We’ve all had to deal with spam in one form or another, whether in emails, on websites, or in our physical mailbox. Lately, it’s been a bit of an issue on Crimson Sky Graphics. Due to this, I recently found out that a few of my legit comments had accidentally ended up in the spam folder.

Although I think that I’ve corrected the issue now and approved those comments to their proper places in the site, I feel terrible that some sat in spam limbo for up to a month. The writers took the time to think, write, and send those comments about various posts and content on this website, and they almost got lost. So, if you have noticed a delay and/or lack of approval to your comment (assuming it was not, in fact, actual spam), I sincerely apologize to you. It wasn’t intentional.

Hopefully I’ve got this problem fixed and it doesn’t happen again. One of the major points of the website redesign was to allow people to interact so much easier on here, so this was the last thing I wanted.

Thanks again to all of the wonderful feedback I do receive from you all, and for the time you put into visiting the site!

On a side note, I also found a recent problem that arose in the blog section of the site, which caused all content to show up as blog posts. This was completely unintended. Only actual blog entries should be featured on this page. I think it was caused by a WordPress update conflicting with the theme. Anyway, I fixed this little problem as soon as I realized it existed. You should now only see the proper posts in the proper sections.

I want to start this post off by wishing you all a wonderful new year. I hope it’s full of happiness, opportunity, and good memories!

Yes, I know I’m a bit late with saying that. Most “happy new year” blog posts have been written and read days ago. At least I made it within the first week of the year, though! That’s got to count for something, right?

Last year didn’t exactly go as planned for Crimson Sky Graphics. In some ways it did, in others not. I am so pleased with the new look of the site and the simplified way to browse the content, but I had hoped to have updated it more often.

The thing that I learned, however, is that there is really a lot to learn. As you may have noticed, the style and skill level that is present in the content added here (like the desktop wallpapers) has been changing quite drastically. This also, in my opinion, means that the quality is improving. And who doesn’t want quality free stuff, right?

So, as I look forward into the new year, I’m setting some goals for myself and for the website. Whether they all pan out as planned or not, the idea is that it’s something for me to work towards — and hopefully for you, the visitor, to look forward to.

My Goals for 2011

Learn: The internet is absolutely full of tutorials and informative articles to further anyone’s skills and knowledge base in their chosen field. For me, this is both graphic and website design. Taking the time to sit down and read can cut time figuring stuff out on future projects, open up more possibilities and ideas for things you didn’t know could be done before, and help you to improve things you already know.

Play: I was going to use the term practice here, but thought that seemed wrong for this kind of work. When it comes to designing (no matter what it is), one of the best ways to improve your skills is to play. Sometimes it is much easier to enjoy the process of learning when we remove the pressure and time constraints. Do what you love and love what you do. I plan to play around in Photoshop to expand my skills, as well as the rest of my Adobe CS5 Suite to learn the programs that I haven’t yet used much.

Focus: Sometimes it’s tempting (or necessary) to want to know how to do a large variety of things, so we tend to get overwhelmed when it comes to learning it all. This is something that I have especially noticed as a new designer who wants to do both the visual and coding parts of the job. I’ll find myself trying to figure out a little here, a little there, and in the end, I’m an expert at nothing.

The best way to combat this problem is to focus on one or two things at a time. Figure out what is most important, or practical, to you at the moment and work with it. Don’t jump between a bunch of programs and platforms. Master them one at a time, to the best of your ability, before moving on. It doesn’t hurt to play around with others for breaks, but make sure you set definite goals and priorities when it comes to what comes first.

Interact: The design world has an amazing community online. I really do look forward to meeting my peers and jumping into the discussions going on. Whether it’s posting on my own blog, commenting on others’, or participating in communities like Concept Feedback, it’s always a benefit to get to know each other.

Share: This is the biggest goal that most of you guys care about. I do plan on updating the site more often with free content. However, it’s not at the top of the list for one simple reason: The more time I spend on doing the other things, the better I’ll get at making stuff for you all. Still, it’s an important goal and one that I look forward to completing.

So, that’s basically where I’m at. When I look back over the list, it really stands out that a lot of these would be worthwhile principles for any new designer to put into practice this upcoming year. Just think of where we could all be in 2012 if we could actually stick by these kinds of resolutions!

Question for You All:

What are you aiming for in the new year? Do you have any goals or advice for other designers, or perhaps a goal to add to the list above? Feel free to share!

Recently Added

Make sure to check out the two new desktop wallpapers added to start off the new year! You can find and download them here: Atomic Light and Underwater Sun.

