Tag: blog-design

WordPress Blank Theme V2beta

Posted on by Michael Bishop

While I’m in a blogging flurry, I figured I’d go ahead and share my newest “blank theme”. I do quite a bit of WP work, either converting open source designs, modifying existing site’s design to a WP theme, or custom work, and often have the use for a framework to start. For the past couple of years, I’ve been using my popular Blank Theme, but more and more, I’ve found the markup not to my liking, and as it’s based on Kubrick, a bit outdated code wise. So I’ve cooked up a blank theme from scratch, using much more (hopefully) semantic markup, and a much more streamlined framework. This version currently only has an index, header, footer, sidebar (as an unordered list, which should be widget ready, though I would need to add a function.php file. It also includes a bit of code handy for recent posts), single post, and page template. I also am using Christian Montoya’s comment template instead of Kubricks. I hopefully covered all the elements in the templates in the style sheet, as well as have a few basic global elements set.

Remember, this is a blank theme. It is completely unstyled, and is meant as a framework in which to customize a theme. Also, this is meant for WP >= 2.1.x, as it uses several new template tags.

Update: Download link fixed. (damn typos)

You can download the Blank Theme v2 beta.

I would appreciate any and all feed back, both for missing elements, and suggestions for additions.

Blog Designs, Function or Form?

Posted on by Michael Bishop

This started out as a simple comment on Rachel’s design blog, but started getting wordy, so I converted it to a post w/trackback. (Which may be a thought for a future post, what is too long of a comment?)
The part I found myself relating to was the design of Squible, and user experience, which I found myself having recently gone through.
I had gotten busy, neglected my blogging, and when I got back into the swing of things,felt a new look was in order. Not having that much time, I opted for Squible. A good friend who also blogs noted that he “just couldn’t get his head around that format”. I fought changing things back for some time, but that comment hung around in the back of my head. I kept thinking that this guy is a “web guy, a designer. If he can’t get around it, what about the other 150+ a day that stumble upon place.” So when I changed hosts, and upgraded, I tried Squible for all of about 20 minutes, and then cobbled together a more traditional blog design.
Not that as a fledgling, wanna-be designer I don’t want to push my envelope, but I have to come back to the user experience. Much as my cooking evolved from wanting to be “everychef”, that is, I wanted to be Charlie Trotter, Jean Louis Paladin, Alan Susser, and Jean Georges Vongrichten on every plate. Little by little, I learned that my guests weren’t looking for me to defy gravity and mix flavors that might not otherwise be mixed, simply for the sake of “pushing the envelope”. It took me a long time to understand that my guests wanted a good meal. Sure, an unexpected flavor that contrasts but doesn’t detract, or a creative yet accessible presentation is fine, but make it edible. But I digress.
I still want to push envelopes, and broaden horizons, and all those clichés, but first and formost, I want the ramblings, and info to be accessible, and to flow in some manner that people will “get”.