Well, I heard your pain and have modified my Burningbird theme to something I hope is a bit easier to read. To be honest, when I was tired and had been working on the computer for some time, even I found my site to be overly bold and colorful.
Yeah and the design was a little tough on the eyes, too.
The original design featured too much of the ‘wings’ of flames to the left, and that was a bit overpowering. I’ve made the design much smaller, and fitted it into the title. I still have the flirty little flip to the right, though. I am not giving up my flirty little flip to the right. Besides, I like my design ‘breaking out of the box’, so to speak.
I’ve added more gray, which should help tone down the bright colors, and also darkened the blue and the orange. In fact, these colors I did ‘borrow’ from Corante–I liked them better than the too light colors I had originally. These were getting overwhelmed by the design.
I like the modifications. It’s not as professional as the Corante theme, and I think I might put Zoë back into the sidebar (I love that photo)–but I don’t believe the new look will drive any reader to want to …yank their eyes out of their head, either.
As for the issues brought up about the use of Creative Commons, my appreciations to Denise Howell for taking time to chat about them. Perhaps the CC folks will benefit from this exchange. Or they won’t and we’ll have opportunities for new ‘themes’ and other exciting adventures in the future.