Blogging, continued

So, now that you've set up your site, I encourage you to indulge in your design sensibility. You may have already done more or less of this, but just in case, here's a list of some things to factor in the set- up:

• What color schemes are you using for all aspects of your blog? You can play with colors for just about every aspect - text, headers, backgrounds, borders around boxes, hyper links, visited hyper links, hovered over hyper links, the list goes on. Resist just using the default, but also make some good decisions about readability, contrast, establishing patterns to assist your readers, etc.
• Just as you can manipulate color schemes, so too can you play with fonts. FOR EVERYTHING. Here too, you can create moods and intentions by making unique design choices. One note: it may be tempting to use lots of different fonts, but make sure that the usability is strong, and doesn't make your reader seasick. :)
• Give your blog a cool title, and also a sub-header, or description. Distinguish it.
• What sizes do you want things to be? This includes fonts, of course, but also, you can probably manipulate the sizes of the boxes, or chunks of information you include. 
• Do you have an "About me" page, or section? You should.
• What do you have in the footer of your blog? What do you want there?
• What widgets (blogspot calls them "gadgets") do you want to include? Share buttons? Like buttons? RSS subscription buttons? Search boxes?
• HAVE A BLOG ROLL and RECOMMENDED LINKS section.