The Objective
The purpose of this assignment was to build a website for a fictional business using WordPress. WordPress is the most popular content management system in the web industry, so it is important for students in the design industry to understand how to work with WordPress. This particular assignment focused on the basic features of WordPress: customizable menus, widgets and sidebars, WordPress’ featured image feature, and template hierarchy.
The Process
This was a big project with a large scope of work. The first step I took was planning; I established a fictional business called Feed Me. It is a food blog that offers a simple recipe database, and it is targeted towards amateur and beginner cooks. The products that Feed Me offers are recipes, so I needed to write each recipe as well as take photos. I edited all my photos to create unity between them, and I optimized every photo for the web. All my editing was done using Adobe Photoshop.
After creating the content needed for the website, I started coding and adding the features required for the assignment. Throughout the process, I referred a lot to the WordPress Codex to ensure I was following WordPress development standards and best practices. Developing a WordPress theme was a great experience, but also a complicated one. Although only basic and standard WordPress features were required for this assignment, I noticed how much coding and development was needed to produce these basic features. WordPress is a truly powerful content management system that can be customizable to any extent.
I am happy with the end product of this project. I enjoy working with WordPress, and I am eager to create more websites using WordPress. The use of a content management system makes web development much easier and faster. Rather than coding every webpage individually, content manage systems like WordPress only requires coding of a single theme or template.