To most people coming to this website, it’s nearly impossible to tell that the whole thing is built off of WordPress. Sure, you may see tell-tale signs of a blog-like structure on a lot of the pages, including comments and tags, but that’s about all that shows through. Apart from the actual blog section itself, it would be easy to assume that this was just a standard, static website.

Yet, it’s not. I created the whole thing into a WordPress theme from scratch, making sure each component had it’s own unique style. To those of you who have never used WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System), that probably seems hard. Truth is, it is hard. It took me months to get my head around the coding that was required and to make sure I had every little in and out covered. Now that I have, however, I don’t see myself turning back anytime soon.

What I’ve Learned

I learned a lot over those months — especially the amazing value and support of the design community online. As someone who had never ventured into the realm of PHP coding and theme creation, let alone installing a blog onto my own server, I could never have done it without you all. From my first step in deciding whether to use WordPress to my final upload, I was able to find everything that I needed to know from the great designers that have gone before me.

No One Said It Would Be Easy: I’d be lying if I told you that WordPress theme creation was simple. It’s not. Even someone who is well versed in PHP coding would still need to take some time to get acquainted with the terminology that WordPress uses and all of the things you need to include to make sure your theme works properly.

You’re going to need to read a lot. You’re going to need to experiment a lot. You’re going to use search engines a lot. You’re going to have to accept that you’re probably going to make mistakes and it’s probably going to take a lot longer than it would to make a normal website. It will be an adventure, but a rewarding one.

If you’re just looking for a simple website, you may be better off just sticking to a static one. However, if you want the ease of updating that a blog system allows, plus the many benefits of the thousands of plug-ins available, it might be worth the extra effort.

The Sky’s the Limit: One of the first things that attracted me to the concept of using WordPress as a CMS was the amazing versatility of it. With the right skill and time commitment, you can pretty much turn a blog into anything you want it to be. By utilizing custom page and post templates you can make each section look unique, while being able to update it from the WP control panel. There are easy functions that you can add that allow for multiple sidebars and footers, too, that can be styled completely separately.

Basically, if there’s something you want your site to do, there is more than likely a plug-in, code, or function to do it. It may take a bit of searching and testing, but I always found a way to do what I wanted.

The Pros and Cons of WordPress

The Pros:

• Easier updating than a static website. For example, instead of having to update every page a graphic is listed on manually, all I have to do is post it with the proper categories and the site does it automatically.

 

• Update from any computer that has a web browser. (So much cooler than using  machine specific software.)

 

• One click theme switching. You can change the look of your site with only one click in the control panel, once the new theme is installed… then switch back to the old theme the same way, if you want.

 

• Pretty good SEO compared to manually meta-writing for every page of a static site.

 

• A lot of support and information from other designers. It’s a popular platform, so it’s easy to find some help. The help section of WordPress.org alone is quite useful.

 

• A ton of awesome themes out there. Even if you’re not a designer, you can find something that fits your needs — maybe even for free.

 

• Multiple users. You can create different user accounts so that more than one person can update the site, or even set up an easy membership system for your visitors to keep up-to-date with your site.

 

• Awesome plug-ins for a wide range of needs, including some great e-commerce ones that turn your site into a store without needing to do excessive coding.

 

• Easy to use for beginners and experienced alike.

 

• It’s completely FREE! This is one thing that WP has over a lot of the other CMS’s out there.

The Cons:

• Since it’s updated through your browser, it does raise the risk of hacking issues compared to a locally managed website on your system. Still, there are precautions that you can take to prevent this — some as simple as making sure you pick hard-to-guess passwords and usernames for your admins.

 

• Unless your theme is heavily coded with options for the control panel, you may have to edit the .php files to make some changes to the site. For the most part this can be avoided, but I’ve found a few things that seemed to be easier done if left in the .php rather than trying to do it through WP control panel itself. As WP keeps improving and upgrading, however, I think we’ll see a lot more options for a CMS type site that will make this less of a problem in the future.

The Biggest Reason

I’ll be honest, the biggest reason that I chose to use WP for this website (and my others) is because it’s so much quicker when updating it. This won’t apply for everyone, but when you’re dealing with a site like Crimson Sky Graphics, it can become quite a daunting task when you’re using a static website.

