Creating a WordPress theme to accommodate your website design concept becomes so much easier when you know about things like Custom Page Templates. WordPress operates using posts and pages, but every page doesn’t have to be cookie-cut from the same format. You can create unique layouts and content for specific pages to create visually interesting sites that are still editable via WordPress’ powerful publishing tools.
tips
How To Create a Simple Collapsing Header Effect
A couple of weeks ago I posted a showcase of web designs with clever header effects. In that roundup we saw a bunch of sites making use of a simple collapsing header effect, where the page header or banner would gradually shorten and disappear upon page scroll. Let’s take a look at recreating this cool effect for use in your own website designs.
Handy Tips For Creating a Cool Twitter Profile Design
Twitter profiles have gone through some big changes over the years, with the latest layouts offering a fair few customisation options. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the options that are available to us and see what kind of clever tricks people are using to create really cool profile designs.
How to Create Retina Graphics for your Web Designs
The more products Apple releases, the more widespread Retina displays become. So far we have Retina capable iPhones, iPods, iPads and MacBooks of various sizes, which together make up a pretty substantial audience. Let’s take a look at how you can create special retina graphics for your website so your design looks crisp, sharp and clear on those powerful screens.
Create a TV Screen 404 Page with Clever CSS Tricks
I’m currently working through a redesign of my SpoonGraphics blog and wanted to create something fancy for its 404 page. I decided to have a go at coding up a full screen retro TV screen filled with animated static noise, upon which I could display the usual 404 text and relevant links. Follow the step by step design process of the final 404 page and learn how a bunch of clever little CSS tricks helped transform the idea into reality.
Create a Trendy Retro Photo Effect Purely with CSS
I’ve done plenty of retro photo effect tutorials in the past, but they’ve all been done using Photoshop. After playing around with some cool new CSS3 features I managed to create a pretty decent looking retro style image effect using just CSS. With the help of CSS gradients and filters, let’s take a look at how a cool vintage photo effect can be created directly in the browser.
Create a Custom WordPress Login Without Plugins
WordPress Logins are probably one of the least touched–upon subjects as far as WordPress theme design is concerned, but it can really help create a unique look and feel for a client’s website, or even your own! Here’s how to easily make a login of your own without the need of a plugin.
10 CSS Rules Every Web Designer Should Know
Through experience as web designers we memorise all kinds of code syntax, hacks and snippets. With CSS in particular there is a number of rules and declarations that can really help transform your website designs and open up new possibilities when compared to older techniques. This post rounds up 10 declarations and tips that every web designer should have available in their CSS arsenal.
How To Create a Featured Post Layout in WordPress
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.
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.
