We’re never one to shy away from darker color palettes and Human Resources MBA was the perfect opportunity to apply that. The design concept here was all about using textures—namely wood, leather, and paper—to come up with a look that meant business.

On the homepage, we gave visitors four main navigation choices, and recycled the look for those boxes in the sidebar widgets on the rest of the site. We also used a red wax seal for the article badges to provide a pop of contrast that still fits the elegant, traditional look. As for typography, we went for the dependable Georgia for paragraph text and Arvo by Anton Koovit for headlines.

Did we use the Genesis Framework once again? You bet.

Continuing our long-term project of designing online degree websites, we took on a specific niche in the next stint: a resource site for the Best Masters in Nursing.

It’s become a pretty effective strategy to find the right photograph to convey the ideal message of sites like these, supported by a look and feel that’s appropriate to the theme. In this case it’s friendly, excited medical practitioners and the cool, clean hues of blue and green for a hospital-friendly look without looking too drab or sterilized.

Once again styling the search box was top priority and had to be a prominent feature of the site. And as usual, the Genesis Framework proved to be a very helpful tool in delivering the live site in a speedy fashion.

One of our latest clients asked us to build a website geared towards online degree hunters. Our response was to give Top Colleges Online a look that spelled classic and modern at the same time.

The design was actually inspired by the image you see in the header (which also repeats in the footer). We maintained a highly scannable, readable look, and mixed Droid Sans with Calluna Sans all around.

One important requirement for the site was styling the Degree Finder search box, which was a little challenging with the combination of its iframe and drop-down menu use. We chose to embrace progressive enhancement in applying styles to the form elements instead of bulkier solutions such as JavaScript UI frameworks.

We’re also fortunate to work with a client that uses the Genesis Theme Framework, making our jobs easier in laying the foundations on their site. Plus, flipping the sidebar location to either left or right becomes easy as pie.

The all-new Blog Search Engine carries a cleaner, more modern and professional aesthetic, and makes sure to put the featured blogs in the spotlight by the use of prominent screenshots of their websites.

Since there was going to be a lot of images on the page, we thought it best to use solid blocks of color for everything else, including the social media icons on the sidebar. An important element to the design was grid alignment: we wanted to make sure that the boxes on the content area aligned with those of the sidebar, as well as the categories in the footer, so nothing looked out of line.

Another little detail was taking a featured blog’s category, e.g. “animal blogs” and using some regex magic to turn it into singular labels at the footer of each item. It was of course more important to highlight what type of blog it was than the usual date the post is published and using singular instead of plural description focuses on that single blog, instead of simply belonging to a group of blogs.

Check out Blog Search Engine today! Perhaps after you enroll in our blog design services you’d gain a wonderful citation on that directory.

The bFeedMe Theme is a two-column green and yellow theme based on the old design of cooking and recipe blog bFeedMe.

There’s a widgetized sidebar to the right optimized for those tall skyscraper ads, as well as support for the usual WordPress features out of the box, from post thumbnails to threaded comments. Twitter and Facebook like buttons are also built in. View Demo »

bFeedMe Theme
(zip, 53.97 kB)

The Jack of All Blogs Theme is a three-column brown and green theme based on the old design of Jack of All Blogs. Widgetized sidebars are located on either side of the main content. There’s an options page that lets you enter a Twitter username to display the latest status at the top right of the page, and a Google AdSense publisher ID for ads at the top of the posts (468×60) and the left sidebar (120×600). The blog title uses a custom web font and CSS3 transforms, best viewed in the latest browser versions. View Demo »

Jack of All Blogs Theme
(zip, 183.04 kB)

The Erati Theme is a white, gray, and pink three-column theme based on the old design of the Erati entertainment website. It contains an options panel that lets you enter banner code for a 125 x 125 ad zone at the left of the header. You can enter related network links at the top right using the Network menu name.

There are two widget areas at the right, and supports threaded comments and custom menus. View Demo »

Erati Theme
(zip, 53.66 kB)

The ForeverGeek Theme is a gray and white two-column theme with blue and orange accents and lots of rounded corners. It has an options page that lets you enter a banner ad code below the header as well as RSS feed and social media account links.

