Using free WordPress templates for fast & affordable redesigns
Here are two beautiful, highly functional, self-editable websites that were launched on shoestring budgets by making good use of off-the-shelf WordPress templates:
Deva Foundation
www.deva.org
I started off with this freely available WP theme. Then my client found a nice stock image of clouds on iStockPhoto.com that I converted into an ephemeral background. Finally, I popped in a new header graphic, improved the font styling (and IE compatibility) and integrated iContact for email newsletter signups and and PayPal for ecommerce.
Ta-da! Deva Foundation’s brand new site was completed in less than 20 hours, from concept to completion.
Maria Benitez
www.MariaBenitez.com
This website for the legendary Santa Fe flamenco dancer Maria Benitez was completed in even less time by taking advantage of the excellent — and freely available – “Yoghourt” WordPress theme.
Strip www off URLs at GoDaddy using .htaccess mod_rewrite
Here’s how to remove the www. from your domain name so that Google won’t “split” your pagerank as a result of some inbound links going to www.foo.com and others going to foo.com. (Google will see this as two separate sites.) This tip is tuned to work at GoDaddy, where using mod_rewrite can be a real pain because GoDaddy has some unfortunate default Apache settings that prevent ordinary rewrites from working properly out-of-the-box.
Add these lines to the top of your .htaccess file:
# Override GoDaddy defaults which can inhibit URL rewriting
Options -MultiViews
rewriteEngine On# Rewrite URLs so we don’t fragment our rankings beetween xyz.com and www.xyz.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]
“Narrowing down your design preferences”
CSS Zen Garden
Sometimes a tricky process during a website design or redesign project is to figure out what kind of a general look and feel the client wants for the new site. Asking a client to “just go find some sites you like and send me the links” is a bit like asking “just go find some stars in the sky you like and point them out to me.”
Introducing an old favorite of mine: CSS Zen Garden. It’s great when a client can visit this site and send back links to two or three designs that feel right for the project we’re working on together. The CSS Zen Garden is also a superb place to demonstrate how form and content can be separated from one another. A properly built website will have the ability to change form at a later date with a minimum penalty, i.e. having to rebuild content.
Flash Site for GCI
Working from Illustrator mockups (graphic design by avantgarde) this 100% Flash site was built with gorgeous full-screen portfolios, custom text and photo scrolling classes and efficient loading / pre-loading behaviors.
www.gci-sf.com
GCI is a succesful San Francisco based commercial contracting / construction management firm.
“What makes a great newsletter?”
Click to see the whole newsletter
Here’s an example of a really super email newsletter. Even if you’re not a Yogi, it should be clear that this newsletter offers real value to its readers.
Here’s what makes it so great:
- It’s not too long: You don’t have to set aside a special time in the day to read the whole thing. It’s distraction friendly.
- The marketing ‘call-to-action‘ — the teaching schedule — is nicely separated out in the sidebar and highly visible, and it doesn’t overwhelm the newsletter with self-promotional material.
- The introduction is personal and friendly and is relevant to the intended audience.
- The cooking recipe at the bottom gives the newsletter real value. This is giving something away for free, and it’s a great incentive to keep visitors subscribed to the newsletter.
- The overall layout is easy on the eyes, and has a good balance of text to images.
Prototyping for PayPal
I really enjoy doing rapid prototyping, and from a business perspective there’s no better way to figure out how to bring a new product to market. This month, AnswerLab (San Francisco) hired me to produce web prototypes to test a new financial product for PayPal.
Here’s how this type of study works:
- Figure out what different messages or images you think might help to sell your product
- Produce a prototype (fake) website that simulates purchasing that product, with variations for each message or image you want to test
- Send users to test out each variant of the website
- Conduct statistical analysis of users’ browsing behaviors to figure out which variation produced the best results
“Agile design and just getting it out there”
This morning, a friend and client of mine emailed me regarding the work we’re doing to get his new website built:
I interest myself in how the structure of our site will influence our behavior … As the website design develops, so does my clarity. It’s obvious to me that “site review and evaluation” will be an opportunity for us to reflect on our goals … I mean that the site is, for me, kind of like a biofeedback device that informs me about myself and helps me develop my goals. At least that’s how it feels at this stage in the process.
This is a great reflection on how the actual process of making a website helps to make more concrete the actual project or work that the website is supposed to communicate. This kind of thinking caused a seismic shift in the philosophy of webdesign and web programming a couple of years ago. It’s called “agile design” and I think it’s fascinating.
The basic idea behind agile design is that you minimize the amount of forethought and planning on paper, and instead take advantage of technologies that let you easily update the website once someone has actually clicked through the Real Thing.
Before agile development we said to our clients: “Get it right on paper, or else we’ll bill you astronomical fees for change-orders.” Now we say: “Let’s just get the basic sketch online, play with it, and then keep tweaking things until it feels right.”
This is one of the reasons I build a lot of sites for my clients using WordPress. It means that we can change our minds about lots of things — even the fundamental look and feel — without having to build everything over again from scratch.
Being With Dying
Today we launched this simple elegant website to promote Upaya’s enormously important “Being With Dying” training program:
www.BeingWithDying.org
“The professional Training Program in Contemplative End-of-Life Care has long been dedicated to fostering a revolution in care of the dying. This unique program provides clinicians with essential tools for taking care of dying people with skill and compassion, as well as sustaining resilience and dedication as they serve others.”
Ottmar Liebert’s Redesign
The last time I did a complete redesign for platinum-selling flamenco guitarist Ottmar Liebert was in 1995. By 2008, he was ready for something new and fresh, something that pushed the envelope while staying rooted with his zen-sensibility for elegant, clean, functional design.
The jewel of this redesign is a environmentally sensitive home page which, if left alone for 10 minutes, gets devoured by weeds, vines, bugs…
This fairly huge project included:
- SEO-friendly flash
- A wordpress diary that goes back 12 years
- A record label
- An MP3 downloads shopping cart.
http://ottmarliebert.com
Wedding Photography Blog Redesign
http://henshallphoto.com
This was a super-basic blog redesign for a friend and former colleague of mine. The assignment was to create a look and feel that kept his existing branding requirements (color pallette, logo) while making a new frame for his blog that would provide an elegant relief for large animated photo slideshows and sparse text.
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