Custom WordPress Theme Design

Anyone that does any kind of web design or development ( not just WordPress development ) learns early that some clients just suck - you just can’t make them happy no matter what you do.

WordPress development adds another dimension since you are turning over a front end to a platform to the client who plans to extend and add to what you have created for them. This often brings up un-anticipated issues…

But just when you think that all hope is lost ( okay, that might be a little overly dramatic ) you get several clients in a row that send you quotes like these:

It’s freaking beautiful.

It’s wonderful. You did an excellent job of taking my thoughts and vision and bringing it to life! This is exactly what I had in mind.

Yes yes yes yes yes. Oh you rock.

THANK YOU. It has been great working with you and I look forward to more projects in the future. If you need a quote from me for you portfolio/website, just let me know.

Quotes like these make it much easier to deal with the more difficult clients…

I hate to have to do this, cauze anyone that knows me knows that I hate to turn away any potential work, but from this day forward I will not create any WordPress themes for anybody that is in the get rich quick industry.

Up until this point I have been agnostic as to what my client’s profession or niche was but I can no longer pretend that there is not a segment of the population that attempts various schemes that promise to let you in on their secret that requires little skill, effort, or time - and that if you just fill out the form on their landing page they will teach you how to work from a hammock on the beach and earn more money then you have ever dreamed of.

If you are one of these guys, don’t call me. Don’t email me. Don’t fill out my contact form.

No WordPress for you.

I think that one of the hardest things for new designers to learn when they try and make a living doing design is that it really does not matter what you, the designer, think is good.

It really only matter what the client wants - you can try and use your knowledge of form, function, color, and creativity to nudge the client in the right direction, but in the end a for hire design job is only really successful if the client thinks that they have gotten a good value and are happy with the results.

Take, for instance, my latest project for an awesome photographer out on the left coast named melissa schwartz.. She is a WPJA award winning wedding photojournalist and has a distinct style - and a design style that is not exactly what I would do if it were left up to me.

But her custom WordPress theme is not about me, it’s about her. So after being warned that she was an artist and had strong opinions about how the blog should look I tried to remove my own bias from process and created her a mock up. This is what she said:

i’m kind of shocked…i love it! i’m usually really difficult to please =)

I admit that I was kinda shocked as well, I was prepared to have it ripped to pieces and heading back to the drawing board. I went ahead and starting cutting it up, helped her install WordPress and got the theme set up and she said:

i think it’s amazing, it looks awesome, you rock.

Not bad coming from a client that told me up front that she was going to be hard to please - but, I think, that by trying to remove my ego from the design process that she actually became easy to please.

Last week I whipped out a cool blog theme for a great guy named Marc over at My Credit Group. While this design is not necessarily my favorite style is is exactly what the client wanted, and therefore, a successful project.

I normally don’t blog each WordPress Theme I create ( otherwise that is all this blog would be about ) but this blog may be special - but not because of anything that I’ve done. I think this blog has the potential to have the best content created by the client of any theme that I have ever designed.

Marc has some great credit related content over there, not just the standard fluff, and it looks like there is a nice discussion building around his timely topics.

So if are interested in this type of thing, I highly recommend that you check it out.

James Anderson, a very good photographer from across the pond, says:

Thanks for everything! The blog looks I exactly how I wanted it & your quick service has been great!

I’ll recommend you whenever I can!

Doesn’t get much better then that huh? And while his WordPress theme didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted it to, it did come out exactly the way he wanted it to which is much more important I suppose…

James was very easy to work with and seems to me to be a great guy as well as a very talented photographer, so if you are over in Britain and need a photographer I recommend you give him a hollar.

Turns out I don’t have time to take on any new work for a while, so unless we have already spoken about a project I won’t be able to take on any new jobs. I hate to turn away work but I have some catching up to do as well as some interesting longer terms projects in the hopper that need my full attention.

The only other alternative I have to to hire some folks to work with me and I have had varying sucsess with that in the past…

So, when I am available for hire again I’ll post and let you know. And if you are a kick ass css / xhtml monkey that is looking for some work let me know and we can at least discuss it.

Hey Now - looks like I am not going to be able to accept any new work for the rest of the year. I need to spend the next month making sure that I get all of my current projects completed and my current clients happy.

So if you have a project that you would like to talk about, that can wait until after New Years, I’ll be happy to discuss it with you. If you have a project that needs to be completed asap your are going to have to look somewhere else.

So if you are a current client, hang in there, I am getting through my to-do list.

Alan Gutierrez is a long term client and I have done many projects with him. Here is what he has to say about working with JTkconsulting:

James Kendall is fast and efficent. He is fluent in HTML and CSS. He knows how to develop standards based web sites that look good on any browser. His understanding of standards and usability give his designs a ring of quality that the customer can percieve, even if they don’t know about standards, they know that their site looks and feels very professional, and his knowledge of standards means that his designs create no nasty suprises.

He is a tremendous resource. He understands PHP and WordPress, and is intelligent about creating templates that are easy to adapt and extend.

Working with James is easy. He communicates well, responds to requests immediately, and never fails to create a design that the customer is eager to adopt.