I have to get this out of the way, I am a huge fan of Wordpress. Both our blogs use Wordpress. Whenever I get a web design project, my first thought is, “How can I best utilize Wordpress for this project.” Granted, my second thought is frequently, “Maybe Wordpress isn’t the best solution for this [flash, static, e-commerce] site.” Be that as it may, Wordpress is still by far my favorite blogging platform. And it’s not just for blogging. With a few minor changes WP can become a truly powerful CMS as well. So if you’re looking for a free, powerful, and open platform with an insane developer community, look no further than your new best friend Wordpress.

This is the first in a series on turning the Default WP Theme into something wonderful. Today we’re going to go over the basic structure of a Wordpress Theme. I’m not going to go over the WP installation process, so check out the Wordpress 5 Minute Install if you need some help with that (if you are having any issues with the install, feel free to ask me).

By the way, we’ll be using Wordpress 2.5.1, the shiny new version of this beautiful platform.

(more…)

Here’s a neat effect that I happened upon by accident. It’s a really simple Photoshop trick that results in a cool little watercolory smudge. Now you may be thinking, “You fool! Why bother with this? What could you even use this for?” The answer, my friend, is anything your heart desires. They make great ambient backgrounds, nice accents, and are just a fun thing to throw into your composition when you need a bit of subtle color.

Step 1:

The first step is creating a new layer with a transparent background and dragging a small radial gradient onto it. Make sure you don’t bring the gradient to the edge of your canvas, as you’ll have to stretch it in the next step.

(more…)

Hello everyone. I’m glad you could join us on this fantastic day. I thought today I would show you how to make a nice cheerful sun to live with the clouds we made in the last tutorial.

(more…)

Ahoy lads and ladettes. While working on a recent logo design project, I had to create an element that resembled a nuclear fallout symbol. I found a quick and easy way to do just that using a custom illustrator brush, and now I will share my secrets with you.

(more…)

Originally I was going to kick things off with a "Website Dynamics" tutorial, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this awesome ‘thingy’ I just made with my new Arduino board. The whole project only took me about 2 hours… with soldering and coding.

"So what is Arduino?" you ask.  Arduino is an open source electronics platform with various inputs and outputs. There are many similar platforms to this one, but I personally liked the name ‘Arduino’ best.  It is programmed using a C based language, and it’s multiple inputs and outputs allow for a wide variety of applications.

(more…)

Hi everybody! Every week I will be bringing you a nifty little tutorial on coding. Now yes, that is a little vague, but I do not wish to limit myself to just one language. Some weeks it might be PHP, some JavaScript, maybe even some good old fashioned C. Who knows!?! I only ask one thing, that you have a computer. I will try my best to write these tutorials so that ANYONE can use them, but this of course would prove to be difficult if you do not have a computer to work with. Anyways, check back frequently. If you would like to see me create something, feel free to drop a comment in any one of my posts, or shoot me an e-mail at sean@clickpopmedia.com. I will be posting my tutorials every Tuesday, but be sure to come check out everything else we’re doing here at ClickPopMedia.

-§ean-