But I do have something I want to document, and it’s the answer to the question about how custom the sites I build are. So without further ado, here’s the answer:

At the very least I heavily reskin themes to match the clients brand and personality. Good example is The Vegan Vine and Wicked Good Wines, both of which are based on a theme called The Station.

Sometimes I do less reskining than that, if the client likes the theme “as is.” Like Comity Designs which is based on the theme Nova. We did make changes to the size/placement/effect of the navigation that most people probably wouldn’t even notice, so that’s as close as I get to leaving a theme intact. The client fell in love with the them, though, and it’s basic enough that there wasn’t much to change anyway.

The advantage of themes is they package stuff up for you, the disadvantage is it’s difficult to add containers of content or fundamentally alter the layout. If you compare Zack’s sites to the themes he based them on, you’ll see that content has just been plugged in to predefined “slots.” Efficient and effective until the client says “Oh wait I’d like that over there instead.” Then you crack into the code.

So these days I build sites with a flexible theme framework called Headway that gives me complete control over what goes where. And lets me create pages the assemble posts however I want them. From big complex sites like Clos LaChance which you saw yesterday, a single page site called Fun Wine Sale that pulls together a bunch of posts, the History page of Willow Glen Charm and the Sponsors page of Lincoln Glen Little League which is how I think the directory of Willow Glen businesses should be built.

I think WGBA needs the latter, but that’s how I build all my sites these days…just too much easy flexibility to not capitalize on.:

Here’s the skinny on what Google’s bringing to the table:

The Google Font API provides a simple, cross-browser method for using any font in the Google Font Directory on your web page. The fonts have all the advantages of normal text: in addition to being richer visually, text styled in web fonts is still searchable, scales crisply when zoomed, and is accessible to users using screen readers.

And here’s an example of what something would look like in the new Google font “Tangerine.”

The quick brown tangerine jumped over the lazy tangerine.

Pretty neat, huh? Here’s a few other examples of the more distinctive/interesting fonts available. Note that I picked them not because they’re my favorites, but because they are the most different from what we’re used to.

This is IM Fell.

This is Lobster.

This is Reenie Beanie.

All I had to do was add to the section of this page (and same for the other fonts) and then I was able to assign the font-family tag with CSS.

It’s a very limited set of fonts for now, but I’m sure as it gets expanded I’ll find ways to use this technique to improve the typography of the sites I design.

Lately I’ve been finding more and more resources that help me efficiently build sites that meet the needs of clients, and make it easier for them to manage the contents. I plan on blogging about my favorites individually, as finding and picking plugins makes ALL the difference, but for now I’m just gonna mention and link to a few of the new ones I’m discovering so I don’t lose track of them.

Here’s some stuff I’ve  come across in recent months that is rockin’ my world.

• WooThemes makes awesome pro themes that I’m finding remarkably powerful and easy to customize.
• WPQuestions lets me ask urgent questions and get prompt responses from experts, for a fee that I’m more than willing to pay.

• Powerful Plugins
• Improved Include Page lets you add a simple snippet of code to your templates and have it pull in contents of other pages. Awesome for home pages.
• Widget Context that lets me put different widgets on individual pages, every page of a section, whatever.
• Enable Media Replace that lets me replace images in the media library without changing their URL. Best use is letting clients change images taht are hard-coded in the templates/themes I build them, like headers and backgrounds.
• DM-Albums is an awesome image gallery tool that I like better than the ones most people recommend, Zen and NextGen
• This article 10 Steps to a Client-Friendly WordPress CMS provides links to a bunch of plugins that do things I’ve long wanted to do. It’s dated as many of the links go down dead-end roads, but here are some gems I definitely need to keep track of. The most promising ones that do things I haven’t beenable to do thusfar are:
  • Navigation List plugin that makes your nav bar completely customizable yet client-editable
  • Flutter that lets you add custom fields to templates without programming
  • Side Content that lets you put page-specific sidebar content.

More to come…hold me to that. : )

I like to think I’m pretty good at marcom (actually I think I’m really good…humility is not one of my gifts, sorry) and I actually enjoy it. As such I know I’ll eventually be able to earn a good living on my own terms while doing something I like very much, i.e. helping people and companies better communicate and interact with their markets and customers. In particular, I think marcom consulting is right up my alley because of my versatility. I am confident writing anything from ad copy to whitepapers, designing everything from logos to full on web sites, and building some pretty sophisticated web sites.

To be clear, this is NOT what I’m doing at this time.

I’m extremely happy in my position at Solace Systems. I get to work on fun projects for a fantastic manager as part of a great team, and I feel like I’m adding real value to a marketing and sales engine that is bringing to market some of the most compelling technology I’ve been around. This is Phase I of GBarr the MarCom Guy: moonlighting. My goal is to replace middle-of-the-night hours spent in front of the TV or playing video games with productive and satisfying marcom work. Doing so will help me build out my portfolio and skillset while establishing relationships with clients and fellow consultants. And, yes, bring in a few extra dollars during these tough times.

It should be an interesting ride, please keep me in mind if you need, or hear about somebody who needs, high-quality marcom work (brochure, logo, business card, web site, whatever) at a great rate.