Liz and Terry approached me about designing the site for the second year in a row and I was so honored to be the one to give the site its’ look for another year. The theme of the conference this year is “where the virtual meets the concrete” so we went for a much more pared down look.

Liz wanted lots of white space, cool blues and grays, and the flexibility to feature different media types on the home page as well as use different layouts for the interior pages, too. Luckily for Liz, I had just finished designing a site using the new (and oh, so, super, amazing cool) Headway Theme. The Headway Theme has a built in visual editor which makes it ridiculously easy to place blocks of content where you want them and to use a different layout on every page (if you want).

Anyhow, go check out the site and take advantage of the early bird registration and the New Blogger Bootcamp deals while you are there!!

The following are a few of the site designs/customizations I have done in the past six months using Revolution as the base:

From top to bottom, the sites are:

• Easy Green Living (magazine style)
• Chilli Factor (business site)
• Modern Beats Hit Talk (magazine style)
• The Learning Tree (magazine combined with storefront with flash component)
• Jersey Shore Guide (magazine style tailored to a geographical area using Revolution City)
• SOBCon 09 (event site)
• Printables4Kids (magazine style)
• Reach Career Potential (business site done in collaboration with Leah Maclean, Working Solo)
• Wendy Piersall (personal branding/small business)
• Apex Gymnastics (business site with no blog component being used as a CMS)
• KeySplash Creative (business site)
• Doll Diaries (magazine style)

While the original Revolution theme took the traditional WordPress site to the next level, the Revolution Magazine theme and its variants kicked things up a few more notches. The magazine style theme allows more content to be displayed on a site’s home page, giving web publishers the ability to control what content stays in front of the visitor and for how long. The theme is also perfect for adding video, audio, advertising, and interactive features to the site.

Brian has recently released Revolution2 – taking Revolution from a premium, for purchase theme to a completely free, open source series of themes with specific functionalities based on the type of site you need to create. Additional Revolution2 features and support are now available via subscription, including access to the support forums and a listing of Brian’s recommended designers (I am one of them).

So, yes, I have been a little busy (which explains the less frequent posting here), but I really enjoy taking client ideas and bringing them to life using Word Press and more often than not, the Revolution theme. If you are ready to take your site to a new level, I’d love to help you get it there. You may contact me at cpolanosky [at] gmail [dot] com for availability and a quote.

Since WordPress continues to become the most powerful and flexible content management system (CMS) available, it was the obvious solution.

What Was Needed

• Ability for client to quickly add announcements to home page from anywhere – this is very important for posting closings due to weather, and it allows her to make changes from home when it is convenient rather than having to be in the office.
• Ability to maintain basic look and feel of previous site and horizontal, drop down menu with individual pages for specific programs.
• Ability to edit/modify text on pages throughout the site quickly.

Making It Work

The first decision I had to make was whether to code the new WordPress site from scratch or to use another theme as a base. Brian Gardner’s Revolution Pro Business theme had so much of the structure I needed already included, it just made the most sense to use it as the base.

Next I recreated the header to accommodate the new site width and to include the phone numbers of both gym locations (one of them is brand new).

The home page is set up to display some basic information about her program and latest news. The client can easily add an announcement to the site by logging into the WordPress dashboard and creating a new “Post”.

Each navigation item on the horizontal navigation bar is either a Page or a child page (which shows up in the drop down).

All of the comment code has been removed as she is not looking for comments on the static pages. However, if she ever wants to put up a post where she wants feedback, she can. It also makes it easier to add polls, video, and photos to the site.

Pages can easily be edited, modified, added or deleted using the dashboard without the client having to know any HTML. Additionally, we added the TinyMCE Advanced plugin to give her more of the “Word”-like formatting buttons in the editor. I especially like the ability to add a data table easily – perfect for displaying class times.

On the individual pages, visitors can see the latest announcements without going to the home page and they can sign up for updates.  Additionally, there is plenty of room in the sidebar to “advertise” in house programs.

The Result

The best part about this site redesign is that I have a very happy client who is thrilled to be able to make her own changes to her site. It took us an hour of training over the phone to get her up and running – luckily she is pretty tech-savvy to start with.

What do you think? I’d love to see more examples of WordPress as a CMS, if you happen to have one! Also, you can see more sites I have created as “traditional” sites using WordPress in my archives.

TwistnShout main page with area to highlight recent projects.

The portfolio pages have a different sidebar file for each category which allows for the groups of thumbnails to change and be used for navigation.

The basic look of the site was given to me by the owner of the company, who is an amazing print designer. Amy knew the look she wanted, but she wanted a site that she could maintain on her own in the future. Based on her desire to make future modifications on her own, I knew WordPress would be the platform of choice. We hired Brian Gardner to create the site’s basic structure in the form of a custom theme that used multiple template pages and did not contain the comment features, and other typical blog elements.

Once Brian coded the basic structure, I was able to add the content, tweak the design and challenge myself even more.

Each primary section of content – the copy that Amy will most likely change from time to time – was created using a WordPress page or subpage. The side bar (right and left) content was hard coded in using individual theme files.

