Played 
I’m bored of Wordpress. Don’t get me wrong - it’s probably considered the best web-based CMS available given its unbelievable growth and world-wide acceptance, even when compared to commercial ones. However, it’s so all-encompassing that I decided I wanted to have a go at getting a version of Digital Formula online that isn’t powered by Wordpress. There are a couple of reasons for this.
- Wordpress literally does everything for you. Ok, so I could make a theme for Wordpress but I’d still be somewhat tied into the Wordpress way of doing things. Yes, I know you can make a theme match pretty much any layout but that’s not what I wanted. Personal choice there, I guess.
- I wanted to see if I could make a complete site design from nothing to fully functional with only the bits I wanted. I’m not a designer by any means but I enjoy having a hack at it ... you can probably tell from the look of this site that hacking at design is really about as far as I can go ... haha.
- HTML5 and CSS3 have been calling to me for ages and the only real way I could create a site and have 100% control over the validity while using the latest web design techniques was to switch from Wordpress to a more open CMS like ExpressionEngine.
- For some reason I just really wanted to try ExpressionEngine (click the following link if you’re just after the techy bits).
ExpressionEngine
And here we are at the guts of what powers the new Digital Formula. ExpressionEngine. Didn’t quite get it the first 2 times? ExpressionEngine, an increasingly-popular web-based CMS that is aimed more at designers than coders since the choice of bolt-on themes is really something you can use to get a site running, in my opinion, not something you’d use to run a fully functional website.
So far I’m really enjoying EE. It’s powerful, fast, flexible and truly unlimited in terms of how you can make it look. It doesn’t have the raw option-based power of Wordpress but that didn’t concern me much, even though I knew before I started that I’d miss some of the Wordpress nice-to-have bits & pieces.
The end result
As a result, here we are. This is what I’m referring to as Digital Formula version 4. The first 2 versions were both Wordpress and, even though I customised the heck out of the themes I used, this one’s all mine. The design is unique in that I made it, I designed it, I created all the graphics, the layout ... everything. That’s the reason that there a couple of inconsistencies still visible on the site. Whether or not you spot them depends on how hard you’re looking - please accept my humble bended-knee apologies if you’re a hardcore designer and you’re sitting there clutching your sides trying to make sense of this attempt at design.
Meh, that’s enough. What ends up on this site is anyone’s guess but recently I decided to focus on upping the amount of fun stuff on here since I have a number of pretty true passions out of design and I.T - photography and cycling just to name 2 of them. They’ll be on here for sure.
If you want to get in touch please feel free to drop me a line if you like - I’m always up for a good ole’ pow-wow with other users of the intert00bs. Thanks and welcome!