standard of 940 X 200 pixels. They were free for anyone to use, but I often edited them a bit to make them my own. When I came over to WordPress, I reused some of them and rescaled them for whatever WP theme I was using. (EDIT Jan 21, 2014: Please note that the first three headers, i.e., the ones that don’t have captions, are derivative work. The others are taken from photos I have done.)
Now, I don’t recall LiveJournal offering backgrounds for free, either. They weren’t available on VOX, for certain. As a general rule, while VOX was designed to be user-friendly and easy to use, it was actually REALLY HARD to customize it (I’m saying this now so hopefully I remember not to repeat it too many times on future Zero to Hero challenge days).
This was the last background I used here at WordPress:
and since it wasn’t very visible, I tried to spread it out into a tile pattern. I see now that it was visually distracting after switching to the Greyzed theme from Superhero, and some of you dear readers confirmed that.
Have you tried different headers and backgrounds on your blog? Are there any favorites you had? Would you like jak to stop asking silly questions because you’re happy with the header and background you have?
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the tao of jaklumen 
January 17, 2014 at 18:58
Thanks for your experience– I think it’s wonderful when bloggers can really personalize their blog with something they’ve created themselves. You’ve given a great example of that.
It’s also so coincidental that one of my early VOX banners is a night shot of blossoms on a cherry tree. I wish I’d documented more who the artist was, where the image came from, and so on.
Thanks again.
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January 17, 2014 at 19:06
Whatever works! (Cameraphone technology is quite good these days.) It looks good to me.
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January 17, 2014 at 19:34
yes, that was visually, a bit hard to read. I like it better now. I do like to experiment, which I do all the time. I just never commit to saving it!
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January 17, 2014 at 20:03
I was lucky to have saved the bit that I did… I had even more headers than just the ones I showed.
Quite the journey this is… thanks again for your comment.
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January 18, 2014 at 10:04
I’ve always used the same banner. I thought about changing the picture to a skiing wipeout for winter, but decided I like the surfing one more.
I do change the headline text from time to time. I think my favorite so far was “The Asylum Within The Asylum. And Music!”
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January 18, 2014 at 10:23
Yep, I think they call that the tagline? There was another Zero to Hero challenge that covered that, and I recently made a change on mine.
One of my old favorites was “pushing and pulling with the wind.” Have you ever done kitesurfing, Guap? I haven’t myself, but I’ve got a small flow-form two-liner, and took photos of a local dude that did landboarding with a Prism Tensor traction kite.
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January 18, 2014 at 10:27
It’s on my list. I found a place nearby that does lessons, but it isn’t cheap.
I’d really like to go hanggliding again, get to the point where I can justify getting my own glider.
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January 21, 2014 at 05:55
Some nice work there, Jak! I especially liked the one of the white tree blossoms framed against the moon and the night sky. Great idea to showcase your headers in a slideshow– well done, sir!! : )
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January 21, 2014 at 18:30
Thank you!
Not all the artwork is mine, and that includes the white cherry tree blossoms with the moon. I am grateful to the lovely artists at VOX that put it out there to use.
I will proudly take credit for those photo-composed headers that are mine, however 🙂
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