Earlier this week I launched a redesign of my personal blog over at ChrisSpooner.com. The new design showcases a featured post in the header, before listing out the rest of the archives in a standard layout. It took a fair bit of customizing to get everything working as I wanted, so I thought I’d share the process to hopefully help others out. Follow this overview post to see how a mix of query post snippets was used to create a custom featured post layout in WordPress.
Tutorials
How To Create a Cool Blog Post Date Icon with CSS
In a recent redesign of my own personal blog I decided to use a calendar style icon to display the post date . It’s one of those elements that would once have been created with background images, but now thanks to the wealth of CSS3 features it can be created entirely in CSS3. We’ll be using properties such as linear-gradients, border radius and box shadow to replicate the icon’s original Photoshop design.
Create a Responsive Web Design with Media Queries
If you’ve yet to get your hands dirty with media queries, now is your chance to create your first responsive website design. In this tutorial we’ll look at converting one of my previous WordPress theme designs into a responsive layout, while taking into consideration the design’s original grid structure.
How To Build a Handwritten Letter Style Contact Form
Follow this step by step tutorial to create a traditional pen & paper inspired contact form in HTML and CSS. We’ll use a mix of basic and intermediate CSS techinques to give the form the appearance of a letter, then use the @font-face CSS property to transform the digital text into handwriting.
How To Create a Vibrant Cloud Icon in Photoshop
Follow this step by step Adobe Photoshop tutorial to create a colourful and vibrant cloud icon. We’ll be using plenty of gradients and lighting effects to produce a really cool icon perfect for a modern website design or mobile app.
How To Create a Stylish Drop Cap Effect with CSS3
Drop caps have been around for years in the print industry, but they are still pretty rare in the web world despite the :first-letter selector having been around for a fair few years. Let’s take a look at how we can create a cool drop cap for our web designs and spice it up with some stylish CSS3 text-shadow effects.
Create a Typography Based Blog Layout in HTML5
Last week I posted part one of this tutorial series covering the process of creating a typography based blog design in HTML5 and CSS3. We finished off the Photoshop concept with the design based on a strict grid and text laid out in our desired typeface. Now let’s replicate the design in a static HTML5 and CSS3 prototype before finishing it all off as a fully working WordPress theme.
How To Create Repeating Texture & Pattern Images
Repeating background images are safest method of styling up your website background other than a plain old CSS background color. Websites are viewed in all types and sizes of browser these days, so a repeating background ensures the whole of the user’s screen will be filled with your design, unlike a static image that can often end up being cropped off or lost in a sea of flat colour. Let’s take a look at how seamless or repeating textures and patterns can be created in Photoshop.
How To Create a Simple WordPress Blog Theme
So far in this WordPress theme tutorial series we’ve put together a visual concept in Photoshop and coded up a working prototype in HTML and CSS. Now let’s take our static web page files and create a fully working WordPress theme by splitting up the code over the various template files and injecting the relevant WordPress PHP tags.
How To Code a Blog Theme Concept in HTML & CSS
Last week we went through the process of creating a clean blog theme layout in Photoshop. Now, let’s transform the visual concept into a working HTML/CSS prototype web page before finishing everything up as a complete theme next week. We’ll build the page structure with clean HTML, then style up as much as possible using CSS styling to create a lean website design that still replicates the original concept.
