Blog Design: Clever Parents Launches on a New WordPress Platform
By Michael Pollock in Portfolio, Portfolio: Blogs & Websites
Company: Clever Parents
Business Type: Web Magazine/Blog for Parents
Website: www.cleverparents.com
Kris and David Jackson of Raleigh, NC launched Clever Parents back in April of this year. According to Kris and David:
“Clever Parents is the website for smart, successful parents. The Clever Parents site is for all parents—moms and dads—who are figuring out ways to get the most out of every day and every dollar and who do it in a way that’s healthy, fun, and… clever.”
It didn’t take long before Kris and David had attracted several other clever parents to help them generate content for the site. Within a few months the number of articles, tips and resources on the site had grown far beyond what their current web platform - an open source program called Metadot - was able to handle.
So, they contacted me a few weeks ago to help them transfer everything to a WordPress platform with the goal to make content management easier. And with Kris carrying out the never-ending duties of a full-time mom and David working a full-time job, they certainly needed something to make managing the site easier and less time-consuming.
The logo and illustrations on the original site were done by Monica Lee of Monica Lee Studios, while the layout was done by Kristen Ediger. Kris and David were very happy with the overall look and feel, so they asked me to simply reproduce the orginal site on WordPress with only a few minor changes in the layout.
The big challenge on this site was the multiple author aspect of it. With nearly 50 different authors/columnists, my WordPress programming skills were really put to the test in finding the best way to present each author, their photo and their profile information.
Another challenge was the content itself. Because the site had grown so rapidly, it was difficult to manage the numerous columns, categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories of content that had been created. In the end though, we were able to create an information architecture that made sense and - hopefully - works best for the Clever Parents readers.
On Sep 19, 2006, Dean said:
Hey Michael,
That’s great work on using WP as a robust CMS for your clients’ online magazine site. It’s interesting that you mention the overwhelming aspect of trying to configure the 50 authors and their respective permissions. No to mention the sub sub categories and such.
I’m having a similar challenge with a type of online magazine that I want to launch that is comparable in scale to Clever Parents re: many authors.
Perhaps, it might make for a good follow up post and tutorial to help show designers who don’t necessarily understand the programming side to WP yet. I’ll even post it to some web developers forum where there are WP fanatics hanging out as well as digg it for you :)
Just a thought.
On Sep 19, 2006, Jim Logan said:
Another one knocked out of the ballpark! A great job!
I really like the way the authors are presented on the sidebar with a nice transition to the full text. Looks great!
On Sep 20, 2006, Martin said:
Very nice Michael … I like when someone can take a standard WP theme and turn it into a more CMS-like layout.
Good stuff … and yep, a tutorial would be a hit. :)