There’s a custom menu zone at the top right of the page, plus 4 widget areas in the sidebar and 3 more in the footer. The theme also supports WP-PageNavi, Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP), and has Facebook Like buttons built-in. View Demo »

ForeverGeek Theme
(zip, 207.04 kB)

Come check out how ForeverGeek looks now!

In the following weeks we’re releasing WordPress themes based on old designs of our Splashpress Media network sites. Today, it’s AppleGazette, which recently got a facelift.

The AppleGazette Theme is a black, white, and blue two-column theme and has an options page that lets you enter ad codes, RSS subscription links, and social media URLs in the banner and sidebar areas. There’s a custom menu area at the at the top and bottom of the page, and of course a widget area at the right. It’s compatible up to WordPress 3.1. View Demo »

AppleGazette Theme
(zip, 207.67 kB)

Problem is, WordPress doesn’t display the excerpt metabox for pages, unlike posts. This can be solved by adding the following code to your functions.php:

function businesslogs_add_excerpt_box() { 
     add_meta_box('postexcerpt', __('Excerpt'), 'post_excerpt_meta_box', 'page', 'normal', 'core'); 
} 
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'businesslogs_add_excerpt_box' );

(Remember that it’s always a good idea to prefix your custom functions with a unique string.) Now go to the Page editor screen, pull down the Screen Options panel, and check Excerpt. Et voila!

We recently helped Geeks Are Sexy splash on a fresh coat of paint on its website. There are a few new features like the featured entries at the top, while some elements were retained in the redesign, still in their familiar spots.

Behold the new Geeks Are Sexy!

Turns out the answer lies not in poking around the Genesis code but WordPress itself. The prepend_attachment function has a filter that will let you modify how the attachment image—including its wrapper paragraph—is displayed. So all you have to do is add a filter that modifies the image size, like so:

add_filter('prepend_attachment', 'ag_prepend_attachment');
function ag_prepend_attachment($p) {
    return '<p class="attachment">'.wp_get_attachment_link(0, 'large', false).'</p>';
}

Drop this in your functions.php file and you’re set. Since this is a WordPress filter, this tip should also apply to other WordPress themes.

Redesigning AppleGazette was no small feat, even though the design remains familiar to its regular customers. Visually, we had to strike a balance between paying homage to Apple’s design influence and maintaining the site’s own identity. The result is a cleaner, lighter, more streamlined, more modern approach to blog design. If there ever was a site to take advantage of CSS shadows, gradients, and rounded corners, AG was certainly the place to do it!

Like what we did with ForeverGeek, browsing through image attachments was another mandatory feature for our network blog—more sites should do this.

The next challenge was in integrating advertisements and special content—not just your typical banner ads, but specially formatted user-submitted news and app reviews featured in between posts. GravityForms and custom fields helped accomplish this. Another favorite tool in our utility belt was the Cycle plugin. And needless to say, we used the Genesis framework for this one.

Visit AppleGazette and see the new design live!

The just-launched Recipe Finder blog was a quick exercise of designing within the confines of the web browser. Usually the first step is to construct wireframes and head to Photoshop (or Fireworks, or even Illustrator) but in this case, it was more efficient to do straight-up coding.

First, the blog used graphic elements from the already-running Recipe Finder main site. Second, although the layout was different, there was no need to type up markup from scratch thanks to our WordPress theme framework of choice, Genesis. Lastly, any code that needed to be typed was simply copied and modified from previous sites we’ve worked on. Finding things to reuse is key.

Come check out the new Recipe Finder blog!

We at Splashpress Media are having a re-design bash and this time Erati has been called upon, dressed in a new and exciting look. Covering news, view and reviews in the Television industry, styled with a clean look.

We worked up a plan to tie together the content for a reader on the homepage so that it looks clean, professional, and easy to read. Since TV is a visual medium, using lots of images was a priority feature.

We have used the CartoGothic Std font by Fontsite.com and implemented it using the @font-face. The logo has been overhauled and different sections have been created for content for better navigation. We have yet again trusted the Genesis Theme Framework to handle our work.

Enjoy the new design at Erati!

