Mikey asked me the other day how I manage to change designs so often -- so here's what I do.
Tools: I use Moveable Type, Photoshop 5.5 (I HATE 6.0), UltraEdit (which is a souped-up notepad), and Get Pixel.
Images: I stalk sites like istockphoto and Image Cafe. When I see something that inspires me, I grab it. I also constantly bookmark sites whose design I admire -- it gives me ideas for creating my own designs. I also see design ideas in everything -- a commercial on TV, the colors on a magazine cover, etc.
Make the design: I make up the design in Photoshop -- the whole page. I then cut it up into little pieces, and put it all back together in html.
Use PHP includes: Don't let the php scare you! I don't write php scripts or anything. I just cut the html into everything that comes before the content (or in this case, everything that comes before the MT Index Template code). I save that file as "top.inc" -- and then I do the same for everything that comes AFTER the MT code. I save that as bottom.inc.
Every page on my site "calls" these two files. My about me page, for example, would look like this:
<?php
include('http://www.snazzykat.com/includes/top.inc');
?>
My full name is Erika-Renee. I love my name, even though I changed it to Brianna in sixth grade, and spelled Erika any other way than with a K all throughout high school. School friends called me Eka, college friends called me Ophie or Sere, and everyone now pretty much just calls me Er or Erika.
<?php
include('http://www.snazzykat.com/includes/bottom.inc');
?>
So every single page on my site simply has those lines & the content for that page inbetween. This "creates" the page when you look at it -- it gets all the html for the top from the "top.inc" files, puts it in, then the content, then all the html from bottom.inc.
The benefits to doing this? Every single page on my site changes to the new design when I upload TWO files (plus all the new images). It rocks.
But I'm not done.
Use Stylesheets: I use stylesheets -- the same basic one for every single design. Then I simply need to go in, change the colors for each element (for example, if I change the color under "title" -- every single place on my site that uses the class "title" will automatically change to that color).
But there's more!
Use MT to keep everything simple: Every little piece of my page is it's own index template in MT -- for example, the "about" section over there ---> is a mini-template called "about.inc". Same with "Navigate", "What you said" and so on. All it is is the title code, and the little snippet and/or code. I've got a mini-template for every single sidebar piece I might ever want to use (such as "most commented" and five random blogs"), and depending on the design, I can "call" those pieces in REALLY easily -- anywhere on the page that I want. If I want two sidebars, I just need to figure out what pieces I want in each one, then pop in the include to the html. (Edited 1/04: MT now lets you use "modules" - which is essentially the same thing as the little include files I've created. You might want to check into using them instead.)
That way, if ever I need to change one little thing in a section in the sidebar, I just go into that MT template, make the change & rebuild. Voila - done! And I never needed to ftp or touch any of my main html code.
So my current sidebar html really looks like this (click on the image).
It seems like a lot, but it's really not. I've tried to streamline everything so making changes is really, really simple.
Questions? Go ahead -- ask!
My name is erika-renee, but call me eka - pronounced "eh-ka." I'm suddenly somehow 32, though I still love pigtails and overalls and silly, happy things. I live north of Boston, and I'm happily married to 
I'm a mama!
