Sasha asked for volunteers to create the Creators Club website, and after giving other folks a chance, I volunteered to help. Most of my experience is with self-hosted WordPress, and I wanted to challenge myself to publish a site built with the full-site editor for the first time. Mission accomplished!
Challenges
- The full site editor was confusing at times
- Custom Post Authors aren’t really Authors and don’t get displayed by default
- No access to the functions.php meant I needed a PHP code plugin
- Overriding WordPress.com profile info with local profile info (ACF)
Joys
I’m happy with how the site turned out and how I was able to use the full Site Editor. Although putting my custom code in the functions.php would have been much faster, I learned how to implement almost everything I wanted without access to the filesystem and without paid versions of plugins. It took me much longer than anticipated to accomplish my build goals, but I finally got there.
Process
I met with Sasha to discuss the specifics of the website. She wanted us to use WordPress.com to display the power of the platform, but beyond showcasing the amazing and diverse talent of the Club artists, she left the structure and design largely up to me.
Structure
Based on a similar site I’d built in the past, I proposed the simple format you see today. The About, Creators, and Projects sections tell you everything you need to know about the Creators’ Club and make the artwork the central focus.
Design
Although we asked for volunteers, no one had the bandwidth to create a logo for the group. I love word art and we needed a logo and a color scheme to work with, so I created the logo myself from a Google Font and my favorite palette generator: coolors.co. I wanted a dark, neutral background to show art to its best advantage (black is commonly used but too stark).
Here are my color tests for the different logo ideas:
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