(WordPress) Themes 101 from WordCamp #wcbos
Some beginning points
- Theme: a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design.
- Themes alter the look and presentation of material
Understanding your site (Knowing what you’re looking for)
- Information architecture: the structure and organization of your information
- Kinds of information
- Posts
- Links
- Media
- Pages
- Comments
Things to think about
- Homepage
- An informational page with information about my business
- My recent posts
- My best posts
- All of the above - Primary buckets of information
- Top level nav should incapsulate your 5(ish) most important buckets of information - Building a sitemap: outline of content on your site intended to organize the information so people who visit can understand it (love this definition)
Understanding your site: Vocabulary
- (Photo/Web/Video) Blog
- focus is a chronological diary of posts
- homepage showcases recent updates
- has navigation elements, but often understated - Magazine theme
- think blog, on steroids
- content freshness important, but quality has value too
- home page usually showcases “best of” content
- content often fits into clear categories (navigation) - Content management system (business)
- CMS
- typically refers to complex, page centric sites
- audience usually comes for static information, not “fresh” content
- common for business & non-profits - Portfolio
- not an individual showcase
- may or may not have “blog” component
- typically a large focus on media
- often a small, media-centric CMS
3 Types of Themes (from a Licensing perspective)
- Freely available, GPL (General Public License) compatible
- Commercially supported GPL
- Proprietary (non GPL) – doesn’t have to mean commercial
- Premium = NOT a type of theme
What comes in the box
- Default, pre-installed WordPress theme [Kubrick]
- Best place to find themes: Official WP Themes Directory
- Other resources: Smashing Magazine, ThemesPreview.com, WPHacks, Premium WP, StudioPress
Things to consider
- Price – think about time spent after purchase
- Support
- Quality of Design
- Features
- Ease of use
Tips for finding a consultant
- Show, don’t tell (see examples of themes)
- Ask for referrals
- Look behind the curtain (ask for examples for “out of the box” features)
- Be realistic about price expectations
- Have they given back to the community?
Customization
- Look for theme specific settings under “appearance” menu
Jake Gold, C. Murray Consulting
@jakemgold
January 24th, 2010 at 5:40 am
All very good points. There is definitely a lot that goes into themes, and overall, how you want your site to look and function.
The only thing I don’t understand here is why you say Premium themes are NOT a type of theme.
I am a ‘aspiring’ theme designer/developer, and might want to work towards making premium themes possibly. I’ve always saw them as themes, just with more cool stuff, and things. I’ve used several free and premium themes so I’m curios why don’t see why premiums are not a type of theme.
January 24th, 2010 at 5:42 am
Oops, self submitting comment, somehow.
*Am curious why you say they are not a type of theme.^
January 24th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Jared – I gave this presentation. Premium is just an adjective that theoretically describes the quality of a theme. It says nothing about it’s pricing or licensing model. What you’re referring to is a commercial theme. Let your users decide if you’re “premium”.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Jake,
Glad you saw Jared’s question and answered. I got a lot out of your presentation, but I wouldn’t have been able to answer it as, well, eloquently
January 25th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I know you presented it, I was a volunteer there, just didn’t get to see you speak
I was mistakenly mixing up Premium and Commercial. I understand now what you mean. Thanks for your response.