UAL blogs are understandably limited to a selection of WordPress themes and unfortunately, no Plugins are available for customization. So I’m left to weigh up the pros and cons of the themes and their options that suit my fancy.
After taking a peek at other students Blogs, to see what look appeals to me and I managed to settle on two choices.
Twenty Seventeen Dyad
| Twenty Seventeen | Dyad |
| +Video URL header (embed youtube video) + Dark theme + unintrusive header logo + Menu scrolls with the page + Side widgets Long posts are displayed in their entirety – Posts displayed in 1 row | + Mixed dark and light theme + Posts displayed in multiple rows + Menu scrolls with the page Thumbnails with an excerpt of the post – widgets on home page footer only – no video header – Tag line larger than the title – logo large and intrusive |
All in all, Twenty Seventeens Title layout and the ability to use a youtube video as a looping background make it a far more eye-catching theme, that helps it stand out compared to Dyads still and spread elements. However Dyad’s compact and easy to navigate Posts displayed in multiple rows force my hand as, in the long run, I believe it will be easier to find posts of interest compared to the single linear approach Twenty Seventeen has where you are shown the full post instead of an excerpt and thumbnail, taking up more screen space whilst displaying less content.