Girls Can’t What? Version 2.0 Complete

Posted by: gretchen on February 12, 2007 |

First let me say a word of thanks to those of you who have been with me through this past year as I have been piecing this site together. Today, I finished the final theme and layout for this site. For the technical folks among us, here are the challenges I faced in getting to this point and a little history, if you’re interested:

Web Design Goals:

  • The Layout has to work in all browsers, including cell phones and small screen devices, because I check my email at Walmart. ;)
  • The colors have to be attractive but not too girly. It’s MY site - and these colors are purple - NOT pink!
  • The layout has to be simple and easy to navigate, but not too busy. Must be easy on the eyes to look at because I spend a lot of time here. ;)
  • All aspects of the the site have to WORK. Bug-free. None of this –> ~X(
  • The design must promote a community atmosphere and invite people to leave their mark. I want to make and keep friends. :D
  • The site must be mostly maintenance free so that I can focus my time more on my art (new designs) and less on hacking code. (Although my geeky side really has no complaints here. B-) )
  • The design must highlight my artwork and promote designs in a tasteful way by using them as accents throughout the layout. Because - let’s face it - I gotta sell stuff so I can eat. The “starving-artist” image just isn’t me. [-(

Challenges (in no particular order):

  • Cross-browser compatibility
  • Web Standards
  • Getting the components and plugins to work
  • Logging in/logging out issues, cookies, caching, blah blah blah
  • Crappy Google Ads
  • Lots of other bugs and junk that I don’t want to think about anymore.

History:

  • September 2005 - first web site design created in MS-Frontpage and uploaded
  • January 2006 - Began learning CSS and SSI in order to to create a dynamic/interactive web site
  • February 2006 - Discovered the Joomla! CMS and installed.
  • March 2006 - June 2006, worked on the site theme by experimenting with various colors.
  • June 2006 - September 2006, began to build a web community using a variety of components
  • October 2006 - Recognized a need to simplify and began to scale back and work on a simpler, lighter theme.
  • December 2006 - Launched new modified “blog-like” theme
  • January 2006 - Discovered too may bugs and maintenance issues, plus current theme was not working in all-browsers so I migrated the entire site to WordPress. Modified an orange-colored theme to work temporarily while I styled the final theme.
  • February 12, 2007 - The official Girls Can’t WHAT? theme is launched and named GCW 2.0. Think I’ll go take a nap now…

PS - I’m not naive enough to think that there aren’t still bugs, so please holler if you have any trouble with any part of the site. Thanks!

One Response to “Girls Can’t What? Version 2.0 Complete”

  1. 1. Paula The Surf Mom Says:
    February 13th, 2007 at 6:31 am

    Looks good

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