Help me oh STW geeky types. You’re my only hope.

I’ve set myself the task of building a website for Mrs Binners new business venture. Nothing complicated. Just a simple overview. I’ve designed a brand ID and done some visuals

I’m good at that bit. I’ve designed loads of websites. I’m a black belt in Photoshop, Illustrator, and even Flash. BUT…. once I’ve done the visuals, I hand them all over to someone cleverer than me, with the words ‘make it so!’

I then scratch, my chin, making thoughtful noises, moan at them, tell them that wasn’t what i wanted at all, pick up on the most minor issues regarding fonts and line weights, and generally make a PITA of myself.

So this time I’m going to have a go myself. I’ve been informed that the best plan of attack is to buy a wordpress template, and start from there. The trouble is that I have the technical aptitude of a gibbon with ADHD

So… where do I start? Is this a stupid idea, and I should leave it to someone who knows what they’re doing? I fancy having a go, if I’m honest, because I’m a bloody minded bastard and I’ve challenged mysellf to do it. Its my task for the day. There will be swearing.

So any advice from anyone who’s done it would be greatly appreciated. Best sites to buy a template? And any real-world hints or pointers

Fanks in advance

Dunno about wordpress, but I use this lot for learning techy things…
There’s a free 14 day trial, should be enough time…

http://teamtreehouse.com/tracks/learn-wordpress

Thanks for that Mackem. Looks like a good place for a novice to start.

Piece of piss.

Wait, I mean it’s very difficult and you should leave it to us professionals.

I’ve never used wordpress but have built a website using Conrete5.

I was very simple, more typing than coding and wordpress is largely the same.

Start by finding a template that is a close to the style of site that you want to make and then do the minimal amount of customisation – tweaking the colours.

The breakthrough for me was discovering ‘child themes’.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

Basically, pick a theme to base your tweaks on then create a child and make your mods to this. That was you maintain the original and can play about without permanently breaking stuff.

Have a look here themeforest and try and find a template that is close to what you want. Look at the ones that are well reviewed or at least have a lot of sales as these tend to be the themes that offer a bit better technical support should you need it.

The closer you can get to your ideal with the base theme (or the more you’re willing to compromise) the less time and effort you need to spend modifying it so it’s worth spending the time searching for the right theme to begin with.

Then once you’ve got stuff in place and working with the downloaded theme then you start altering the child theme (see gravity-slaves post above) to get it to look exactly how you want.

WP? How hard can that be? I am also learning …

Got all my website planned out but stuck with the bloody Terms & Conditions. Do I need a lawyer to write them … arrgghhh … sure wish there is a template. 😮

Not using WP site but a paid site which I finally found to be something that I think should be reliable.

I’ve designed a brand ID

Could you knock one up for me please? I’ll PayPal you a few quid if I like it, and there’d be deffo more work in the pipeline if it’s good.

Buy a book and play around before going for the real thing. It will make life a lot easier and you will get to a good final product much faster imho. In the end you can go for a purchased theme and that is a really good idea but it helps to understand the fundamentals. Unless you are in a real hurry and just need to get something going now

leffeboy – Member

Buy a book and play around before going for the real thing.

Do you need a book for that? Everything is on interweb … 😯

You are merely using template you know and not coding etc …

Do you need a book for that? Everything is on interweb …

Yes everything is on the interweb but I’ve yet to find an interweb article that does as good a job as teaching a subject as well thought out and written book. There are lots of short web articles on particular subjects but if what you want is led into a subject that you know nothing about then I still prefer books, certainly as a start

It may also just be because I am an old git thought

leffeboy – Member
… but if what you want is led into a subject that you know nothing about then I still prefer books, certainly as a start …

I see that makes sense.

I am just a tight git I guess when it comes to buying books.

😛

I’m not particularly techie and I managed to use word press to make my web page and keep it updated. Even managed to get it to page 1 on Google search!

how hard can it be?

— well, just about as hard as you want it to be, depending on how much you want the website to do!!

I’ve just spent the weekend mentoring new devs on contributing code to a WordPress competitor; Drupal. Some stuff is easy, some stuff is really challenging! WordPress is much the same.

If you can create a navigation menu, create pages and then search for and apply a sensible theme that you like to the site, you’ll have a perfectly good “shop front” website for most new businesses. Don’t try and solve everything at once – get the basics up and then add to it only when you can justify adding to it.

Rachel (worn out and still on the train back from Brighton)