As blogging continues to grow in popularity on the Internet, demand for LiveJournal templates also continues to increase.
LiveJournal Templates: A Background
In March, 1999, Brad Fitzpatrick created the LiveJournal as a simple blog application to provide his high school friends a public location on the internet where they could follow what he was doing. In this respect, Fitzpatrick started blogging long before the term "blogging" was ever invented.
The History of LiveJournal
Fitzpatrick built the web application, LiveJournal, based on open source software, which he used to host the first LiveJournal blogging sites for other users in addition to his own. Eventually, the endeavor attracted so many users that Brad Fitzpatrick started a company called "Danga Interactive." By January 2005, the blogging site was so popular that the blogging company Six Apart made an offer to purchase "Danga Interactive" and the LiveJournal software that it owned. LiveJournal continued to evolve, and the growing social network bad over 16 million bloggers as of 2008.
How LiveJournal Templates Work
When you first sign up for a free account with LiveJournal, you have twelve standard templates to choose from. These are actually beautiful blog templates, along the themes of "swimmingly," "The Great Outdoors," and "Endless Summer Sand." The only problem with using one of the standard themes is that a large portion of the LiveJournal user base will be using the same theme as you, so your blog won't appear quite as unique.If you want to give your LiveJournal your own special touch, you'll want to use a different template.
How to Use a Customized LiveJournal Template
For a few dollars a month, you can upgrade your LiveJournal account, which allows you the following added main benefits.
- Access to more than 600 templates, and the ability to create your own custom theme.
- Access to 30 "userpics", which are small icons displayed near your name.
- 2 GB of space to store images for use in your blog.
If you can't find a template that you like out of the 600 templates created by LiveJournal, another option is to customize your own template. To do this, you can use LiveJournal's built-in customization wizard, which allows you to change the titles, colors, format and pictures. However, the wizard can also be somewhat limiting when you want a very unique or creative design for your blog. The solution LiveJournal offers its users is the option to enter custom CSS stylesheet code which can define how the background, headers, footers and other details of your blog are laid out, including images and more.
Where to Download Customized Templates
If you don't know how to write CSS stylesheets, there are plenty of websites that offer stunning LifeJournal templates. In order to use the templates, you simply need to download the necessary images to your LiveJournal account, and then copy the CSS code provided into the stylesheet box on the LifeJournal customization wizard.
The following website offers LiveJournal templates:
- Createblog features a great list of 78 layouts available for LiveJournal bloggers to use on their own blog. Most layouts also provide simple instructions to install the theme.
A Final Word on LiveJournal Templates
One of the things that make the LiveJournal blogging system so unique is how easily the format and style is customized. On other blogging sites, you need to download a number of files and install them. Once they're installed you have to understand how to edit the code to customize it for your needs. With LiveJournal, you simply copy and paste the CSS style code from the site where you found the theme, download any necessary images, and your new LiveJournal template is installed.
