That’s right – great design work can sometimes be counterproductive to effective storytelling. Seth Godin addresses this point in his blog on The first question every web site designer must ask. His basic conclusion is that some organizations need for the public to stand in awe of the design, but some don’t. The design can distract people from the story. How do you feature the right stuff? Read the rest of this article »
Talk about a success story. WordPress began six years ago today as a result of a simple discussion at Matt Mullenweg’s web site about the need for a GPL-licensed blogging tool.
Since then, the WordPress community has flourished and the founders and maintainers have been highly successful in the consulting business. There are vast numbers of great plugins that extend the functionality of the platform. There are numerous well-designed themes available for use. And the platform has certainly expanded to the point that it qualifies as a full-blown content management system. Read the rest of this article »
I’ve just finished reading an excellent and very comprehensive post at Vandelay Design’s site about at least seventeen ways your web site communicates with your users. I wanted to pass it along – it’s a lot to think about, which is one of the reasons I still stand agains the get-it-done-quick-and-cheap approach to having an online presence. Read it here.
Sometimes I wish for a third-party to remind my potential clients of what they need so that my advice makes more sense. Freelance Folder has posted this nearly perfect list of things that every web site should have. I highly recommend considering all of them for each project…
This may not be new to everyone, but I tried something new in my stylesheet as I designed the Ministry Free Theme. It would not be all that helpful for a static site, but for a cms or blog site, it can really offer some interesting flexibility, and some abbreviation in a stylesheet.
Normally, I will have a series of divs, all named and styled separately, such as a header, then a wrapper, containing sidebars and content, then a footer. For each, I will assign floats, widths, and margins. But with this most recent theme, which is designed on a 960 pixel wide grid, I simply created a few pseudo-classes…
.float-left { float: left; display: inline; overflow: hidden; }
.float-right { float: right; display: inline; overflow: hidden; }
.one-column { width: 300px; margin: 0px 10px; }
.two-column { width: 620px; margin: 0px 10px; }
.three-column { width: 940px; margin: 0px 10px; }
Then, when I was arranging information within the outer wrapper, if I wanted a sidebar or the content area to be a certain width and floated, I would simply insert…
<div id=”sidebar” class=”float-left one-column”></div>
or
<div id=”content” class=”float-right two-column”></div>
This enables me to add styling information for elements such as “sidebar” and “content” but have the ability to easily change widths on different kinds of pages. So when I want to create a forum page that’s full width, I leave out the “sidebar” and just add
<div id=”content” class=”float-left three-column”></div>
instead.
As stated before, this may not be the best technique on all sites, but for a WordPress theme that will contain customized pages or category stylings, it’s quite helpful.
One common question related to Wordpress relates to how one can have a “static” (in the sense that content doesn’t change) home page with just a simple link to the blog pages. That’s how this site is set up, though it’s subject to change. Just selecting a page as your home page under reading sections is fine for a simple blog site, but what if you want to have different sidebars or style changes between the two areas of your site? Here’s how I accomplished it for eGrace Creative. Read the rest of this article »
I’m normally not a fan of sticky. Seeing the juice of an apple run down gives me the heebie-jeebies, and one of the most frustrating things to do is get a little bit of sugary soda on the outside of the cup. Remember that scene in Christmas Vacation when Clark Grizwald can’t get the sap off his hands? That scene haunts me to this day – can’t stand sticky! Read the rest of this article »
Here’s a simple tip from the marketing aspect of web site design – keep your bread and butter front and center. Many sites are crowded with extras and bonuses, but the main business of the site is overshadowed. You must determine what a “sale” is in your market, then arrange your design elements around it. Read the rest of this article »
Flash designers amaze me. I thoroughly enjoy making graphic mockups, slicing them up and coding them for the web, then integrating them into a content management system. But those who can take a blank canvas and turn a movie into a website baffle my mind. However… Flash-based sites can also be the most annoying in the world. Read the rest of this article »
There is a huge debate today over whether design is essential. With the clean-look, minimalist, web 2.0 surge, the web has become far less about your basic css/xhtml look and feel, and far more about programmatic functionality and application development. Personally, I think this is a good thing. Read the rest of this article »
