My Graphic/Web Design History » WordPress

DanEllison.com (2010)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:27:12 +0000

Following Dan’s success in his run for City Commission, I suggested we repurpose the campaign site and continue to use it for a conduit for communicating with the citizens of Helena. The campaign site received over 36.6k unique page views between July and December ‘09. I “realigned” the design from the campaign site using the same customized theme, updated the logo, and implemented it on the new domain.

As with the campaign site I continue to manage all aspects of this site, including content creation.

Ellison For City Commission (2009)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:20:18 +0000

When a good friend of 10 years informed me he was running for Helena City Commission, naturally I jumped at the chance to help him out. This was a quick effort and I was able to implement this site very quickly and inexpensively.

I started by designing his logo (also used on business cards, brochures and other collateral items), incorporating it into a modified stock free theme called “Fusion” that Dan and his wife Jane picked out. I formatted the content and integrated the blog with his Twitter and Facebook accounts, coaching Dan on how and when to update each. When he created a commercial for local TV, I hosted it with Vimeo and pulled that into the site as well. I’m also performed various other administrative tasks like managing the domain(s) (9 of them, all variations), email accounts (through Google Accounts), keeping Wordpress, the theme and plug-ins updated, and everything else behind the scenes having to do with the hosting (with Dreamhost.com). Nothing I did on the site required custom programming. I wanted to insure that it remained easy to update with WordPress’ automatic updating functionality for itself, the themes and the plug-ins.

The future of the site, now that he won one of the two available seats in the election, is to convert the site from WordPress to static HTML pages and keep it online as an archive of the campaign, at least while Dan serves out his term. I’ve molded this campaign web site into a new form, with new content and a new logo, at DanEllison.com.

Women’s Leadership Network (2006)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:57:11 +0000

The client trusted my vision on the design of this site and cut me loose to explore many options. I’m gratified that they picked my favorite out of the bunch. The target demographic for the organization is professional women in the Helena area in the 20-50 age range. The theme uses an analogous color scheme with blues and greens, giving it a harmonious, professional look. This site is a combination of WordPress blogs (2) and static HTML pages. Two blogs were used to maintain a separation for the web site admins and the members, who are allowed to post their own announcements (this separation can now be accomplished with various plug-ins on a single WordPress installation).

WordPress was used for the Announcements page and the Event Information page. The rest is static HTML using the same design as the WordPress theme. Each member was given an account in the Announcements blog and that data was used to create the Member Directory and customize the Contact Information page. Small scripting enhancements were used to tie the site together, for example, PHP is used to grab the three newest entries in the Event Information blog and post them on the homepage. Finally, the Membership Application page was tied into Paypal allowing members to pay their dues via credit card, without creating a maintenance or administration nightmare for the client.

New Zealand Journey (2006)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:51:19 +0000

The focus of the New Zealand Journey project was to create a fresh new web site for their bi-annual tour for weaving enthusiasts. The target demographic was primarily women in the 40-70 age range. The implementation focused almost solely on ease of use. The design was created with images provided and approved by the New Zealand tourism site as well as the client’s personal collection. A highly customized e-mail form used to allow online registration, with a downloadable PDF version optional. There were also links to Paypal that allowed the participants to pay the trip deposit via credit card, with the balance due sent via a personalized invoice.

Sadly, they no longer hold these tours, but the site remains up with a final message.

Personal WordPress Theme (2007)

John — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:45:17 +0000

I developed this custom-from-scratch WordPress theme for a prior version of my personal blog. The design and color scheme are based on a forthcoming custom paint scheme for my motorcycle. I started with a screenshot created in Photoshop to fine-tune the design, followed by a static, validated HTML page, which I then chopped up into the various files into the WordPress theme. The homepage features an animated Flash slideshow using MonoSlideShow. The bulldog logo (slated for the sides of my gas tank) is actually fairly common but I recreated it and added my own flavor.

I’m still very fond of this design and I still plan on updating this design for use on my motorcycle blog, Friarsride.com. Unfortunately at the time of this writing it’s very low priority.