It has taken 5 days of morning to night work, but I have finally gotten my site gutted and re-designed. I’m still holding to the 3-column view and designed all the graphics myself. What’s more, the code under neath is all mine, too.
I don’t have a name for it yet, but I did have fun with it. Dark tones are still dominate throughout the design. What is really satisfying for me is the grungy, weathered look of the graphics. As usual, there is still a bum in the banner. This time, I included my logo as well. It’s pretty much the only color in the elements.
A big change in the look of the site comes from the thumbnails. Instead using my usual scaled thumbnails or square crops, I decided to go with a banner. The image itself does not link to an actual full-size image. Actually, it doesn’t link to anything at all. What the banners do provide is a more interesting way to preview what to expect after clicking the full post link (the post title or the “Do you want to know more?” at the bottom).
The big challenge in this design was transcribing good ole fashion html into theme compatible with WordPress. The timing for this update could have been better. WordPress was just updated. Meaning that I was going to have tweak my last theme anyways. I decided this time out that this theme would be all mine.
Previous versions of my site designs were based on other people’s hard work. I just took functional designs and put my images on them. Like buying a sewing pattern and choosing your own fabric. The pattern is still someone else’s creation. This time, I made the pattern, too. What many might not understand is that choosing, cutting, and assembling the fabric is the easy part. Figuring out how the parts should be shaped and fitted to one another that’s hard. Like many would be site designers, I ripped apart a theme to see how it functioned. Then I worked from there. Seeing this theme function as I wanted (mostly) is the most satisfaction I have had in a long while.
Some new features to the site:
- Galleries (not made directly by me): I got tired of assembling my own galleries. Now I use next-gen gallery. I just have to put images into a folder and then use the gallery tools to generate the pages and thumbnails. So much work taken care of for me. Sweet.
- Tags & a Tag Cloud: Sometimes a category doesn’t adequately categorize a post. Tagging allows me to place arbitrary words on a post. The size of the words in the cloud reflect how frequently the tag is used. You might notice that ‘sexuality’ is pretty large. It’s also a great way to search related posts that may not be under the same categories.
- Reduced link clutter in the Desktops posts: I really got tired of writing the code for the many sizes of a images that I produce a desktop in. So now I bundle all of the sizes in ZIP file. One link, a bunch of sizes, and I cut my work down to about the tenth of the time needed. Whew! Now maybe, I’ll get more posted.
This project also marks some other successes for me. I learned some new automation and craft skills. Okay nothing that will keep Mom awake, but going forward crafting elements for the site will take far less time.
Well, tell me what you think. And try to use the comments field below. I get an email when you submit here so I’ll know when you have checked in.
Cheers!
I always liked dark themes, which may seem odd since I rarely use them in my own creations, and the weathered/marbled look on the banners is fantastic. Using the banner style images as previews is not something I’ve seen done before, so it sure does give it a cool unique look, but I do find it odd that they don’t link to anything. It just seems like they should.
I know what kind of work goes into making a theme from scratch (for any of the frameworks) so I can appreciate both the amount of wok that went into this and the sense of accomplishment it brought you.