WordPress website design: Tips and tools to avoid custom themes

Adapt your website design to WordPress

Looking for flexible themes that can be customized/adapted to create a designed-looking WordPress page/blog?  November 30’s Providence WordPress Meetup was the hot spot for learning WordPress page design.

Case in point:  Designated Editor is transitioning the entire site to WordPress.  How do I retain my unique look without having a custom theme built?

Website design tools and services

• WordPress theme
• Elastic (still in development but allows you to drag & drop design elements)
• PSD2HTML.com paid service will convert designs
• Artisteer will output a theme file into CSS
• Also code to hide unwanted theme elements
• Can also create child themes that protect from parent theme changes.  Google “WP child themes” #1 is good
• Specify CSS to an individual site without having to create a separate child theme.

Suggested themes by Meetup attendees — a little crowdsourcing

• Genesis
• 2010

Plugins recommended by Bill Dennen, Web Technologist and Sysadmin at Wheaton College

• Event calendar pro
• Code validator
• Broken link checker
• Sitewide tags
• WP supercache
• Gravity forms
• AMR events list- pulls in events from existing calendars

Adapting your website to WordPress requires some effort, but resources are readily available to guide you through the process.