Creating a magazine: Is Genesis a good choice?

[meursault]

And I know the Genesis forums might not be the best place to get the most objective answer, but anyway... 🙂

A couple of my colleagues and I wish to create a magazine specializing in translations from the Russian media into English - a lot like what our role model Presseurop (which runs on Drupal) does for European media. Note that because of the nature of the project it will mostly be text-based, with few big pictures or "bling."

I am considering several choices.

Genesis with the Magazine or News child is one. Another is the Tribune theme, or one of the many newsy themes at Theme Forest. Hard to settle on something when you have such an embarrassment of riches to choose from.

If it's of any help, a few requirements and/or preferences:

1. Good security - having once had my WP.org blog pharma hacked, I'm a bit paranoid about it.
2. Lots of different boxes/sections for categories like opinion, politics, economy, etc, etc. with ways of highlighting the more important items.
3. Advertising/e-commerse is not necessary; won't be used.

Is there a good reason why Genesis with one of the child themes would be better for this project than one of the many excellent-looking news/magazine themes from someplace like ThemeForest?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or tips.

[Brad Dalton]

1. Genesis hired security expert and core WordPress developer Mark Jaquith to take care of the theme security.

2. Genesis is a design framework which makes customizing WordPress easier than any other theme. They also offer a range of useful resources like Code Snippets, Tutorials, Genesis plugins and a Community forum which is regarded as the best for theme support.

While Themeforest include some great looking themes, i doubt you'll get the level of support and range of different resources Genesis offers. If you're prepared to hire a designer, then that's clearly not a problem. When you use Genesis, the chances are you won't need to hire anyone.

Personally, i've purchased over 20 items from Themeforest however i don't use any of them.

Here's what others have done with the News theme. http://www.studiopress.com/theme/news-2/

I'd be extremely surprised if you where disappointed with Genesis. Its the best premium theme framework for WordPress and used on over 300,000 sites.

---

Tutorials for StudioPress Themes.

[essaysnark]

Echoing Brad's comments, Genesis is a good choice based on flexibility, and you'll have confidence in the code. You rarely ever hear about issues from the framework itself, and the support is good. If you go with another theme, be sure to research those two angles very carefully before you purchase.

Just be aware that there's a learning curve with Genesis - if you've never worked with WordPress before (unclear from your post) then there's a double learning curve when you add Genesis to the mix. At least rudimentary coding skills will be important - at a minimum, you need to know how to modify your functions.php file, which in itself can trip up people and result in a crashed website. You'll also want to be comfortable CSS, but that's true of any WordPress site.

Back to Genesis: Once long ago I tried implementing a Drupal site and never got it off the ground. WordPress + Genesis is infinitely easier than that. On the security side, yes the theme matters, but what will matter just as much are a) your own practices around locking down the site (no "admin" user, just as a start) and keeping code updated, and b) your host. Some hosts are notorious for their sites being hacked. There's a handful of WordPress-only hosting companies now who have your back when it comes to security. I strongly recommend looking into those, they are well worth the additional cost (typically around $20-$30/month for a small site).

Back to Genesis again: Another vote in favor is the fact that you'll be able to change your site as your business changes. You don't need advertising or ecommerce features now, but if you pivot later and your business model is different, Genesis will be able to accommodate.

I think one of the best endorsements of Genesis is the fact that SEO expert Joost runs it (http://yoast.com/) - he seems to know what's he's doing with these Interweb thingies!

Good luck with your site - there's lots of decisions involved and it can be overwhelming. Sounds like you're approaching it the right way. There's some great WordPress talent on these boards (yours truly excluded! I'm just bumbling along at the moment) so you'll surely have help if you need it.

[Carla the Moose]

It's because of Joost's recommendation in a blog post a few months back that I chose StudioPress and Synthesis. I did tons of research and am very satisfied with my decision. Some of the biggest names are attached to Genesis. I don't take that lightly, and that's why I partnered my theme company with my hosting provider. It's a powerful combination.

The Chicken has Spoken

[meursault]

Thank you all for your contributions. After due consideration, we've decided to go with the Genesis/Websynthesis package.

[Rajtilak]

I can tell you a thousand good reasons why you should use Genesis, but I think 8 would be more than enough.

I too was a bit skeptical when I chose Genesis. I was new to WordPress and knew nothing about PHP coding at all. I don't regret my decision at all! Very honestly, with Genesis you wouldn't need to touch the code or the SEO at all, unless ofcourse you want to go for some high-end mod. And now that you have chosen Genesis, you would know about it all by yourself.

Happy blogging!

---

Website: TechniColor | Facebook: Rajtilak Bhattacharjee

[Author]

Posts