This was a difficult site to design because his old site was already so cool. In a way, there was no reason to change it: he constantly got compliments on it, it was different for sure, and it worked. But it just needed a freshening up, a new kick, something even more funner.
To get something like the old home page, we turned to the Justified Image Grid plugin. Wow.
The big advantage David has over, well, most of the planet, is that he has a treasure trove of eye-catching photos. Not an orange sunset in Tahiti, but what IS that guy doing in that suit? They’re fun, they’re over the top, they’re 100% Sterry. But how can we get those images onto the background of the site, on the pages we want, randomly changing as we go through the site? Ah, knowing which plugins to choose is half the battle. Here’s a collection of WordPress tricks and plugins we used to build David’s new site.
- Justified Image Grid: posts in a grid just like Pinterest or Flickr. Add featured image to your posts, it’s ready.
- Background Manager: a powerful background tool that lets you have multiple sets of images for different pages on your site. Easy to work with. Unbelievable that it’s free.
- Semi-transparent backgrounds: check out #8 on WOO Canvas CSS Tweaks: Semi-Transparent Colors in WOO Canvas Elements. You can do wonders just knowing this little bit of CSS trickery.
- Business Slider Template: a WOO Canvas standard, but it all depends on the photos you use.
- WOO Tabs: these are always a favorite … especially if you have popular content with great imagery.
- Search bar in main navigation: yup, a little code in the right place and your search bar is out of your way–but useful.
Hmm, what else? Oh yeah, decades of photos and oodles of talent. Try to find that at a stock photo site.
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