Hey there,
In my experience, designing a site from scratch is the best solution. If you want something really personal, editing an exiting theme may be more work than doing yours from the ground up. Besides, if you already know HTML and CSS, turning a design into a wordpress theme is really not much of a stretch, it’s mostly just tags and code you can easily copy and paste from the codex. At first, it may seem hard, but building your own theme really is the best way to learn. Of course, editing a theme is also a great way to start. But in my personal experience, starting from starch ends up being easier if you want something really different.
My advice is read the codex, search a good tutorial or two (there are tons on the web), set up a XAMPP installation (or LAMPP or MAMP) to try stuff out, you’ll learn pretty quick!
Thanks for the reply Julia. I guess I should have made myself more clear. When I say “create a site from scratch” I mean NOT using WordPress as a platform. In other words, just a regular website using HTML, CSS, etc. and designed with a text editor, Photoshop, etc.
When you say “designing a site from scratch” do you mean designing a WordPress-run site from scratch?
My dilemma is whether to use WordPress as a platform for my portfolio site or just create a regular website (whatever that means!).
Sorry to sound so confused.
Ah, I see!
When you say “designing a site from scratch” do you mean designing a WordPress-run site from scratch?
Yep, that’s exactly what I mean. But as I said, once you have your design in HTML and CSS is not very difficult to turn that into a wordpress theme.
I would recommend wordpress, because it’ll be easier in the long run than running a static website (just HTML and CSS), but really it’s up to you. Will you need any of wordpress functionalities? Trackbacks, comments, categories, tags? Will you need to update your site a lot?
It depends on what kind of webmaster you want to be.
If you want to be the hands on, hacking your own html/css/code all the time in addition to the content, do a totally scratch site.
If you want an easier way to update content and not worry too much about code, do a CMS. (And remember you can always dive into the open source code any time you want 😉 We welcome that!)
There’s no perfect way, and no way works for everyone, so it’s a bit of an experimentation 🙂
Web ‘design’ is pretty nebulous these days, I hate to say. We call people designers who are really themers, and vice versa. I always say make good content with at least a decent layout. You can always re-theme later, but if you have crap content, it doesn’t matter how pretty your site is. Of course, if your site is totally fugly… well. It’s a balance.
Just depends if you want to be hip-deep in code all the time (because a site is MORE than just how it looks, it’s also how it runs) or not.
Julia,
Will you need any of wordpress functionalities? Trackbacks, comments, categories, tags? Will you need to update your site a lot?
I don’t even know what trackbacks are but I will not be needing comments on my portfolio pages. Maybe if I include a blog within my site I would use comments there. I will be updating the image content often though as I design several book covers a month and want to showcase the latest work. I am leaning towards using WordPress for its ease in updating or adding new content. It seems like it would be easier than to figure out how to design a site not using WordPress to perform some of these functions.
Thanks for your reply ipstenu,
I do know a bit of html, css, etc. but do not want to worry too much about that aspect of my site. I am looking for someway to have a customized look and navigation but easy to update and add new images, etc.
All of the content on my portfolio site will be examples of my printed design work. Mostly book covers, CD packages, posters, and other retail packaging.
I’m starting to lean towards either creating a WordPress theme from scratch or using an existing one that I’ve customized, if that’s allowable.
Thanks for the great advice! I’m an experienced print designer but a real novice when it comes to web design.
I am leaning towards using WordPress for its ease in updating or adding new content. It seems like it would be easier than to figure out how to design a site not using WordPress to perform some of these functions.
I think it’ll be easier in the long run to keep you site updated using wordpress. Of course, I think is obvious that most here like wordpress a bit 😉 so maybe my opinion is slighty biased. You’ll probably find a few bumps along the way, but once you get the hang of it, wordpress is really easy to use. Also, if your not sure how to go about creating your theme, there are tons on the web that might help you start
Julia:
I think it’ll be easier in the long run to keep you site updated using wordpress.
I think you are right Julia. Certainly in my case it sounds like the easiest route to go in order to get my work up on my own custom site. I have a few WordPress books and have studied a few tutorials and articles on the web but it seems like “real work” always comes up so I have to put the tutorial on the back burner. Thanks very much for the information and advice. Hopefully I can find time to make it work for me!
