So here is Mayank Gupta, a good blogger and designer who is well known for blog designs all around, and has done some great job with custom blog themes. You can check out his portfolio, work and blog at Blog Design Studio. You can contact Mayank for any wordpress designs, and am sure you would get the work as you expected. I met him through SearchCamp conference and then been in contact through Twitter, i just love his designs which he has made for some good blogs around.

Here goes the interview -

Some insights on your personal background?

Hi! I’m Mayank Gupta. I live in Gurgaon (near New Delhi, India) and I’m 24 yrs. old. I’m a commerce drop out (you thought that only er. drop out from colleges…huh?) with keen interest in technology. Because of this interest in technology, I joined technical support centers and after working there for almost 3 yrs., I took blogging as my full time profession.

Since when are you blogging and which is your only main blog? Tell something about it.

I started blogging around 3 yrs. back although took it as full time profession near about couple of years back. My main blog is Blog Design Studio, which is a blog related to tips/tricks on WordPress & Blogging and we provide custom WordPress themes.

Was blogging your passion or profession or there was some inspiration behind your blogging habit?

It’s indeed a question, which I would love to answer more than anything else! I fell in love with blogging because I saw it as a great way of communicating your thoughts and finding like minded people. I always thought of making money out of blogging, as my motive was to leave my (not so cool) day job.

Right now, Blogging is both my passion & profession. I firmly believe that everyone should start blogging, as the amount of learning is huge when it comes to blogging about particular subjects.

How do you monetize your blog? Do you get advertisers or is it the ad networks like adsense etc.?

I have one blog which helps me in making money from Adsense, apart from that I also write for Cloudave.com as a freelancer. Of course, Blog Design Studio is the other source of income for me.

List out some essential plugins and tools you feel important for a technology related blog.

• Self Hosted WordPress.
• Snagit, Skitch (mac)
• Windows Live Writer/Ecto(mac)
• Camtasia Studio/Snapz Pro X(mac)
• Lots and lots of passion and patience!

List out at least 7 favorite blogs of yours which you read on a very regular basis.

1. Problogger.net
2. stevepavlina.com
3. blogoscoped.com
4. blogsessive.com
5. techmeme.com
6. macworld
7. planet wordpress

Lastly, do you have any honest suggestions on improvement of our blog www.thewwwblog.com?

Get a custom theme for your blog! May be reduce some amount of ads. What I love about thewwwblog is that you are updating it everyday and that’s the most important thing for any blog.

Thanks for the interview and answers Mayank! I always love your designs and work, and appreciate them. Monetization is the only part in my blog, where am not good at. And so, you would see more ads in it. Working to bring a new theme in here, but still not sure. Thanks again!