WordPress.org

1. Philip Kirk
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   This is the first time I've had a go at building a WordPress theme, but after about a month of coding my new website I think it's pretty much done.

   Philip Kirk Photography

   I'm a photographer so I wanted a site that I could update easily with new galleries and news etc. as well as having a built in Blog section. Before switching to WP I had a separate website and Blogger blog. My blog was important to me, but I didn't like the separation, hence the rebuild.

   Obviously for a photographer displaying photographs is pretty important, and how well I could get WordPress to handle this was my biggest worry. I still need some tweaking but I'm pretty happy overall.

   Please have a look and let me know what you think.

   Cheers,
   Phil

2. mrmist
   Forum Janitor
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Portfolio section and the landing page look good and respond well. The blog section was slow to load for me due mainly to the first Image I think.

   Personally, if you are wanting professional contact off your contact page, I'm not sure that a shadowed, hooded, man is the most welcoming of images to use. Maybe go for something a little more open and dynamic. Your arty stuff can be shown off elsewhere.

3. CSD_Images
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Number of design issues. Overall the slight has a clean feel to it but it feels too 'cramped' in some places.

   Home page, the text is flush with the edges. This can give the reader a sense of claustrophobia in regards to text. Add some padding to give some breathing room. Header has an awful bevel on it that's reminiscent of the 90s. The header also suffers from the lack of breathing space. Plus the mountains have loading overlaid over them. No indication of what it's loading though...

   Next up is 'folio. You can use this page so much better by creating tiles instead of having too much dead space. Galleries collapse on image load, again this is jarring to the visit experience. Also the content feels lopsided with the thumbnails being dead left. You may also want to optimise the load time on the images they are laggy taking up to 5 seconds to load at times.

   The contact form is disturbing because of the hooded figure. What kind of message are you saying about yourself here? I'd also disable the Fast and Secure Contact form credit as it's jarring to most visitors and this is a services site.

   Blog needs space after the footer otherwise all your text will go missing for some people who won't notice it. The blog has numerous typos and feels unfinished to be honest.

   Hope all this helps.

4. Philip Kirk
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Thanks for the feedback so far.

   It seems that after starting this topic I managed to break my site in two unique ways, firstly my attempts to minify the scripts disabled the slideshow on the front page (hence the loading sign on the mountains) and then I broke my galleries when I updated a plugin. Both are now fixed and I'd be grateful if you could take another look, so sorry about that.

   Thanks for pointing out that the hooded figure should go from the contacts page, it has now been replaced with a slideshow (which I can't seem to get working in Firefox for some unknown reason, could people let me know if it works for them?).

   CSD: Woah! Certainly didn't pull any punches there!

   I took your advice on the bevel, definitely better now. On the “cramped” front, I've made a few tweaks, but personally I like having the text flow to the edge but if anybody else thinks this is an issue I'll consider changing it. I wasn't quite sure what you meant by “Galleries collapse on image load”?

   If you could expand on the blog not being “finished” I would be grateful, I'd like to make my blog as good as it can be so any criticisms about any of it would be useful.

   Thanks for your honesty, please keep the feedback coming.

5. mistersilverio
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I am not a wordpress expert...just wanted to comment:

   Your pics are great. Site looks good to me. Just curious, what gallery are you using?

6. CSD_Images
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Featured gallery doesn't work in Opera 11, all I can see is about 20px changing at the top of the mountains.

   Header is a lot better but add some padding, it'll the text some space to breath.

   You've fixed the collapsing issue by having the thumbnails to the right. The solution doesn't really feel elegant or polished, maybe incorporate some JQuery to make it better?

   No offence intended with the comments above, I just don't beat about the bush.

   I'll try and sort out some screen grabs tomorrow to illustrate what I mean, just got to finish a theme for another photographer tonight first :/

7. Philip Kirk
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Oh, tiresome. Thanks for pointing that out, I thought I'd fixed that. For some reason it works when you refresh it, but not on first load, something to do with minifying the css I think.

   Having the thumbnails to the right is how I'd always planned to have the galleries, but I'd agree that the scrolling sidebar could be more polished, it's on the list.

   No offense taken (although my ego felt slightly bruised), whatever improves my site. I'd rather you were honest, and thanks for taking the time.

   mistersilverio: Thanks, glad you like the photos! I'm using NextGen in the Portfolio, with a slightly hacked Carousel layout on the gallery pages.

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