WordPress Content Website
A website showcasing the memories that I have made over the course of my senior year, an ode to senior year. | Fall 2024
Project Overview
My goals for this project was to take what I had created in Project 3 and make it even better by formatting things differently, adding more content and elements, and designing it to my standards. I created this website on WordPress.
The Problem
In Web Development, we created WordPress sites for our Project 3 assignment. When it came time to do the Final Project, we were given the opportunity to continue working on our Project 3 WordPress sites, finalize and perfect them, for our Final Project submissions. I was really passionate about my WordPress content site, because it was all about my senior year, my own personal digital scrapbook. I also knew I could make it better. I got the inspiration to make this site because, on my own personal TikTok account, I have been posting weekly recap videos of my senior year, so one day I can look back on it. I thought that creating this site would go along greatly with what I was doing in my personal life and was something I was passionate about.
The Solution
When creating this project, I started with a list of everything that I wanted to change from the previous project. I knew that I wanted to change the layout on both pages, change the color scheme, add a few design elements that expressed my personality and aesthetic, update my posts to include more of what I had done, and add a calendar element for more organization.
First, I changed the color scheme from reds to blues, since blue is my favorite color. I also wanted to change the font, and I did this by coding a new one into CSS to override the template.
Here is what the first section of the home page looked like before:
And here is what it looked like after:
I also designed my own logo and imported it into WordPress.
Secondly, I knew I also wanted to change the layout of my blog posts, to be more organized and fit an aesthetic. Originally, I was having a hard time getting my featured pictures to show in full. But, after changing the templates layout to one that I not only liked better, but also showed the entire featured picture, I solved this problem.
Get Rachel Dowd’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Here is the post page originally:
Here is the post page now:
In the middle of trying to organize my pages to flow better, I discovered how to make a new tab in the navigation bar. I then decided, to help with the organization of my website, to move my “Dear Senior Year” letter to it’s own tab.
Finally, I knew that one of the elements that I wanted to add to my WordPress site was a calendar element. I thought this went along well with the content of my site, as I was showcasing what I was doing throughout my semester on certain days/weekends, as well as it also helped with the organization aspect that I was focused on from the start. There were different calendar formats that I could choose from, however, I decided on the less visual one, as it was easier to navigate.
The Results
I would consider this project a success, because it is something that I am proud of and will continue to look back on. I was able to make most changes that I wanted to make originally. Also, I learned even more about WordPress this go around than I did for Project 3. One thing that I want to take future steps into perfecting is adding more features into my custom CSS, I found the inspection process difficult. I also had a hard time with the format of CSS in WordPress to be different that what I had originally learned.