Controlling Code

When you build a website, you usually start with the HTML and then add CSS. With a theme framework, the HTML (and WordPress PHP) already exists and you must approach it CSS Zen Garden style. Of course you can still override the code with hooks and filters provided by WordPress and the framework itself, but the question is, how far do you want to go?

Say you want to tweak the way the post date, author, and comments section of the page. In Genesis there’s a nifty shortcode format you can override with a filter:

post_date before="" post_author_posts_link post_comments post_edit

So that’s pretty easy to customize. However, say you’re not happy with the way comment pagination is being displayed and you want to wrap it around an if statement, which Genesis does not do. Unfortunately there’s no filter for that and you’ll have to copy-paste the entire chunk of code from genesis_do_comments() to override it.

All-in-one

Using frameworks also means you can work entirely out of functions.php (and style.css), which can be a good or bad thing for you. Good, because there’s only one file to refer to when looking to fix or edit code. Bad, because it’s all lumped in there. You can still use page templates, but that would usually mean redundant code, which defeats the purpose of using frameworks in the first place. Conditional tags are your friend.

Dependency

Finally, using a 3rd-party framework means you’re completely dependent on the underlying code, for better or worse. You won’t have to worry about updating the code when a new WordPress version gets released. But if the framework goes in a direction you’re not too thrilled about, becoming too bloated for your taste, then you’ll have to migrate to another framework and adapt your code all over again.

Starter themes & light frameworks

If you don’t need the bells and whistles (hooks and options) of a framework for your website, keep in mind that any WordPress theme can be a parent theme whose code you can inherit for your own theme. Try using Twenty Ten as your base template, or just copy/paste code and modify to your liking, no strings attached.

Yes, we’re still on a redesign spree with our network websites and this time it’s Freelance Writing Jobs, completely unrecognizable from its old look. It’s lighter and shall we say more writerly—the logotype, hues, textures, and use of manicules all lend to that feeling.

Much of the work went into reorganizing the homepage such that everything is at your fingertips. From the introductory message about FWJ to the equal height boxes and aligned headings (with a little help from jQuery of course), everything is neatly arranged so you don’t get overwhelmed by the information this massive site has to offer. The grid is your friend.

FWJ’s new logo uses the Philosopher web font, which is designed by Jovanny Lemonad and available for embedding through the Google Font Directory. Under the hood, we’ve turned once again to the trusty Genesis Theme Framework.

Check out the new design here!

Next up on our roster was a realignment of ForeverGeek. A realignment, you say? If you’re familiar with the old design, this new iteration still carries a similar look and layout, but with a few new touches.

There are now four main sections on the homepage: Features, Games, Anime & Comics, and the Rest—color-coded so they’re easy to distinguish. At the top, the latest post is featured in each box. In the content area, each section dynamically cycles through each post (with the help of the jQuery Cycle plugin).

Another new feature is the Media Wall, located at the footer of every page. Aside from categories and tags, letting visitors explore your site by images is a smart idea. Clicking on a thumbnail leads you to a larger view of the image, also containing links to related images added in the same article. The image attachment functions in WordPress make this easy to implement.

On the CSS3 front: While rounded corners aren’t really a new thing on ForeverGeek, the border-radius module makes it easier than ever. (It’s still a little complicated, but thank goodness for modern browsers!) We also used a bit of box-shadow and webkit-transition for the hover effects. And of course, a sprinkling of @font-face for the headers to use a typeface that matches the original branding.

So there you have it folks, the new ForeverGeek. Hope you enjoy the new site!

Just a few days ago we updated the Business Logs website with a fresh new look by its new design team, Ia Lucero and Ali Hussain. The homepage now gives you easy access to everything you need to know about our company: our goal, portfolio, ideas, and how to contact us.

The old design was light, narrow, monochromatic, and safe. This time, we went bolder with a dark design and a splash of bright green.

The new color combination is a business-y take on our parent company colors. We’ve also embraced the brave new world of CSS3-based rounded corners, shadows, transition animations, and custom typography. jQuery is always helpful, whether you need to add a carousel plugin or align box heights.

