Is WordPress Killing Web Design?
- Started
- Last post
- 52 Responses
- acescence0
this is handy too, create shortcodes to let users insert data in posts..
- raf0
I must say Magic Fields plugin Acescence posted is quite powerful, just what I had been looking for. I'm going to use it in two projects I've been working on.
- tOki0
There is nothing wrong with working within constraints of a system, but I think that a developer should never have power over a designer in this respect. 9 times out of 10 they will do things the easiest way possible, the lazy developer stereotype is all too often a real thing. There is nothing wrong with starting with default as long as it meets the objectives of what you are doing - I think a balance is important in this regard. By saving time where you can, you are freeing up time to spend on the more bespoke side of things and improve upon a basic template. Design should never be templated in advance, but functionality can.
I think that business in general is often to blame for the situation we are in - everyone wants to be like everyone else. They want functionality without understanding why or the costs involved. Most people in these positions of power are not really part of the internet generations, they don't get it - they just understand that they need it because someone told them so. Most people will baulk at the costs involved from developing from the ground up and this needs to change. For years ad agencies have been tricking them into spending millions on advertising with TV, but get them to fork out a 150k for a site? That's a hard sell.
The common analogy of a man walking into a dealership and asking for the blueprints of rolls royce so he can make his own for a 1/4 of the price is all too common in our industry. We all know if you did this, people would laugh at you. Yet it still happens regularly when it comes to the web. People need to be educated, and digital agencies need to squash the bottom feeders out as best they can.
I guess the problem is that there will always be a large market for people who will happily go down the easiest & cheapest option available, and we have to service this or miss out on a peice of the pie..
- utopian0
To date, I have not seen a WP template and or theme where I said to myself wow... that WP theme is innovative, fresh and creative!
- PIZZA0
If you are customising wordpress to the extent it's no longer wordpress then you may as well have just used something like CakePHP/Ruby on Rails and made the thing from scratch.
- ximeraLabs0
These are both WordPress sites...
http://www.dixonbaxi.com/
http://www.studio-output.com/I wouldn't say WP is killing web design. Not using your imagination is.
- *nods approvinglymydo
- Neither one of those are particularly impressive sites, but good use of WP though.dMullins
- I can download either one of this templates in a minutes time! Super creative and innovative!utopian
- yep.. these scream WP.. and look like 90% of the sites out there.. If anything they prove the point.Boz
- studderine0
oh no, typography sucks on the web. it is dead!!!
- acescence0
there's simple theming:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Creat…for easy customization of the write panels, check out Magic Fields:
http://magicfields.org/- Magicfields looks nice, but still leaves some duct tape glue taste for the end client... I have to dig deeper into thisraf
- raf0
Any good examples of admin panel customizations?
- acescence0
if you think wordpress is limited as a CMS, then I'll guess you haven't delved into custom post types, adding custom meta fields and modifying the admin interface, custom queries, or the whole hook and filter system and writing plugins. it wasn't designed to be everything to everyone but to be easily extensible, that's the whole point. if you don't know php and take the time to learn the system, then yeah, you're probably thinking it's just for blogs and can't do much. I used to write my cms mostly from scratch, starting with the same database access layer and a template system like smarty. wp for me is just taking that process to the next level, with more of the plumbing done for me and a community of code to draw from.
- wp cant be a system were a user logs in checks his own profile etc..spraycanII
- wrong again champ.acescence
- i've built it myself. also, see buddypress for something that can do it out of the boxacescence
- what the point in using wp for that? if doing it form scatch is easier and more professionalspraycanII
- im visiting this buddypress site, look at the login:
http://commons.gc.cu…
what a complete shitspraycanII - you love too much wp man thre's something wrong here manspraycanII
- the point is it's not easier doing it from scratch.acescence
- and some random login looking bad has to do with what now?acescence
- yes man im sure it is easier well it depends on personal knowledge BUT my point is you're making your own codespraycanII
- you have 100% control over it.spraycanII
- hey! the pagin system is badass
http://commons.gc.cu…spraycanII - yes, it's a tradeoff. in the end it's whatever works for the client and their budget.acescence
- and those are just default templates, admittedly ugly, but it's the back-end stuff that matters to me.acescence
- badass man it has a php fallbackspraycanII
- whatsup0
It's kinda funny how everyone refers to Wordpress as a CMS, when it's main functionality is to be a blog system. Whether or not it does it's functionality well is another question as I feel it hasn't risen the bar on blogs at all and the ability to allow others greater control over it.
- It's kinda funny how you don't know what CMS stands for I guess.dMullins
- raf0
I wish the most popular open source CMS with all of its plugins and free expertise available online wouldn't be wordpress.
I mean, wp might be a good starting point for a good CMS, but the problem with it is that every version of it maintains backwards compatibility, dragging bad code and UI decisions along with it for years.
Since we're on it... is there a really good and affordable CMS out there? Expression Engine? Textpattern?
- raf0
Wordpress has quite limited configurability out of the box and when you customize it heavily it usually becomes a maze for the client when he wants to update something via wp admin panel.
Then the client, afraid to break something, asks you to do his updates for which you bill him accordingly. It is some strategy, isn't it?
- auxillary0
+10 with the above!
- mnmlst0
Dumb argument.
CMS systems don't make bad designs, people make bad designs. If you're too lazy to bend a system too your will, that's your fault.
The discussion should be, "do CMS systems make some designers lazy?" Yes. But not the good ones. This whole discussion seems useless and fabricated to make controversy where there is none.
- spraycanII0
WP is not good for your neurons.
- vaxorcist0
well.... one idea... WP and similar make it hard to justify writing a CMS backend from scratch these days, so the client expects the backend to "already work" vs in the past it was often 40-400 hours ....
and the old-school AD agency method of showing screenshots to client, then having designer cut them into css, then handing to developer to make a custom CMS was never quite that great anyway when the client suddenly decided they wanted something else... these days we can simply say "that's not a function in this CMS" and it helps to stop the random ideas sometimes....
- herzo0
Most inconclusive video ever.
- onekid0
We designed the entire Stussy.com site on wordpress and Magento. Hacked a bit to pull into flash but honestly, anything is possible. Over all, we are using word press more and more to put out projects. We recently launched a site for clothing company called www.rebel8.com in html.
I am a fan of the power of wordpress and a huge design nerd but in the end, it is just an easy CMS to build on that has many features built in.
- inteliboy0
They seem to be pointing towards designers and people from print being the problem...
Personally I've found it's the "web development" companies that are spitting out bad wordpress/joomla/etc websites - basically a bunch of programmer and business development types pretending to be web design agencies.
Anyway, I dunno - good discussion - but there has always been bad web design, and always will be, but I'd say things are getting better and better.