Screenshot: cllrkenhawkins.co.uk

Ken was already blogging on Google’s Blogger platform. However, following a few sessions at a Social Media Surgery, he was keen to do more with his blog both in terms of content and presentation.

I helped Ken by setting him up with a WordPress site, transferring legacy content over from the old blog to his new WordPress site and setting up the new blog layout.

Ken wanted his blog to have a clear layout with straightforward navigation. To provide this, I chose the Grid Focus theme by Derek Punsalan.

Rather than a traditional ‘menu’ navigation, all the content—posts, comments, contact details and Ken’s tweets—is contained within a single page and browsed via categories.

We wrapped up with a demonstration session on using the WordPress admin interface to write new posts, upload images, assign categories and how to manage comments.

I’ve been a little lax at posting, so here is the first of two updates on recent WordPress projects I’ve produced at the end of 2009.

Since 2006, I’ve maintained a WordPress site for SMASH (Solihull Methodists Acting and Singing in Harmony), an amateur dramatics group based at Solihull Methodist Church. The site contains a photo archive of past productions and a blog about the group’s activities, such as upcoming shows, rehearsal information and ticket booking.

At the end of 2009, I updated the site with a new information architecture, making better use of WordPress categories to organise content across the site.

The site also has a fresh, new look more in keeping with the world of theatre. I used Justin Tadlock’s Options theme, a magazine-style theme ideally suited for a community organisation. I then tweaked the theme’s CSS, adding a new colour palette, type scheme and background image.

Here’s the new home page:

Screenshot: updated home page design (November 2009)

View the live project at www.solihull-smash.org.uk.

Skills used on this project

• Typography
• XHTML
• CSS
• WordPress
• Content management
• Photoshop

View the live project at www.solihull-smash.org.uk.

The site contains an archive of previous shows

The SMASH site contains photo galleries of all productions to date, reaching all the way back to their first production in 1988. All of the existing digital photo files were edited in Photoshop for levels, colour, contrast and sharpening.

A photo gallery from the SMASH production of Goodnight Mr Tom in 2003

Credits and plugs

The SMASH site uses the Almost Spring WordPress theme designed by Beccar Wei. The photo galleries use Gavin Barker’s Litebox plugin. The SMASH discussion forums use Simple Forum by Yellow Swordfish.

Skills

• WordPress maintenance
• Photo editing
• Content management