Well, my Phase 2 objectives were to migrate all existing content from the static HTML portfolio over to the new WordPress Portfolio are now complete. I will spend the rest of the day setting up Content Pages such as Services and Fees and Contact, which is content that did not previously exist on the old portfolio.

It has already been a busy week this week. I cut and coded a Pure Pepsi HTML email to be sent out soon. If you haven’t already you should sign up for the Pure Pepsi HTML Email, they really do have great offers and you can see monthly examples of my HTML email development work sent right to your email box!

Also this week my Design partner Phixative in New York City is wrapping up launching a new website for the Omaha Integrative Care for Fertility clinic in Omaha, Nebraska. I provided production design, web development in .php html and css, as well as research for selling event tickets online and integration into said platform. It was a great project and the client and team are happy to see it launch.

If you’re near Houston, or coming through Houston, before November 6th, and you appreciate artsy things like cool photographs in stark rooms, then I highly recommend the current exhibits, one of Photographer Pelle Cass and his work Selected People, the second of photographer Adrian Fernandez and his work Life Style, and the last but not least Learning Curve 5, an exhibition by Learning Center Students.

For me, the entire reason to go to this exhibit is to marvel at the genius of one print: “Tree”. Pelle Cass has taken the creative possibility of technological medium and struck artistic gold with his process of photographing the same scene and angle over and over and over and then digitally sampling in the multiple subjects that crossed through that scene. What you end up with is a photograph of a park in Boston filled with dozens of people that are all taking photographs at the same time. Or perhaps you’re looking at a picture of a busy city staircase, full of people going about their way. Your gaze is held by the photo, though you really can’t say why. After a minute’s processing you realize that all the people in the photo are women, and they are all right in that moment of stepping from one step to the next, down the staircase. And you wonder, did he synchronize this? Did he co-ordinate some sort of photographic flash mob? “All of you women, of different creed and age and race, descend the staircase – step down from the step…  NOW!”  Click.  >Flash<

And now I can explain the print that I am mad for: Tree.  An old, gnarly, sprawled out tree in a cold Massachusetts park, covered in squirrels and pigeons.  With  dozens of multiple time exposures Pelle Cass has created a single scene of a Tree overrun by squirrels and pigeons in such a way as to invoke in me divine insight as to why my desk looks the way it does.  When I look at this photograph, I understand why I can’t choose between green sauce or red sauce on my monster burrito, and I see that there’s only one real optimal path in climbing a tree.

It would be an insult not to mention the other work.  Adrian Fernandez‘s work in Life Style was both compelling and a little beyond comprehension.  Of special note for me was the seamless blending of the color pallets between the subjects of plastic fruits and plastic flowers and their backgrounds of vinyl wallpaper and table cloths.  The seamless blur between artificial and reality that he brought to these photographs confused my mind and made my mouth salivate for apples that were plastic against a background that was polyester and artificial.

Be sure to check the Houston Center for Photography website for dates and times.

It’s right at 3:30 CST here on Friday the 9th and I’m half-way through migrating my portfolio from my static HTML page to the Portfolio category of my new WordPress website. Already I’m encouraged at the simplicity of creating new project pages, and the great grouping that putting the projects in subcategories provides.

I’ve got 37 of the 81 website screenshots and project details moved over, and I’m stopping work on this project for now to go design and print some new business cards to take with me to tonight’s opening of the Houston Center for Photography, where I hope to run into our good friend and great photographer Frazier King.

It’s 10:30 AM CST on a Friday and I’m already 2 hours deep into phase 2 of migrating my website over to a WordPress Blog platform. After spending 10 hours on phase 1 yesterday, I had nearly completed reskinning my theme to a completely new skin before pushing away from the keyboard and staggering off to bed.

This morning’s clean-up from last night has involved installing and configuring the WordPress plugin All in One SEO Pack. I’ve tried two other SEO plugins for WordPress, and this makes the third time I’ve come back to All in One SEO.

I’ve also added the Social Media Widget plugin for dynamically rendering Social Network Follow Me buttons in the WordPress sidebar. Even though I have them hard coded in the header, I wanted to be familiar with a widget for easy deployment of Follow Me links in a WordPress blog, and I liked that Social Media Widget allowed for me to use my Custom Designed graphics without forcing me to make icon sets or anything dramatic.

So we begin today with two hours of Phase 1 mop up, and now I’m off to Phase 2 to bring over all of the rest of the static content from the previous site. With over 70 screenshots of websites and projects on the portfolio page, and over 50 links to Flash ad banners and Flash landing pages on the interactive page, I have my day’s work cut out for me.

In many website jobs that I see posted these days clients are wanting to use the WordPress blog engine as their website.  Being able to customize WordPress to greater detail is becoming a more important skill.  And I have to admit, I’m hoping it will make updates to the portfolio and posting news much easier.

This isn’t my first blog customization, I’ve easily done a dozen of these now, and I’m bringing along all the little things I’ve learned along the way.  For the template base to customize, I chose Toolbox by Automattic. This theme was stripped down and ready to be built upon.

I’m utilizing child themes, which protects the modifications and changes that I make to my customized theme in the event that my base theme gets changed in an update by the WordPress system. Child Themes are one of the things I wish I’d known and understood from my first customized theme, so if you’re serious about customizing WordPress themes I seriously recommend getting familiar with them.

I’m breaking down converting my website to a WordPress platform into phrases for easier management. I’m making my previous static pages available during remodeling, and I’m opening up the process on my website along the way. In phase one I will establish the complete customization of the theme, without going into extensive polishing of the theme. As soon as the theme is serviceable in function and distinct from the original in customization, I’m going to populate all the content from my existing static web site in phase two. Phase three begins one all the existing content is propagated with a re-addressing of shine and polish to the the customized theme. Afterwards, phase four will wrap up adding the new content that has not yet been created on the older static site, catching my portfolio up to date.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes to move through the phases. Having started this project exactly 5 hours ago (time of this writing 5:35PM CST 9/8/2011) I estimate to be nearly finished with phase one, and already eager to bring over content.

Cheers~