Need help with an "artsy" site can't look "blocky"

[purplemagpie]

Hi,

I'm building a site for a book publisher whose books, photos and artwork are exquisite. It's a real challenge as WordPress tends to be blocky and not artsy.

She likes layers and such. Currently she has a one page site (kodiakwildflowers.com) that's not Word Press.

I tried making the Education Theme work (see draft / abandoned effort here  alaskamagpie.com/testsite1 ).

I can see layering photos, saving as one photo/graphic and putting it into a sidebar widget, but can you do it with one BIG nearly full page widget?

It seems to me that if I had one BIG widget on the Home Page I could design something artsy, import it as a "photo" and use the footers for other info.

Can you use a slider and make it 8" by 5" or some such size?

Or this site (though it's not WP) kodiakwildflowers.com could be made with a single column aside a double column with a header on top and a photo in the background. Got any theme suggestions?

Anyone got any ideas on how to achieve a layered look that doesn't look to block or too professional and uses one of the Studio Press themes? I'm not interested in changing away from Genesis and Studio Press.

Thanks.

Maggie

 

[AnitaC]

Why not take a look and scroll through the Showcase to see what others have been able to customize the themes - http://www.studiopress.com/showcase.

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[purplemagpie]

Thanks Anitac, I have looked through many pages of the samples and I  googled art sites and book sites and they to look "professional" and "commercial".

The gal I'm working with wants artsy.

Now do you now if there is a way to make one big widget or posting point?

Maybe if I set the page for full page with no columns I could load in an artsy collage that will take up virtually the whole Home Page.

Does it sound like that might work?

Just thinking out loud helps.

I will go back to the samples and see if I find any she might like.

We need to "think out of the box" to get rid of the boxy-ness of Word Press.

Maggie

[pdvor]

Maybe if I set the page for full page with no columns I could load in an artsy collage that will take up virtually the whole Home Page.

I think it is doable. I have no experience with this particular theme, but when looked at its demo at http://demo.studiopress.com/education/layouts/fwc/ , it looks as all you need to do is set your home page to be static page, one column only,  turn off breadcrumbs and use Genesis Simple Hooks plugin to insert full width slider before the title.
I think so, but it might be much more difficult then I think.

[purplemagpie]

Hey Pdvor,
Thanks for the ideas. I will try that.

I'm not a glutton for punishment or anything, but I really like trying new ides as it helps me understand the workings better.

I'll keep you posted.

Maggie

[purplemagpie]

Pdvor and Anita C,

Just getting back to you. Thanks for the advice. The site ended up not being too artsy, but turned out nice, none-the-less.

I used the Quattro Theme suggested in another thread and learned how to do wraps and on we went...

Here is site      http://senseofplacepress.com/

Thanks again,

Maggie

[KiwiDean]

Nice use of graphics to hide the blockiness ... although the resolution is quite high making the site fairly slow loading. But it has nice feel to it.

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If you aren’t having fun you are doing it wrong

[purplemagpie]

KikiDean,

Thanks. She wanted high resolution because she's such a fantastic photographer.  I think it slows the pages down but didn't know what other resolution to use and really couldn't tell from my research (Google is my friend!). I believe it's set for something like 96% and when I made it lower the photo program said that was going to affect quality of photo and did I really want to do that.

Can you make a recommendation on what is a good resolution to use in terms of speed, but that will still meet the rigorous quality demands of a professional photographer? With all the photo sites around you'd think there would be a "industry standard" somewhere.

I put Smush It on the site to compact photos which helped some.

There's also a problem with the Sticky at the top of the content section that right now has a green "underlay" because it's auto-formatted to have a line around it that is white against the green and very "uncool". I will need to go back into the code and see if I can figure how to eliminate that. The green underlay was a quick and easy fix, but it takes a while to load, but at least you can see it loading so you know there's something coming and the site isn't just "churning".

Thanks again KD, and I'd appreciate any input as I'm fairly new at this and am always getting myself into things that are over my head and then I have to learn to swim!

Maggie

 

[KiwiDean]

What you need to do is reduce the size of your green content background  - if you have a look here it will tell you the times to load elements

http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/zEs4m9xMz/http://senseofplacepress.com/

The better way to do it is code a small (quick loading) image that you repeat or tile to the required dimensions - google "css repeat background" or similar if you want to have a go at that.

 

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If you aren’t having fun you are doing it wrong

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