In Part 4, Episode 2 of Our Love Affair With WordPress, we chose the Harmony WordPress theme as our template for Perfect Fit, our fictional bra-fitting business. Again, bearing in mind that Perfect Fit is an unusual business, the theme layout is standard but we want to add a little something extra to make it special. In Episode 1 you learned what steps to take to create your ideal blog or website. At this stage, we’ve already decided on the tone or mood of the website, the layout and navigation. And now we have a theme on which to recreate our ideal structure and navigation before setting the mood. The next step now is editing your theme so that the layout is exactly what you planned before dressing it up in something sexy.

The Harmony theme is almost the ideal layout for Perfect Fit. Only a few things need to be moved around or added:
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In the last installment of Our Love Affair with WordPress we discussed blog design in all its glory and step by step. You learned that design is more than the way the blog looks, it’s also the way a blog is structured. Now, let’s assume you’ve followed the first three steps in the seven steps to blog design in Episode 1: you’ve defined the purpose of your site, set goals, have a mood in mind and have developed an information architecture (structure and navigation) that’s ideal for your site. Now it’s time to put it all together using WordPress as your content management system.

You can approach creating your blog in two ways: 1. Use and modify one of hundreds of free themes available at the official WordPress themes site themes.wordpress.net, or other unofficial but equally wonderful sites like WordPress Themes, WordPress Theme Park or visit Using Themes at WordPress.org for a non-exhaustive list of sites with free WordPress themes you can download; or 2. Visit WordPress’s Stepping into Templates page on how to create your own theme from scratch.
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In the previous article I talked about designing a Adding a Little Something Extra on Your Web Design from Head to Footer. Well, how about the in between too? It’s the end of the year and 2008 is literally around the corner, so why not give your website a fresh new look. Here are a few tips to make your website makeover a success:
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You ever see a website or blog that looks so fabulous, you think, that’s what I need for a kick-arse web presence? You know those sites with a billion cool looking social bookmark plugins & apps, mini Flash animations, crazy animated navigation bars, video, audio, really cool dynamic picture galleries, very shiny design, funky tag displays and so on. I admit, as a web and blog designer, I suffer from “site envy” whenever I stumble upon a really great, dynamically jam-packed site or perusing the amazing site designs posted on sites like CSS Remix. It’s natural to feel a little envious. But, I remember what I need to remember before the envy erodes my common sense: simplicity and distinction trumps complicated and shiny.

You ever noticed that the most simple ideas are the most profitable? Shoe laces? First generation of MP3 players? Netflix? Underwear? The point is, no matter how dynamic and full of bells and whistles, your site visitors need one thing above else, relevant and easy to find information about whatever they’ve come to your site to read, see, purchase or hear. Of course, giving them a little somethin’ extra, goes a long way too. But, don’t over do it. Focus! [Read more →]

Holiday breaks are a great time for getting personal projects done. I decided to redesign two of my personal sites. One is Film Tops, a film blog and the other is Kemio.net, my personal website that I converted into a blog for easier updating and maintenance. Both Kemio.net and Film Tops are hosted on one account with Lunarpages but have separate installations of WordPress. Kemio.net is the main domain and Filmtops.com redirects to Kemio.net/filmtops.

I’ve been wanting to do these redesigns for a long time now. Let’s take a look at Kemio.net first. The two images on the side here are the old Kemio.net website (top) and the new Kemio.net blog (bottom). The goal here was to make updating easier especially considering I have so much going on right now and not time to waste fiddling around with code unnecessarily. I built Kemio.net origninally using PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Most of the JavaScript is used for displaying pages from a click of a link in the top portion, blue area, to the dynamic load area on the bottom portion, white area. I used PHP to make it easier to load the navigations on the bottom right side in the white area since they vary given what page you’re on. Everything else is HTML and CSS. I had fun building this site originally a couple of years back when I started using PHP. I especially loved having the data for my “kemipedia” (random facts about me) and the links to my favorite websites dynamically imported from a database, which was also replaced with new facts and new links, respectively, whenever the page reloaded. [Read more →]

One of the many great things about WordPress (and PHP in general) is that your header is separate from the rest of your design & layout so it’s easy enough to create a distinct blog or blog-powered website design by just designing or redesigning the header alone. The header is the first thing you see when visiting a web page so your header needs to leave a great first impression or your site visitors won’t stay and browse. What makes a header pop and not suck is that it directs site visitors to where they should go, looks good and gives the overall impression of what the site is about. [Read more →]

Last time on “Our Love Affair With WordPress” you learned about blog content. You learned that good content is relevant, engaging, mostly free, cites sources, should contain visuals and ultimately reflects you or your business. So, let the courting continue with the pretty stuff, design. The allure of WordPress is its seemingly infinite capacity to change its looks from one blog to another, keeping things fresh and interesting for designers and visitors alike. The WordPress publishing platform is the blog designers wet dream because it is so flexible, open, and capable of creating a look as simple a look as Simpla to a more involved design like Alexified. Before we continue, I’d like to make sure we’re all on the same page about what design means in the blog (and website) design world. Design means structure, look, navigation and technology, not just the look of a blog. Savvy?
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So, back for more? Couldn’t resist, huh? Well, let’s get started then. Friday, we went over the The Essentials of Blogging and talked about how content, categorizing (including archiving) and commenting are the main staples of blogging. A blog exists for content and sociability for the most part. The goal of any blogger should be to make your blog as interesting to read as possible and that promotes interactivity (usually through commenting and often also through sharing and bookmarking, which we’ll cover later). Your content must also be categorized in such a way your readers know where to look for articles on a given topic or maybe even a specific article. Category listings, archiving and tag clouds are the most common methods of effective and simple ways to organize your blog articles without confusing or frustrating your readers.

Though categorizing and commenting are essential, content is king. More importantly, your written content is king and executioner. A blog is nothing without good content and everything with it. More to the point, good content is what brings in readership. Relevant content creates a following. Crappy content kills a blog. [Read more →]