Using Wordpress for My New Portfolio

Using WordPress for My New Portfolio

21st February 2010 1 Comment | Tweet this article →

When updating my portfolio I wanted to make the new website a place where I could show off my work as well as share my musings and inspiration. I also wanted to be able to updated my portfolio work and add new work in an easy way. To do all of this I needed a CMS (content management system) that would allow me to post different kinds of content – ie. blog vs. portfolio. After much research I narrowed down my choices to Tumblr, Expression Engine and WordPress.

Micro-Blogging or Blogging Platform?

Having these three choices I now needed to decide whether I wanted to write a micro-blog or regular blog. I was worried that choosing a full blogging platform would put a little bit too much pressure on me to write longer and more intelligent content. The micro-blogging platforms, however, were appealing in that they could be updated quickly, easily, and with little pressure to write. Tumblr offered a great micro-blogging platform with a large community of users. What Tumblr lacked, however, was where EE and WordPress were strongest; they could allow me to update my portfolio and blog from the same CMS without ever seeing the code.

WordPress or Expression Engine?

Now that Tumblr was out of the equation I had narrowed it down to WordPress and Expression Engine. The decision came down to which platform would allow for the most openness, flexibility and search engine results. While I had heard great things about EE’s ability to have two different types of blogs in the same website – meaning both blog and a portfolio sections – I knew that WordPress would be the way to go in terms of plugins and SEO. In addition to these factors I had also made a custom theme in WordPress before so I knew I’d be able to design my blog as I saw fit.

Designing a Theme for WordPress

The first time I developed a theme for WordPress I downloaded a pre made theme and customized the code and stylesheet to match the look and functionality I was looking for. This time, however, I was unable to find a theme that contained the functionality I needed for the perMicah blog. Initially it seemed like a daunting task but quickly I found many resources for creating my own WordPress theme. Here are a few of the resources I used:

If you are creating your own WordPress theme I hope you will find those resources handy. In the future I will write more about designing themes for WordPress so come back soon!