For my own personal travel/poetry blog, I am looking to higher a web/graphic designer to design a theme for me. Normally, I would do all the work myself, but I'm feeling lazy. The theme needs to be engaging (i.e. keep a reader around) and dynamic (i.e. not stationary, flat, or static).

Must be experienced.
Send past work/portfolios!

Some website designs that are currently inspiring to me:
https://undsgn.com/uncode/homepages/blog-stories/
http://pencidesign.com/soledad/
http://tinyatlasquarterly.com
https://undsgn.com/uncode/homepages/creative-designers/
http://petitepassport.com/stories/

Things that will be very important to me:
Uniqueness of the theme (i.e. not standard)
Responsive theme
Designs that can handle large beautiful pictures and still not slow down page loading speeds too much.
Aesthetic Details - hover-over effects, transparency controls,
Color Scheme
Font
Layout
Cleanliness of design
Ease of use (back end and front end)
Balance (text to pictures to white space)

Every page does not need to be completed to its entirety, I need basic layouts that do what I need that I can customize later. I'm thinking 4-5 pages designed (home page, about page, poetry page, photography/stories page, individual post page). These will not be basic, but rather particular to the layouts I have in mind for each page.

Price is negotiable and entirely dependent on experience and your proposal.
Please contact me as soon as possible. If I do not decide to work with you on this project, I may keep you in mind for another.
Krishni