Outside the text area is fine. I for one am incredibly persnickety about my journal layouts. I'm not skilled enough to do custom things, but I've picked up a little of how to alter colours in some of the pre-made ones, because sometimes they're perfect except for, like, the glaringly clashing colour of clicked links or something. (I'm also picky about how my tags go, and how the title and subtitle look, and the text area has to be much wider than the links, and I have to see the individual post icons on the main journal page, and the text area has to be on the right for some unknown reason, but still left-justified, et cetera ;3 )