If you haven’t noticed, my main site has had a massive overhaul, with which the royal ‘we’ are very pleased.
Besides the new design, some new work and texts have been added in the upgrade process, most notably the digital and traditional prints I did at the Frans Masereel Centre in Belgium this summer, the Johannesburg-based public intervention from a few weeks ago (a continuation from my Wireframe Series started in Croatia), and new writings on my research and artistic inquiry.
For non-geeks:
The new site is driven by categories, so as to showcase interesting through-lines and trajectories in my pieces. Artworks are each listed across all the concepts and media they might fit into, and are then organized by date. A hidden system of keywords also helps to show related pieces, and there are other goodies such as lightbox slideshows, youtube videos, RSS feeds, and more, throughout the site. Feedback welcome!
For geeks:
There are now 2 WordPress installs on this site: the blog (what you are reading now, this is a standard install) and the main site, which is using WP as a Content Management System.
The idea was to have an artist portfolio that did not look like a blog, but that did use a similar database for cross-categoried posts and related works (through tags) in a way that could showcase interesting through-lines and trajectories in my pieces. After a lot of research – and not wanting to have to do any database coding on my own – I came to WordPress as my best choice for a starting point; there are no changes to the wordpress core at all (just a very customized theme and a bunch of plugins) – I’m very pleased with the result:
Feedback welcome! More geek tidbits below the fold…
The theme and site have a few hard-coded bits and necessary settings, so it’s not exactly portable right now. I’m a little themed/php’ed out for the moment, but if there are any keen coders who’d be interested in talking wish-list, time-frame and open source release of this as a theme/plug-in/add-on type thing, gimme a holler through the site, I’m totally game. And if you just want the code to look at, also not a problem – just mail me.
some features:
- come on, the design itself is pretty, isn’t it?
- custom field for thumbnail images in index and archives
- custom field for ambiguous dating (like “Jan – Mar 2004″)
- custom field for medium (“video installation”)
- custom field for “post-specific” sidebar — note that I do _not_ mean “single posts” sidebar. I mean that I can put content in the sidebar of one specific post as I see fit. I often use these for multi-page posts (for direct links to video or images), or for external links in the case of exhibition sites or net.art
- special “press” category — posts to this category only appear in the press section, which is listed under pages rather than categories
- uses fun plugins – easytube, lightbox and slickr gallery (to pull flickr images), search pages, related posts (i do not show my tags in the works, but use them to drive this plugin), quicktime embed, and a few very very simple ones I wrote myself for optimization of art entries and to work out a few kinks in the theme (I only know limited PHP, which I learned through writing a couple of wordpress themes).
- And of course, the whole site is xhtml, css and accessibility compliant, and has RSS and Atom feeds for new press and artworks.
- everything is open source!
{ 40 } Comments
Saw your post on the Word Press forums and have come to check things out “in person,” so to speak. I’m really curious about the whole idea of using WP as a CMS and it sounds like some of the things you’ve done are similar to what I will be attempting to do as I build my own blog featuring music, photography, writing, and so forth. I’m still in the process of conceptualizing things so your site has been valuable in seeing WP used in a way that’s a bit beyond its conventional uses. Thanks!
thanks, jay. yeh, i feel pretty good about it. it was no small task, but well worth it in the end.
hi nathaniel,
i’d love to look at the code if you don’t mind. you’ve done something very similar to what i’m trying to do for my forthcoming design portfolio. thanks!
sure, sam. am emailing you the theme now.
So cooool.. I’ve used wordpress for my news section on my art website but made my main one in Flash, really like wordpress though and how easy it is, may convert over fully and your site defo shows how it can suit an artist.
Hey Nathaniel, I am also planning on using a couple of wordpress installations for my upcoming portfolio site. I would love to take a peak at your themes and see how you pulled it off.
Thanks,
Bryan
emailing you now, bryan
I’d love to look at your code because I would like to make a portfolio with wordpress.
Thanks!
will send it to you now, Sebastien
Great work. This is almost exactly what I want to do with my site. Would you mind sending the theme files?
Excellent site. Never imagined WP can be used for a portfolio site until I ran into this. Do you mind sharing the code and/or theme and any customizations? Impressive, I must say!
Hey Amit, on its way.
Great work, Nathaniel–may I use the code as well?
on its way
This is just what i’ve been looking for. I’m revamping my site and i’d love to take a look at this theme. is it possible to get the code?
sure. on its way
Hi – I’m interested in the theme as well as I want to use WordPress as CMS. I’ve looked at other CMS solutions (Expression Engine, Textpattern etc) but none have the power or ability of WordPress WYSIWYG. This is the most important feature for me.
Thanks
sure
Hi Nathaniel – I absolutely love what you’ve done with the theme, I’m an artist struggling to set up my own portfolio site and I could really do with taking a look at your changes if possible? if you could send me a copy of your theme I will credit you in the footer? Let me know if possible – thanks Paul
Hi, I’m another artist who is interested in setting up a portfolio site using WordPress. Can I see your code please? – Thanks!
Teresa, Paul, on its way.
wow…your theme is unlike any i’ve seen…it just what i need….would love a copy of this theme…i’ve developed everything for my site except for the portfolio…your theme would help me out ….can i get a copy?
bassdriven at g mail do c o m
Thanks in advance
Hi, yet another artist interested in creating a portfolio site with wordpress. Could i get a look at your code?
Thanks and good job
sent!
Hi, Nathaniel.
I’m a graphic designer and animator, and would like to know if you can send me the WordPress theme of your site. I’ve been searching for a long time for a theme that could be used like an CMS for a portfolio, but never found nothing like this – until now.
Thanks! (and sorry for my bad english – I’m brazilian)
sent to yet another geek!
Hello Nathaniel.
On behalf of all the people who you’ve sent your code to, let me say – thanks! I am yet another person asking for it, as I hurry to prepare a portfolio site in time for a grad school application deadline. Please let me know if you can send it, or consider publishing some kind of official code to the wordpress site so you don’t have to respond to so many emails like this! Thank you.
Timothy
it’s coming
Hi Nathaniel.
Apologetically, I’m another artist in need of a system like yours wondering if you might share the code.
Thanks.
Todd
coming
wow, great theme for hosting portfolio site you have got. I am just another artist who is trying to convert my blog to a CMS as well. It’s so cool that you did it and is willing to share. I will really appreciate it if I could see the code. Big thank you in advance. You made my day:D
surely
You guessed it … another visitor who’s totally impressed with your http://nathanielstern.com WP as CMS site and hoping to have a look at your code!
Seriously great work.
on it’s way
Would love to see your code! Thanks Nathaniel
coming!
Hey, the site looks great. I’d love to take a look at the code on as I think I could really use it for a personal site I am trying to build. Any help is appreciated and linkage would be reciprocated.
on its way.
Will this wp cms also be suitable for a website with say 100 artists?
I’m only familiar with Pivot cms but that’s too much weblog thing.
Like to hear from you. It’s sounds promising.
Hey trebla. This is wordpress, also more of a weblog thing. I’ve just adapted the theme as per my website (linked from my name). Admittedly, it’s not easy to use – I haven’t had time to update the interface – but it works great…. Happy to send to you if you want it.
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[...] TranslatedInfo.com – Spanish online translator and free language translation wrote an interesting post today on new web site: wordpress as CMS / PortfolioHere’s a quick excerpt If you haven’t noticed, my main site has had a massive overhaul, with which the royal ‘we’ are very pleased. Besides the new design, some new work and texts have been added in the upgrade process, most notably the digital and traditional prints I did at the Frans Masereel [...]