LMO Gets a Makeover

Hello everyone!  For those of you who stopped by yesterday, you may have noticed that Label Me Organized got a little bit of a makeover!  For the last couple of months I've been making graphics and teaching myself how to install them.  And let me tell you, it is not always as easy as you would like!  This redesign of the blog has been a long time coming, and I am so excited that it is finally all done and live.

I liked looking back on my first redesign so much, that I thought I'd share a quick tour around the new and improved Label Me Organized.  I love having a record of the development of my blog, so I can look back in a few years and go "oh I remember when the blog looked like that!"  Think of this post as a time capsule of sorts.

So I started off this redesign by making a mood board.  I had some general ideas and a 'feel' I was going for with the blog, but it was hard to really sort out the details in my head.  It was so much easier getting everything onto 'paper' so I could have a real solid foundation to build on.

I got the idea for the mood board from Saffron Avenue, who does amazing work with blog design, but is a bit out of my price range at this point.  So I designed my own mood board, taking tips from how she designs sites for her clients.  I used the mood board to solidify my design for my header, color scheme, social media icons, sidebar titles, logo, fonts and patterns.  Having this reference to refer to throughout the design process was an absolute life saver.

The first big change I had to make was replacing the header.  I really never was a huge fan of my old header, and am so happy to be parting ways with that bright yellow banner.  I just never fell in love with the design of my title, and didn't feel it represented what I wanted Label Me Organized to be about.

I made my new header a lot lighter and less "in your face".  I really like the delicacy of the script, and feel it matches more with the style of this blog.  I toned down the intensity of the colors I used as well, and kept them to a minimum within the header.

The next set of big changes are shown in the sidebar.  First, I figured out how to replace the basic text sidebar titles with graphics I created to match the theme of my blog.  I just love how they turned out!

Possibly my favorite element of this redesign (yes I play favorites) is my brand spankin' new set of social media icons.  I am just thrilled with how they turned out, and love how happy and cheerful they are.  So much better than the old basic icons I was using.

Next up is a tour of the new Nav Bar up top and what it has to offer.  I kept the basic design the same, only tweaking the colors slightly to match the new toned down color scheme.

I did, however, switch up some of the pages you will find on the Nav Bar, and gave all existing pages a makeover of their own.

The first thing I finally updated was my Home Tour page.  It now reflects the fact that we actually moved and are living in a new place.  If you would like to see how our old apartment looked before we moved, you can still get all the details for that here.  I added in some snazzy room titles to each home tour page to make navigation through them easier.

I also completely redesigned all my project galleries, including the Organization page.  The old page was out of date, and basically only included links to my Home Management Binder.  I was previously using InLinkz to manage this page, but decided I wasn't in love with the look of this page.

So I did a little research, and learned how to code my very own project gallery.  The new design is a lot cleaner and simpler, showing an image and a link for each project.  This page is also broken down into various categories of organization, to make finding what you're looking for that much easier!

The next stop on our tour is the ever popular free printables page!  Once again, I was never in love with the look and feel of this page.  That bright yellow was just really overpowering, and I have been just itching to replace those images.

So all the images on that page got nice, softer updates.  Everything on the new blog got toned down and simplified, so it didn't distract from the content of the blog.  I am so much happier with the new graphics, and still get a goofy grin when I travel to a new page and see the new, lighter version.

I also snuck in a couple new pages into this redesign.  The first was a page I've been wanting to publish since I started the never ending hobby that is Project Life.  I made a project gallery, so you will be able to scroll through and check out each and every one of the Project Life Layouts I've created.

The page is divided up into yearly sections, and then each project is labeled with it's week number, so you can easily find any project your heart desires.  I am so happy to finally have this page up and running, and can't wait to fill it up with all of my future layouts.

The final page I added during this redesign was an Advertise page.  After a lot of thought, I have decided to open up Label Me Organizers to work with companies and brands.  I can assure you that this will not affect my regular content, and you can still expect to see posts like the ones you do now.  I also do not take referring products to you guys lightly, and will only share and suggest products that I have tried and loved!  If you have any questions about this change to the blog, please feel free to shoot me an email.

I also included a quick link to my Etsy shop right in the Nav Bar.  This will take you right to the shop where you can find all my planner printables and organizers for sale, so you can use them in your own planner!

Aside from the main redesign of the blog itself, I had to make sure all my social media channels matched this new design.  The old headers for many of my sites didn't really match... well, anything.  I kind of just made them on a whim one day.  While the colors and the titles do reflect the old look of the blog, everything else was pretty much made up.  I want all my channels to have a cohesive feeling with my blog, so obviously these old images had to be changed.

The new cover photos share the same look as the new blog header.  I am so much happier with how these turned out, and definitely won't be changing things anytime soon.  I also had to make a few other minor adjustments here and there, such as the apps on my Facebook page.

I again just simplified things, and made them coordinate with the rest of my new theme.  Overall I am just over the moon with this design, and so happy that it is all finalized and completed.

And now one more look at the old design for posterity's sake:

And the brand new, updated Label Me Organized:

So now that you have the lay of the land, go check it out for yourselves!  I would just love to hear what you guys think.  After all, you are the most important people on this little blog!  Let me know what you love, or what could still use some improvement, in the comments below!