One of the challenges in creating my WordPress website was that I wanted to add posts about recent work, but with more specific details and displayed in a custom fashion without writing custom code into the post itself. The solution I finally settled on was a combination of the WordPress template override system and using custom variables.
One of the powers of WordPress is its template override system. It allows a theme to be highly customized without altering the WordPress core. For example, when WordPress first loads it looks for a category file called category-”category ID”.php (ie. category-8.php) in your theme folder. If it doesn’t find one (it won’t exist by default) then it uses the category.php file. So this allows you to create custom pages and give different categories their own distinct looks or graphics. You can do this for as many categories as you have. And since these custom files exist in your theme folder, it’s possible to freely update your WordPress installation without worrying about the update overwriting your modifications. Again, because we aren’t modifying any core files, only a theme.
Oh, and to find the category id, go to the Categories list in the admin and place your mouse over the category in question. Then look at your browsers status bar and you’ll see a url with the ID, such as “http://url…Cat_ID=12″.
Designing a website that’s easy for the user to understand and navigate is only part of the solution. Making that website easy for search engines to understand and navigate is also important. Search engine optimization has become an industry as important to websites as are web design firms and hosting companies. Optimizing a website for search engines takes its own game plan and time frame. In this post I will discuss the first important steps in getting a website ranked well in natural organic listings that appear in Google, Yahoo!, Bing, etc. For now we won’t get into the paid-for-placement sponsored listings.
Adding to my collection of obsolete technology, I am now the proud owner of a laserdisc player. It had never really occurred to me to seek out and buy an LD player, until I wanted to watch a few particularly rare movies. Movies that had never made it to DVD, or they made it to DVD that used the laserdisc as the source. So why buy a copy of a copy when I can get one mastered from the source, albeit on a now obsolete format.
Any designer who has created work for themselves knows that you are your own worst client. After many months of laboring over what I wanted this website to be and numerous false starts, revisions, new directions, etc., I’m finally going live. It isn’t perfect and I don’t consider it “finished,” but I’ll get there. In the meantime, this site accomplishes the goals I set for it and I’m glad (relieved) to finally have it this far along. So without further ado…
When asked what I do for a living, I often say I am a web designer. While that’s not all I do (I do print work too), the web designer title seems really easy for people to “get.” Hmm, designing for the web, I get it. But the term “web designer” isn’t a completely accurate title of what I do. In the past, “web designer” meant you could program html to make a website. And for the most part that was enough. Writing the code was why people paid the price. But that’s no long enough.
It’s no longer about the programming. It’s not enough to just build a website. It’s about creating an engaging content environment that provides the user with a focused and intuitive web experience. (Well, intuitive as we can really get.) It’s about putting yourself in the shoes of a possibly a not-so-tech-savvy person and trying to see a website through their eyes.