I’ve been blogging for almost five years now. The Blog-O-Sphere has changed radically, but one thing stays constant, and that is good design. I’ve used WordPress as my blog engine since the beginning and it has evolved into a highly sophisticated platform. Almost every week, someone comes out with a new widget or plug-in and raises the bar another notch.
This week, the bar was raised considerably. Brian Gardner, the founder of StudioPress, has come out with a significant update to his line of professional WordPress themes. It’s called Genesis, and the concept is simple. Make a structurally sound “parent” template and do most of the design work in “child” templates.
This dual design concept has a lot of advantages. The basic framework has lots of flexibility with 6 different layouts so you can find a look that matches your content. The parent blog engine comes complete with custom widgets for Twitter, featured pages, and a lot more. Once you get your parent site setup you can just add or modify a child theme to get the look and feel that you want.
Going forward, this will make it a lot easier to have a sophisticated blog design that doesn’t require a lot of background coding. Most all of the changes can be accomplished via the framework dashboard. Child templates will also have a control panel for added flexibility.
Currently if you have a complex WordPress design it can take days to change templates to update your site. With Genesis, all you will need to do is update your child template . The main structure will stay the same.
I have wanted to update Fire Up Today for over a year now, but the changeover has been a somewhat daunting task. I haven’t been able to find a two or three day period to recode everything. With Genesis, I can spend the time on the upgrade and have a site that will be much easier to customize in the future.
If you are an accomplished WordPress designer and want to develop a custom design with Genesis and use this blog as a showcase, let me know via the contact sheet or by direct message on Twitter (@success2you).
I am taking bids for a killer new look and I think Genesis will be the way to go.
