Themes from Japan!

You've been asking for new themes for your blog, and we heard you loud and clear. Our Japan team, also known around the office as SAKK, has some really sleek, fun, and kawaii themes with an international flair and we thought you'd like to see these on your blogs. Check 'em out!

I'm really excited about the diversity of the design options available. Since a picture's worth a thousand words, I thought I'd put up some of my favorites.

Try these new themes: just click to your "design" tab - click "themes" and "new".

 

Design Tip: Change the Color of the New Journal Theme

A little while back, we released a new theme for TypePad called Journal, designed to be simple, flexible and to show off your content. The designer who constructed the Journal theme, our very own Jim Ramsey, has published a blog post on how you can customize the colors to make it even more your own.

Check out his post.

If you’ve done something cool with the Journal theme, we'd love to hear about it: tell us all about it in the comments. If what you did might help others, comment with details so that other community members can try it, too.

New Theme!

We've added a new theme that I really like. It's in 5 colorways: black, grey, green, red and orange.

It's called Journal, and it's available in the "New Themes" section in your design area. Here's a screenshot:

 

New Themes: Autumn Scenes

Here are some new themes for those of us who are ushering in Autumn (here in San Francisco, we still seem to be in Indian summer).  We've also added themes for writers, tea-drinkers (or is that sake?) and book lovers.  Several of these gorgeous themes were designed by some of your fellow bloggers.

L to R, top to bottom: Chopsticks by Paulina Bozek; Autumn by Taylor Savvy; Inked; Future Perfect; Books by Jared McPherson; New Life by Golly Kim

Log in and click to the Design area to check out these great new themes!

New Themes: Keep It Basic or Get Political

Our design team just added over 40 new theme choices.  Show your patriotism with stars and stripes, or you can get downright political by choosing the Democrat or Republican themes.  There are even two green cityscapes that are rather eco-friendly - blogging does save trees, after all.

For the minimalists, we added Basic themes in over 20 color choices.  Those of you with Pro, Premium and Business Class accounts can choose one of these Basic themes and add your own banner to it with our Custom CSS feature.  Check out TypePad team member Andy Wibbels' how-to posts about using Custom CSS to change your blog's banner and background.

(L to R, top to bottom):  Democrat, Civic, Republican, Stars & Stripes, Star Burst, Starlight, Mountainscape, Green City, Basic

New Themes: Sports & Leisure

With the 2008 Olympic Games fast approaching, many of us have sports on the brain. Whether you're gearing up for a run, root-root-rooting for the home team, or packing your bags for a summer get-away, we've added new athletic and travel themes to help you bring home the gold.

(L to R, top to bottom): Basketball, Baseball, Football, Soccer, BBQ, Running, Anchored by Wolfsavard, World Travel by Michael Rose & Jet Set by Michael Rose.

Most of these new themes have several color variations to choose from.  Log in and click to the Design area to see the 25+ new theme choices, and bring your blog to the great outdoors!

Brand New Themes & Some Fixes

We're delighted to let you know that we've just released some fixes that are specific to the new Compose editor.  While the majority of TypePad members who are using the new editor have experienced no problems at all, we know that some of you have experienced some exceptionally frustrating errors.  Our Support and Engineering teams have been working really hard, burning the midnight oil to address these issues and are excited to see them launched today.  In addition to these fixes and those we released on June 11th, some additional fixes are forthcoming and we will keep you posted as we release them.

All members who have the new Compose editor should receive an email giving details on the most recent fixes.  You can also read about known issues and fixes on the Known Issues blog.

A huge thank you to everyone who has sent in feedback to our Support team and to our CEO Chris Alden.  Our teams have reached out to many of you one on one and the information you've shared with us has been a tremendous help in our troubleshooting and beyond.

New Themes!

Also in this release are several new themes, including something for nature enthusiasts, fans of colorful illustrations and even a theme for those of you who still remember the old school typewriter.

(L to R): Beautiful Day by Teresa Jones, Blooming Garden (TJ), Lovely Lilacs by Susan Smuk Jorgensen, Ocean Beach by Jesse Gardner, Typewriter by Tiffany Chow, Whimsical Night (TJ)

New Themes from Vox & HP

We've added several dazzling themes recently!  Check out your new choices:

The four winning themes from the "What Do You Have To Say?" contest are now available!  Your choices are “River at Night" by Teresa Jones (1st Place), “Live and Learn” by Li Kim Goh (2nd place), "Vector Drips" by Terri (3rd Place) and the People's Choice Award winner “Shiny” by heythisisnoah.  To choose one of these themes, head to the TypePad Design tab, click on Change Theme and select "New Themes" from the dropdown menu.

Back in February, we let you know we were bringing themes over from our sister service Vox and asked you to vote on which you'd like to see first.  We've added another batch of those Vox themes, including Bookworm, Draft, Reading, and Modernist.  To see all four color variations of each of these themes, head to the TypePad Design tab, click on Change Theme and select "New Themes" from the dropdown menu.

Also in that poll, the cityscapes of New York City, San Francisco, Tokyo and Paris came in as your second most requested and we released those back in March.  Due to their popularity, we've also added cityscapes for 16 additional cities, from Austin, TX, to Washington D.C.  Did we add your city?  Head to the TypePad Design tab, click on Change Theme and select "Cityscapes" from the dropdown menu to find out!

Announcing the Winners of the “What Do You Have To Say” Theme Contest

Update: After the winners of the "What Do You Have To Say?" theme design contest  were announced, it was brought to our attention that the design of one of the winning entries was not an original work, as the contest rules required, so it was not eligible for a prize.  “River at Night" designed by Teresa Jones is now the First Place Winner and “Live and Learn” by Li Kim Goh is now the Second Place winner.  Our judges picked a new Third Place winner: "Vector Drips" by Terri.  The winning themes were selected from 355 entries based on outside voting and an internal judging by Six Apart designers. A People’s Choice Award was also awarded to heythisisnoah's theme “Shiny” which received a total of 1,733 votes.  Congratulations to Terri for joining the winners!

We talked to the winners to find out more about their inspiration to enter the contest. Second Place winner Li Kim Goh said that blog design was important “because it draws readers' attention and makes your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs.”  First Place winner Teresa Jones agrees that design brings readers to the ‘essence’ of the blog. She said, “Blog design is that first good impression, and it also usually gives us an idea about the blogger's personality and style. On a lot of occasions too, you get an idea of what kind of content you can expect during your visit...think about it - what good is a cone without the ice cream?”

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest.  The winning designs will be incorporated into TypePad as well as Vox and LiveJournal.  We'll keep you posted here when we add the winning designs to TypePad.  Congratulations again to all of the winners!

Two New Themes From HP

We've just added two new themes courtesy of Gwen Stefani and HP which will only be available for a limited time.  You can keep them on your blog as long as you'd like, but you'll have to grab them now before they disappear from our theme gallery.

Check out HP Love and HP Music:

If you haven't stopped by the "What Do You Have To Say?" theme design contest page lately, you're missing out on some fantastic submissions!  So far there have been over 80 submissions and hundreds of votes have been collected.

• Share your inspiration: Designers, don't forget to submit your themes by April 4th.  If you already submitted a design, be sure to get the word out to friends, family and fans to vote for your entry.
• Have your say: Community voting is open until April 11th.  You can vote once per design, so check back to support all of your favorites!

Visit the "What Do You Have To Say?" theme design contest site for more details, be sure to read all the rules, and cast your vote!