Amy wanted the testimonial quotes in the who we are section to change depending on which team member’s bio you were reviewing. She also wanted different navigation for each project type in her portfolio. This took some creative thinking, but I was able to achieve this level of customization through the use of detailed theme files. Each main navigation item already had a unique template that called the correct left navigation, center content and right sidebar. I just took it a step further by creating sublevel template and theme pages.

The development of the TwistnShout site was truly a team effort. Amy knew what she wanted and was willing to let Brian and I challenge the WordPress platform to create a scalable, professional looking portfolio site for her company.

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked, “Is that really WordPress?” To which I have been able to reply, yes it is!

How It Was Done

• I started with Brian Gardner’s Downtown Java WordPress theme as a base.
• Next came the color scheme and some graphical elements.
• Most of the typical WordPress blogging features were removed from the template as they are not needed.
• I hard coded the gallery sub navigation into the sidebar.
• Each of the content pages was created using the Pages feature – this will make it super easy to update over time.
• I used the WordPress static page feature (dashboard Options, then Reading) to control which page would be the home page.

Overall, it was a fairly quick project and both the client and I are very happy with it. If you have used WordPress to develop a site that is something other than a blog, I would love to see it!

So, here is the finished product:

How It Was Done

• I started with Brian Gardner’s Blue Zinfandel theme as a base.
• Next came the color scheme and some graphical elements.
• Most of the typical WordPress blogging features were removed from the template as they are not really ready for interactivity yet.
• The introductory text was laid into the home.php file above the WordPress loop in order to keep it always on top (thanks for the tip David)
• Each of the content pages was created using the Pages feature – this will make it super easy to update over time.
• And the hardest part was getting the drop down navigation (see below) to play nicely. Thanks to Randa for conquering that one!

Now that I have seen the true power of WordPress as a CMS first hand – I will definitely be using it for other projects! If anyone else has used WordPress to create a “traditional” site, I’d love to see it!

I am in the process of working on a new client project and part of the requirement was that I produce three different mock ups (yes, I am being compensated for all three designs) from which the client could pick their favorite aspects.

I did a handful of pencil sketches (David Airey would be proud of me) and then set out to work. I had been given some general guidelines of what they were looking for, but nothing too concrete.

Needless to say, I loved the first concept. Coming up with two other design concepts became much more challenging. I did manage to come up with the other mock ups, but I just didn’t like either one nearly as much.

We had a meeting with the client today to review all the concepts. Guess which one they liked best? The first one I did – with a few minor tweaks.

I am still glad I did all three versions because it gave me an even better feel for what elements the client is very passionate about (positive or negative).

How about you? Are you like me – a go with your gut kind of gal? Or are you a big time brainstormer, edit, re-edit, review, re-edit kind of a person?

This weekend I decided it was time to take one of my old sites, Printables for Kids, that I created and maintain for fun and move it from an HTML 101 format to WordPress. Now I just want to know why I didn’t do this sooner?

Let’s take a look at the transformation. Below is the screen shot of the before – the HTML, table structured, basic site with a PR of 3 and decent traffic:

Nice. Simple. But a PAIN to update.

I decided to use the Blue Zinfandel WordPress theme by Brian Gardner as my base.

I started by going through the CSS style sheet section at a time and making my customizations. I added the header and then reviewed. Then I set the colors and reviewed. I took each piece individually and tweaked it until I got the same general look and feel as the original site, but with all the WordPress power. (Thanks Randa for your tips along the way.)

And the final product:

The site is now much easier to update and I can leverage the power of Technorati, MyBlogLog, blog carnivals, memes, and other blogging tools to increase the traffic to the site.

And if you have kids (and even if you don’t), go road test it for me and tell me what needs to be tweaked.

A little background first

One of my inspirations for blogging was V-grrrl, a former business associate who now lives in Belgium. V-grrrl has a true gift when it comes to writing, whether for business or pleasure. Her daily accounts of life in Belgium and life in general will make you laugh, cry and think. She has a way of making every day words come to life – even in the business arena. She wrote the great copy at my main website, Keystrokes Design & Marketing.

When V emailed me about a blogging photographer she met, Di Mackey, and how Di needed some web site design, I was definitely interested.

Taking a different approach

Usually when clients approach me with a web site request, I design the layout, navigation and all the back end for them. Di had something different in mind. She had seen a website template specifically for photography sites at AllWebCo and knew that was what she wanted. I had never worked with a pre-made template before (other than my WordPress templates) and was surprised at how easy it was.

Teamwork and the end result

V-grrl wrote Di’s copy. I created the logo, cropped and placed images, and did the back end tweaking. And now that Di has got the photo part down, she maintains it. The result is a professional looking gallery for Di to showcase her talent and grow her business.

One of my favorite aspects of working on the Internet is being able to meet and work with people from all over the globe, without ever having to meet face to face. And if you are wondering whether blogging can pay off for your business or not, a big resounding YES, IT CAN comes from my desktop.

Happy Friday!