It’s true. Nothing makes a color image “pop” like a black matrix or background. If you don’t believe me, try previewing WordPress’s newest theme, “Piano Black,” on your WP blog. Color images are absolutely scintillating. The problem is, so is the text. And scintillating text is harder to read. Well, it is for me anyway. Maybe because I was taught that many years ago and now my mind perceives text that way.
My preferences aside, I know WordPress bloggers love their black themes, and Piano Black looks like a winner. Who knows, after further consideration, I might even adopt it myself.
Thanks for letting me know about this. It does look really nice, but as with just about every other theme I’ve tried, the preview revealed some issues that would cause me to redo a lot of posts. Of course, the preview isn’t always accurate, so it might be worth the effort to try it on my test blog.
I’ve been playing with it on my test blog and have discovered that the all black/gray colors and gradients are not fixed. You can do a custom background with any image or color. The pages and sidebar are slightly transparent, so you get an entirely different look. And always a biggie for me, you can upload a custom header. Thank goodness for test blogs.
Test blog? I really am a neophyte.
Create a second blog (Administrator’s Bar > My Blogs > Register a New Blog). In the settings, make it private (only you can see it). Then have a blast trying out every theme WP has, if you want. You can explore various settings, see how it presents pages, comments, etc. Your own little lab, and nobody sees what you do.
WP also allows you to export your current blog to your local drive which you can later import to your new blog. These functions are listed in your Dashboard sidebar under Tools. Each blog has it’s own Dashboard, and you switch between them using the Administrator’s Bar > My Blogs.