Under the hood, we’re still proudly powered by WordPress, but use the Genesis Theme Framework on top of it to speed up the development process. Working almost entirely in the functions.php and style.css files saves lots of time and appeals to the minimalist in me. We’ll talk about this in more detail in another article.

We hope you like our work, and welcome to the new Business Logs!

Building a successful business blog takes commitment, persistence and patience.  Most importantly, there are a few fundamentals that you need to make sure you address if you want your business blog to thrive in the long term.

Five of the most important fundamentals are described below to help you take your business blog to the next level of success:

1. Unique design and branding

Don’t start a blog using one of the free templates that comes with your chosen blogging application.  Doing so does nothing to communicate your brand promise and makes your business look “small-time” because there are likely to be many other blogs of varying calibers across the web that use the same design.  Instead, invest in a premium theme or custom design by working with a freelance blog designer to make your business blog match your business brand and instantly communicate your brand image.

2. Well written About page

Take the time to write a concise yet compelling About page that describes who you are, what your business does, and what sets you apart from competitors.  Also, make sure that your About page communicates what value your blog brings to your audience.  Consider working with a professional copywriter to make this page really shine.

3. Contact form

Your business blog needs a good contact form.  If you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, check out the free Contact Form 7 for an easy-to-use solution.  If you use WordPress.org and are willing to invest a bit of money to get a powerful contact form tool that you can use for far more than just contact forms, check out Gravity Forms.  This plugin has a price tag, but it’s excellent!

4. Social links

If your business has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare, or any other social site, make sure you promote those destinations on your business blog by including prominent links and inviting visitors to connect with you on those sites.  You can even include social media icons to cross-promote your other social profiles.

5. Subscription area

Take the time to create your business blog’s feed using a tool like Feedburner, and then include an area on your business blog where you can invite visitors to subscribe to your blog via feed reader or email, which gives you an opportunity to stay top-of-mind amongst an opt-in audience who has already made it clear that they are interested in you, your content, and your business.

Image: stock.xchng

First up — Nuts About Southwest from Southwest Airlines

The Nuts About Southwest blog from Southwest Airlines has been a blog to watch for years.  It’s written by Southwest Airlines employees who are given the freedom to write posts with their own voices and telling their own stories.  I’d recap what the blog is all about here, but you really need to read the About page on the Nuts About Southwest blog to truly understand what makes this blog stand out from the crowd and really connect with readers.

And second — Zappos Blogs

Zappos is another example of a company that does great things with its business blogs.  Zappos operates a number of business blogs, but the two you need to check out first are the main Zappos blog and the Zappos CEO and COO blog.  Even though the former Zappos CEO has left the company, his posts during his tenure (pre-May 2010) demonstrate a company executive who actually “gets” social media.

What business blogs do you read to benchmark as you develop your own?  Leave a comment and share your opinion.

The purpose of this series is to show all the amazing things businesses can do with WordPress.org.  Suffice it to say, WordPress.org lets you create much more than a blog!

You can submit your WordPress site for inclusion in the WordPress for Business Websites series by following the link and leaving a comment with your URL in this post.

Today’s WordPress for Business Websites featured business is Small Farm Design.

As Craig Kistler of Small Farm Design explained in his submission:

“I can’t recommend WordPress enough. Even if my clients have no desire to update their own site, I’ll still build it on WordPress just to make my job of updating easier.  I use my site as an example of what is possible.”

One of the things I really like about the Small Farm Design site is the attention to detail applied to the color palette.  Notice that link colors, background colors, comment section colors in blog posts, and even image colors (such as the Twitter icon near the top of the sidebar) are seamlessly integrated.  Check out the screenshot of a blog post on the Small Farm Design site shown below.

Craig also explained in his submission:

“I recommend WordPress to many of my clients that want a CMS. It makes things easier for me as a designer. The code is pretty easy to design templates around as well.  My site is WordPress all the way. It makes it easy to add portfolio items quickly. I also love the easy Twitter and Flickr integration.”

A sample page from the Small Farm Design online portfolio is shown below.

Even the forms on the Small Farm Design site are clean and use the same color palette that gives the brand a unique image.

