Business Logs

Helping companies communicate better

Considering a theme framework?

Figuring out whether you should use a WordPress theme framework for your website is a balancing act of how much control you want to have over your theme code and how much you don’t have to write yourself.

Controlling Code

When you build a website, you usually start with the HTML and then add CSS. With a theme framework, the HTML (and WordPress PHP) already exists and you must approach it CSS Zen Garden style. Of course you can still override the code with hooks and filters provided by WordPress and the framework itself, but the question is, how far do you want to go?

Say you want to tweak the way the post date, author, and comments section of the page. In Genesis there’s a nifty shortcode format you can override with a filter:

post_date before="" post_author_posts_link post_comments post_edit

So that’s pretty easy to customize. However, say you’re not happy with the way comment pagination is being displayed and you want to wrap it around an if statement, which Genesis does not do. Unfortunately there’s no filter for that and you’ll have to copy-paste the entire chunk of code from genesis_do_comments() to override it.

All-in-one

Using frameworks also means you can work entirely out of functions.php (and style.css), which can be a good or bad thing for you. Good, because there’s only one file to refer to when looking to fix or edit code. Bad, because it’s all lumped in there. You can still use page templates, but that would usually mean redundant code, which defeats the purpose of using frameworks in the first place. Conditional tags are your friend.

Dependency

Finally, using a 3rd-party framework means you’re completely dependent on the underlying code, for better or worse. You won’t have to worry about updating the code when a new WordPress version gets released. But if the framework goes in a direction you’re not too thrilled about, becoming too bloated for your taste, then you’ll have to migrate to another framework and adapt your code all over again.

Starter themes & light frameworks

If you don’t need the bells and whistles (hooks and options) of a framework for your website, keep in mind that any WordPress theme can be a parent theme whose code you can inherit for your own theme. Try using Twenty Ten as your base template, or just copy/paste code and modify to your liking, no strings attached.

An all new Freelance Writing Jobs

Freelance Writing Jobs - freelancewritinggigs.com

Yes, we’re still on a redesign spree with our network websites and this time it’s Freelance Writing Jobs, completely unrecognizable from its old look. It’s lighter and shall we say more writerly—the logotype, hues, textures, and use of manicules all lend to that feeling.

Much of the work went into reorganizing the homepage such that everything is at your fingertips. From the introductory message about FWJ to the equal height boxes and aligned headings (with a little help from jQuery of course), everything is neatly arranged so you don’t get overwhelmed by the information this massive site has to offer. The grid is your friend.

FWJ’s new logo uses the Philosopher web font, which is designed by Jovanny Lemonad and available for embedding through the Google Font Directory. Under the hood, we’ve turned once again to the trusty Genesis Theme Framework.

Check out the new design here!

The ForeverGeek Realign

ForeverGeek

Next up on our roster was a realignment of ForeverGeek. A realignment, you say? If you’re familiar with the old design, this new iteration still carries a similar look and layout, but with a few new touches.

There are now four main sections on the homepage: Features, Games, Anime & Comics, and the Rest—color-coded so they’re easy to distinguish. At the top, the latest post is featured in each box. In the content area, each section dynamically cycles through each post (with the help of the jQuery Cycle plugin).

ForeverGeek media

Another new feature is the Media Wall, located at the footer of every page. Aside from categories and tags, letting visitors explore your site by images is a smart idea. Clicking on a thumbnail leads you to a larger view of the image, also containing links to related images added in the same article. The image attachment functions in WordPress make this easy to implement.

On the CSS3 front: While rounded corners aren’t really a new thing on ForeverGeek, the border-radius module makes it easier than ever. (It’s still a little complicated, but thank goodness for modern browsers!) We also used a bit of box-shadow and webkit-transition for the hover effects. And of course, a sprinkling of @font-face for the headers to use a typeface that matches the original branding.

So there you have it folks, the new ForeverGeek. Hope you enjoy the new site!

A New Look for Business Logs

The new Business Logs

Just a few days ago we updated the Business Logs website with a fresh new look by its new design team, Ia Lucero and Ali Hussain. The homepage now gives you easy access to everything you need to know about our company: our goal, portfolio, ideas, and how to contact us.

The old Business Logs

The old design was light, narrow, monochromatic, and safe. This time, we went bolder with a dark design and a splash of bright green.

The new color combination is a business-y take on our parent company colors. We’ve also embraced the brave new world of CSS3-based rounded corners, shadows, transition animations, and custom typography. jQuery is always helpful, whether you need to add a carousel plugin or align box heights.

Under the hood, we’re still proudly powered by WordPress, but use the Genesis Theme Framework on top of it to speed up the development process. Working almost entirely in the functions.php and style.css files saves lots of time and appeals to the minimalist in me. We’ll talk about this in more detail in another article.

We hope you like our work, and welcome to the new Business Logs!

5 Things Your Business Blog Needs to Thrive

It’s easy to create a blog, publish a few posts, and think you’ve got a great business blog. But guess what? A successful business blog requires a lot more work than that. The social web does not operate like the Field of Dreams, and if you build it, they will not necessarily come.

Building a successful business blog takes commitment, persistence and patience. Most importantly, there are a few fundamentals that you need to make sure you address if you want your business blog to thrive in the long term.

Five of the most important fundamentals are described below to help you take your business blog to the next level of success: [Read more…] about 5 Things Your Business Blog Needs to Thrive