For example, lets say that I wanted to add a new Twitter layout to the old site. One the layout was made, I had to create 3 different preview/thumbnail images for use in different places of the site. Next, it was time to create a new page and copy-paste the contents of another layout page into it, before I can edit the contents to fit that new layout. After that, I had to go to every area on the site where it was to be listed (the multiple categories, including the “view all” category, and the front page) and add the information and thumbnails, all linked back to the layout page. Finally, I had to go to the forum to create a thread for the new layout so people could comment on it. This whole process could take me a couple hours to add only a handful of new content to the site.

Sure, the system worked. The old Crimson Sky Graphics was around for 4 years with that kind of update method. However, the busier I got with professional design and other projects, the less time I had to spend on doing this kind of manual work. This lead to less and less updating being done.

With the new WP built website, most of that process is automated for me. All I have to do is insert the new layout into a new post, select the appropriate categories, and it’s instantly added to all of the pages in the way that it’s supposed to be — even when it looks different in different areas.

This, to me, is the biggest benefit that WordPress offers to a resource website like Crimson Sky Graphics. Of course, the pros of membership options, multiple users who can add content, and the options for things like comments on all of the posts, are also huge benefits that I’ve found.

In Conclusion

If you have or are planning to have a website that requires at least semi-frequent updating, want the freedom to do so from anywhere, and don’t want to get into hiring someone else to do these things for you or paying fees to use some of the other CMS options, WordPress may be for you. Whether you’re a novice or someone with a ton of experience in website management, it’s great.

I plan to share some of the tips and tricks that I learned in my building process in the future, along with some of the resources that I found helpful (those that I can remember, having regrettably not bookmarked them all properly). Hopefully it’ll be of some help to you, if you’re considering using WP as a CMS.

Do you see something on Crimson Sky Graphics that you like and want to know how it’s done? Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do about writing a post on that topic.

Lastly, remember that, if you do want to use WordPress, but don’t want to do it yourself, you can contact me at any time for a free quote. I’ll design the custom theme for you and set everything up, just how you want!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the new Crimson Sky Graphics!

After over a year of designing, coding, and exploring ideas, I am extremely happy to announce the launch of the completely overhauled site. It’s been an insane amount of work and a big learning process, but an enjoyable one all the same. I really hope you all like the new look as much as I do, as well. I know it must be a huge change to those used to the vibrant red, white, and black of the old site. Hopefully it’s an improvement, though.

Before I say anymore, however, I want to thank you all for your wonderful patience. Due to my hectic schedule and all the work it took to put this together, I was slacking tremendously in updating the free content over the past year. I’m aiming to change all of that now that it’ll be easier to update and I should have a bit more time on my hands.

Please take a moment to read this post and find out all of the great changes that you’ll find on the site.

What’s New:

New Front Page: No more text news posts to see some of the new content. Now you can quickly and easily check out the front page to see what’s most recently been added to the site. Along with the featured content shown in the fancy slider at the top, you’ll find previews of the latest free resources, tutorial, and blog post in an easy to view format.

Comments: Finally! This is a feature that I’ve been wanting to add for a long time now. The separate forum just wasn’t cutting it. Now you’ll be able to leave your thoughts on any of the free content on this site, including tutorials and blog posts without having to leave the page. This is probably the biggest change that you’ll find.

Integrated Blog: No more leaving the site to read the Crimson Sky Graphics blog. Now it’s hosted as a part of the main site, so it’s much easier to check out and interact with.

Simplified Free Content Pages: This feature is pretty cool. In the past each of the layouts had a bunch of information cluttering up the pages, listing titles and information along with each thumbnail. That has been replaced by clean and simple thumbnails of each item, which allows you to pick what you like much easier.

Additional Ways to Filter Content: You can now browse layouts and graphics by colour, as well as the old way of using categories. This is one of my favorites because it makes finding the item that fits you best way faster, because it allows for more sorting options. In the future, you’ll probably see more filters added to make it even better, as well.

What’s to Come:

Tutorials: As you may have already noticed, the tutorial section of the site is much more prominent now. I know that, in the past, it wasn’t really updated much, but that should change now with the new site. For now, you can read more about it by checking out this post.

More Layouts and Graphics: Due to the large quantity of layouts and graphics that the old site had, it’s going to take me a bit to transfer them over. Some of them probably won’t make the transition, either, due to being rather outdated. No worries, though, they’ll be replaced by many more, higher quality ones in the future!

Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you like the new site and feel like participating by adding your own thoughts in the new comments sections of the pages. Let us know what you think of what we have, or simply say hello!

P.S. Since this is a totally new site, please let me know if you find any glitches or problems with it by contacting me here.