Ah, yes. WordPress. The “belle of the ball” amongst content management systems. What started out as a humble little blogging tool has developed into the most popular platform in the known universe (and elsewhere). Why not use Joomla or Drupal? In a word, PLUG-INS. WordPress has plug-ins to cover just about every scenario you would like to implement. From image galleries to contact forms, image compression to font replacement, and SEO to social media tools. Hell, it probably has a plug-in to make your coffee for you! It makes life easier on the back-end and lets you get busy with the important stuff. Like designing. Let’s take a look at how WordPress can work for you. Oh, and did we mention it’s free as well?
Converting from (X)HTML/CSS
Of course you’re not going to use a pre-made portfolio theme. What self-respecting designer would? Here are some resources to help you chunk up your existing HTML and CSS and convert it to the WordPress framework. Take particular note of the first article at Jestro.com. It’s probably the best we’ve seen describing a clear and concise conversion walkthrough.
- Convert XHTML/CSS To WordPress
- Conversion article from Primary Color
- Walkthrough from CyberCoated
- From the WordPress Codex
Plug-Ins
Check out these essential plug-ins for your portfolio.
- NextGEN Gallery
- Featured Content Gallery
- Carousel Gallery
- Flickr Gallery
- CFormsII Contact Form(the comments from the irritable developer are great fun to read)
- Font Replacement Using Cufon
- Smush It(reduces image file size)
- Super Cache(makes Wordpress faster)
- Platinum SEO Pack
- Google Sitemaps Generator
Examples of Web Design Portfolios using Wordpress
Let us grab some inspiration, shall we?! These are the cream of the crop of portfolios using WordPress as a platform. Hopefully you can get an idea of exactly what can be done with this wonderful CMS.
Lee Munroe
Owltastic
Darren Hoyt
Far From Fearless
Soh Tanaka
Komodo Media
Jay Hafling
Brian Wilkins
Graphic Diversion
Freshivore
–James J Martin IV
thank you for share