If you are thinking of building a website that will have high traffic, is image intensive, distributes products and is built on the WordPress framework, then you should pay attention right about now. All of the above is going to be putting some serious strain on your hosting server, whether it is a dedicated server or a simple shared environment (such as Hostgator or BlueHost , etc). As such, a really neat trick (and one that many of the big players have been using for quite some time) is to make use of of Amazon S3! What’s that you say, ” Don’t they sell books and stuff?”, well yes they do! But they have also got some unbelievable infrastructure that is available for anyone to use at extremely low cost!

All you need to do is sign-up for an Amazon S3 account (its free) and then go ahead and download this brilliant plug-in called WordPress Total Cache which will speed up and optimize your WordPress site’s performance while also turning into into a Content Delivery Network (CDN) all on auto pilot!!! Instead of only having your (more than likely) tiny web server doing all the work in serving your web pages to the world, you will have the might of millions (if no billions) of dollars of investment in IT infrastructure at your disposal. Thus allowing your website to perform well in circumstances where it normally would have crashed!

So what’s the fuss? Why should you go to the effort?

1. It’s actually not such an effort to install a plug-in and type in a couple API keys (the plug-in basically walks you through the setup)
2. It’s will save you money in the long run (especially if you plan on selling online)
3. It adds professionalism to your endeavor by making your site faster
4. It allows you to scale your business at low cost (for more cost information check here)

Well, that just about all I have time for, but please feel free to let me know if anyone needs more information or some help with this as it is well worth the effort, I guarantee it!

http://wordpress.org/development/2010/06/thelonious/

Firstly, the design of this blog has been key to my ongoing success. The reason for this is that it has been picked up my numerous showcase websites and other bloggers who enjoyed the design and decided to share it with the world. Thus, creating a lot of links back to this site and helping me big time in the search engine rankings. I’m therefore, extremely tentative to ‘fix something that isn’t broken’.

Secondly, I’m really eager to do something new and creative, as you might easily understand one does get bored of things when you have to see them over and over for extended periods of time and I would like people to stay interested in what they read as well as what the see here.

So, having said all this, what to do? Well, currently I don’t have the answer. I could look at keeping certain elements of the original design while still making some major changes…sound good? If so, what do I keep and what gets the axe?

Let’s make this more interesting…considering I have no idea what to do at the moment…why don’t you help me out? The person who gives me the best idea for this blog will get a completely free redesign of their own blog. In exchange for your help and input I will devote my time to helping you out

Surely that would be worth a quick comment or idea?

Update: Hi guys, looks like no one was interested in a free design? This promotion has now closed

Basically what I’m looking to do is to build my blog into something that is cool to look at, functional and informative.  Plus, I have always believed that learning from others is key, and that two heads are better than one . So with that having been said I would realy like to hear what everyone thinks, why not drop me a quick commment with a couple suggestions?

So why not go ahead and make my day…who knows… I may just return the favour

Nevertheless, there is still money to be made, and Brian has indicated that he will be offering support and design services for these “free” themes. I think the next couple of months are going to be extremely interesting and will definitely set a precedent for those who are looking to get into the WordPress design game.

Anyway, I would love to hear some opinions on this…so feel free to leave a comment

I’m just going to highlight some of the key design elements and my thoughts regarding them.

The Header

I designed the header as reflection of my personality as well as my South African culture. I wanted it to look almost like items on a desk… but I’m not quite sure if a really achieved that effect correctly…I will leave that for you to decide .

Seamless background

Well, obviously I was going for a wood effect I was trying to make it look almost varnished and expensive, like the kind of desk you would have in your study. I think I might post a tutorial on how I created the effect, as well as how to get the seamless look, which isn’t as difficult as you might think.

Content containers

I thought I would try to push myself a little with them, making rounded corners is not too difficult, but it can be quite challenging at times. Combined with transparency and a slight shadow does, however, make for a pretty nice effect, if I do say so myself . Any one agree?

Colour scheme

I decided really early on that I don’t want the usual black test on white background, so once the wood texture was finalised, i settled on the orange and blue combo which seems to combine pretty nicely with the overall dark look and feel. I also, decided to use a whitish/grey font to ensure that it didn’t become too dark (and depressing) which can happen really easily if you’re not careful!

Conclusion

I absolutely love designing websites, there is something about conceptualizing an idea and then seeing it come to life. It is absolutely exhilarating! Obviously, not everyone is going to love this particular design, but hopefully you can appreciate the effort. Also, please feel free to let me know any thoughts or opinions!