Well, I have to admit that getting started with ILovePhotoBlogs.com took a bit more time than I had planned, but I am pleased to be able to launch the site this weekend. I have known for quite some time that I wanted to have a photography site which captured the many photo blogs I come across, however, deciding on just how to format it was another challenge all together. I am not sure how long I will stick with this current format, but you have to start somewhere, so somewhere it is.
In getting this site operational, there were several blogs, plugin authors, and general tipster which I stumbled across that were very interesting and would like to give them a plug. If you are into WordPress blogging, which is the gold standard of blogging today, you need to check out Linda Sabin-Wilson at JustaGirlInTheWorld. Linda has a tremendous wealth of knowledge related to WordPress, wordpress plugins, and much. In addition, she is an accomplished writer ala “WordPress for Dummies“, as well as running a creative design company.
In putting together this site, I had the opportunity to play around a bit in Photoshop to create the main ILovePhotoBlog logo and also the “Got Feed?” logo for RSS subscribers. In developing the main logo, I wanted to have a logo that I could separate from the site name in the future for possible branding purposes or even to create a favicon. The logo I settled upon was basically just an obscure font for the letter ‘i’ and placed it against a swirled colored background. I made so many changes to the small logo that I couldn’t reproduce it if I had to. Nothing flashy, but it will work. For the RSS feed logo, I just wanted something different. And, the RSS feed logo was the sum of watching ‘Transformers’, eating the proverbial cold pizza, drinking Natural Light, with my laptop front and center. Not sure how it works, but the RSS logo is orange and mentions ‘feed’, so I hope most people get the message. I really enjoying creating in Adobe Photoshop, and still use Macromedia Fireworks as well. It is nice to think about getting serious with each of those programs, however, that will never happen so I don’t even let my mind wonder there. I know enough to get done what needs to get done. Nothing more, nothing less.
One of the obstacle for designing this site was figuring out the best way to display the work of each individual artist. I settled upon having one static page for the front page of the site. WordPress makes it very easy to select an individual page to appear as your front page. This way, whenever I want to post some of my typical rants, I still have the continuity of my official front page as opposed to the latest posting.
If you are wondering about the pop-up windows whenever you mouse-over an external link, this was my solution as a way of linking the artist’s works to their URL, without spending a considerable amount of time emailing each photographer. Actually, this way accomplish by a service at Snap. This program is very easy to install (simply line of javascript), and the registration process took all of 3 minutes. Now, visitors can sample the photographer’s work without ever leaving the site. The main issue I am still struggling with is the proper way to display the links. I can envision having thousands of photo blog links, and there is no way I can continue to list them in a single column. I am toying with the idea of breaking the listing down to 50 or so, and post them via a ‘posts’, rather than an updated page. Perhaps, then I could break them down further into categories to better organize them. I have seen several tags and tag clouds plug-ins, which may be even a better way of organizing the pending chaos. As always, suggestions are highly encouraged.