Small Farm Design demonstrates that WordPress can do so much more than enabling you to publish blog posts.  Whether you need a fully customized elaborate website for your business or a very simple design and structure, you can do it with WordPress.

To have your website considered for the WordPress for Business Websites series here on BusinessLogs, follow this link, and leave a comment on the Call for Business Submissions post with your company website’s URL.

Fortunately, business blogs built using WordPress.org can make it extremely easy to keep up with ongoing conversations on blog posts with the Subscribe to Comments plugin.

In simplest terms, this WordPress plugin is a must-have for business blogs.  One of the most amazing parts of blogging as a marketing tool is the ability it gives you to create a community around your blog and build relationships with the members of that community.  Comments turn your blog into a two-way conversation, and the Subcribe to Comments WordPress plugin makes it easy for that conversation to continue.

Here’s how it works:

1. You install and activate the Subscribe to Comments plugin from your WordPress dashboard.
2. Once activated, visitors to your blog will see a check box followed by the message, “Notify me of follow up comments via email” after the comment form at the end of all of your blog posts.
3. Visitors who complete the comment form and leave a comment on one of your blog posts can check that check box to subscribe and be notified when more comments are published on that post only.
4. Once subscribed, visitors will receive an email message each time a new comment is published on that post.

The image below shows what the comment section looks like at the end of a blog post (along with the Subscribe to Comments check box and message).

The Subscribe to Comments WordPress plugin is one of the first plugins you should add to your business blog.  It’s extremely easy to set up and use, but it’s effect on your blog’s growth and interactivity can be significant.

What’s your favorite WordPress plugin for your business blog?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Find more WordPress plugins for business blogs.

Images: stock.xchng and WomenOnBusiness.com

According to the April 2010 study:

• 33% of Twitter users talk about companies or products at least once a week.
• 32% of Twitter users make recommendations about companies or products at least once a week.
• 30% of Twitter users ask for recommendations about companies or products at least once a week.

But that’s not all this study reveals.  Nearly 1 out of every 2 Twitter users recommend, talk about, or make a purchase from a company that they have connected with on Twitter.  Check out the breakdown below:

• 55% recommend the company or product
• 55% talk about the company or product
• 51% purchase the brand or company’s products
• 46% link to an ad for the company or product
• 43% attend a promotional or sponsored event by the company

It’s important to understand that Twitter isn’t for everyone, and small business owners with limited staffs and budgets need to strategically choose where they want to spend time on the social Web to best engage with their target audiences.  If you don’t like Twitter and can’t get into it, then blogging, Facebook, online video, or other content publishing or community tool might be better for you.

The point is to make sure your business is participating on the social web.  Your audience is already there, and they’re talking about products and companies (as this study supports).  Don’t miss out on the opportunity to interact with them where they’re already spending time!

A business blog can be a great core of your branded online destination strategy.  Keep an eye on Business Logs to learn more about creating branded online destinations and surrounding consumers with your brand on the social web in an upcoming post!

Do you use Twitter to engage with your target audience?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Let me start by saying this is not a how-to book.  You won’t find page after page of screenshots walking you through the specific steps you should take to create a Facebook page, Facebook group, or Facebook profile.  Instead, this is very much a why book.  It clearly and concisely explains why businesses should be using Facebook to market their products, services, and brands to the social web community on a site where consumers are already spending time.

Here is the chapter run-down:

1. From Dorm Room to Boardroom: The Growth of Social Networks
2. Getting Around Facebook: The Basics
3. Establishing a Corporate Presence
4. Extending Facebook into Interwebs: The Power and Reach of Facebook Connect
5. Facebook Advertising: How and Why You Should be Using It
6. Extending the Experience with Facebook Apps
7. Addressing Privacy Concerns
8. Developing a Facebook Marketing Strategy
9. Using Facebook to Develop Communities
10. Best in Class
11. Shaking the Crystal Ball: What’s Next for Facebook

I would recommend this book for small business owners who need to learn why a Facebook presence is important and what it can do for them as well as for corporate executives who are out of touch with the popularity of Facebook and the opportunities their businesses miss if they’re not actively engaging with consumers on Facebook.

What is your favorite book about Facebook marketing?  Leave a comment and share your opinion.