WordPress has had the largest impact in my career as a web developer/designer, and of course as a blogger. Well, it was the discovery of WordPress and learning the break tag isn’t as cool as it sounds.

WordPress has not only changed the way I publish content, build functioning websites, but has started to make me money. I work as a freelance WordPress designer (mostly specializing in the Thesis Framework), and I think if it weren’t for WordPress then I would have been screwed, and many others would have been as well. Screwed as in having a web dominated by Blogspot blogs. Ahhhh!

So here it is, here is my WordPress story. I call it the WPstory because that’s what a WordPress user like me does. Stick “WP” in front of anything and you have a million dollar product. I got inspired to write this story from my awesome host, WPWebHost, and the competition they are holding for $3,000 worth of prizes. See, they stuck “WP” in front of their title and are now the host to be at!

The voting period is over and the folks at WPWebHost have chosen the winners! The judges seemed to have liked this post the best and it won first place in the fantastic content! Read more in the announcements post!

Why Not Blogger? Why WordPress?

If I can be honest, the only reason I used WordPress is because I thought it was the only blogging platform around that you could self-host. I didn’t hear about other stuff like ExpressionEngine, or MovableType, or even that godforsaken Joomla!, just WordPress. So I went with it.

At first, I was a bit overwhelmed with anything I could do, because I have never been in an admin panel of anything other than a free hosted phpBB forum. But I feel like I quickly adapted to the admin panel and what could do what

I think I started out on WordPress 2.5.x, when it was a lot more option light than 2.7 is. I think if I were to start out on WordPress 2.7, I would have a lot more confused than I was with WordPress 2.5.

Designing WordPress

I’m not going to lie, figuring out how to design WordPress for the first time was a b****. I mean, when I first started designing in general, they were simple static HTML pages. Then I moved to WordPress, and for the weirdest reasons I couldn’t figure out how to get a two column theme. I could do it on a static page in one file, but when the templates got split into more files, I was thrown off by it.

I think if it weren’t for the amazing WordPress community, however, I would have been screwed in my endeavors to design for WordPress. The WordPress community, being everyone who used WordPress literally pumped out thousands of articles on how to design for WordPress. Articles ranging from beginner tutorials to more advanced, anything I wanted to do was published somewhere!

Where I Stand now in WordPress Design

I feel like I have really come to understand WordPress so much better. I think every time I go into a file in my FTP to edit something, I learn something new.

A few of my WordPress designs:

My own blog Blogussion is probably my best work to date

Blogussion.com

This is probably my best work as a WordPress designer. I own this blog, Blogussion, and have spent much time perfecting the design. The design is on a dark theme, and all throughout the design you will notice a sense of organization. Smooth gradients are used all around the design to add a nice professional touch to it.

Teenius.com

Teenius.com

My good friend Simon contacted me one day for a new design of his blog, Teenius. We sent some emails back and forth, shot over a few IMs and I came up with a brilliant design for his blog. It uses smooth gradients as well, and a lot of emphasis is put into his logo, which overlaps very nicely in the header.

AgentSolutions.com

Agentsoltuions.com

A design I think turned out really nice, I made this one for a client of mine Jennifer Wilson. The design has smooth colors in it, and cool icons in the sidebar and header that pop out (my favorite effect).

I have other WordPress designs out there, but most of them are unfinished client projects. I’m going to have a big showcase of them soon, so stick around for that!

13 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress

To finish this post up, I made a list of 13 reasons why you should use WordPress. You have probably seen these lists elsewhere, but I think it’s a great ending to a post of this nature!

1. WordPress is free

Unlike other platforms (which quite frankly suck), WordPress is free. So there’s no need to pay for a CMS because WordPress exists.

2. Really, any host can run it

I haven’t heard of a host that couldn’t support WordPress, and if it can’t then it’s probably a crappy host. There are so many great web hosts out there, and there’s even a host that is solely dedicated to hosting WordPress blogs!

3. Setup is no problem

All you need to do is create a database, upload some files and you’re set. Yeah, seriously.

4. Tons of quality support

WordPress.org has a pretty good support forum, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of websites out there dedicated to supporting WordPress, and if you need help with a plugin or theme, then the chances are there is help for you somewhere.

5. Designing it yourself is easy

If you want to design it yourself, then you don’t need to know all that much. You just need to know the WordPress Templating System, some CSS and you’re set mostly. But you can simplify it even further with the Thesis framework.

6. Finding someone to design is just as easy

Many people use WordPress to make a living off of, so there are plenty of experts out there who can design for you as a freelance project.

7. Thousands of awesome 3^RD party plugins.

It’s crazy how many plugins there are for WordPress. Ranging from free to paid, there are literally thousands of great plugins to customize your blog with.

8. Thousands of premium/free themes

The premium theme market is exploding, and free themes are always great to start a blog off with.

9. You don’t need much technical knowledge to manage it

If you just stick with buying or downloading a theme, then the most technical knowledge you need is to know how to navigate through your FTP to get to where the theme folder needs to go!

10. It does everything for you

WordPress makes everything automatic. It creates a RSS Feeds for you, archives posts automatically, and a lot more.

11. The admin panel is sexy

It has a good looking, pretty straightforward admin panel. All of your options are located onto a sidebar to the left, and it is very customizable.

12. You can update your blog anywhere

There are many 3^RD party programs out there that allow you to post from anywhere. Your phone, even your email for example.

13. Multiple authors can access it

If you want to run a blog with a friend, it’s no problem at all. You can register them, or they can register themselves, and all you have to do is edit their permissions. Simple enough!

There You Have It

That is my WPstory. I could have kept going on, but for the sake of my hand I’m going to stop at design because that’s really been what I have used WordPress for the most. What’s your WPstory?