Reinvent my News Blog - No Coding

I run a Venezuelan politics blog with a small but dedicated readership. It needs a thorough design makeover. You'll help take my blog to the next level, giving it a visual identity that says "this blog is serious, but not stuffy!" to an audience of journalists, oil sector executives, diplomats, academics and expats.

http://www.CaracasChronicles.com

The existing blog is here. The most important part of the job is to redesign my banner, though keeping the underlying image of Mount Avila. The rest of the blog design should flow from the decisions you make on the banner.

The goal here is to communicate the blog's ethos visually: we aim to provide a view of "the Venezuela you don't get to read about in the newspaper." We try to blend fun/snarky/observational posts about Venezuelan politics with serious economic, political and social analysis.

Note that I intend to give my readers a say on which proposed design to choose.

- A new banner based on this photo. You're encouraged to play around with it: change the colors, or use only the mountain's silhouette or otherwise photoshop the living daylights out of it. But that Iconic Image of Caracas - Avila Mountain - must feature prominently in the design.
- The blog's tagline "Venezuela beyond the cliches" should be integrated as a visual element in the banner, alongside the blog name - "Caracas Chronicles"
- A highly readable design - clean and not too busy.

- Designs based on Red or Blue. Any other color is fine, but not red or blue.
- Venezuelan visual clichés: no pictures of Chávez, or of table-top mountains, or anything like that. Avila Mountain is the only visual cliché allowed