Wisdump

Dumping wisdom on design and the web

Are you committed to WordPress? Then how do you feel about Automattic?

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Automattic ownz WordPress - Is that OK?According to TechCrunch, there’s rumors that the Automattic founders will make a bunch of money from the investors in the company, in response to the turned down $200m buyout offer. Good for Matt & Co. of course, I won’t begrudge anyone making money out of good products such as WordPress.com and Akismet.

However, Automattic also controls the opensource self-hosted version of WordPress, and that raises some questions:

  • Are you comfortable with a company being the driving force behind the opensource platform you’re committed to?
  • What would happen to WordPress if someone bought Automattic?
  • Are all decisions being made for opensource WordPress with it’s best at heart, or does the company’s best come first?

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m a big WordPress fan, and Automattic have so far not done anything to piss me off. In fact, I think they’re doing a pretty good job, despite the whole sponsor links debacle, and the unfriendly designer credits talked about in the WordPress.com Theme Marketplace idea. And Akismet is great, free, and everything, so I’m committed to WordPress myself.

However, having a company running an opensource platform is scary stuff. How do you feel about this?

Designers: How do you value your name in the footer?

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Credits, creditsThe recent revelation that Automattic wouldn’t allow designer’s names in the footer on themes sold on the upcoming WordPress.com Theme Marketplace – which I blogged about recently – got me thinking. For me, it’s crucial that my name is visually exposed on the sites I design. These are the guarantees of gigs delivered, and a way for gaining recognition. Aside from pure recommendations, I know I’ve gained a few clients this way, and would probably gain more if I had the time, and put up a serious portfolio.

Personally, I don’t care about building pagerank with these design credits in the footer, but I could understand people wanting to do that as well. If a client requested a nofollow on my design credit I’d probably think he was a bit cheap, but fine, I’d probably be OK with it. Unless I took a principal stand for some reason… Anyway, the point is, I’m not putting those links in there to build Google juice, I have them there to prove that I did the design, and to possibly gain new clients.

[Read more…]

WordPress.com to offer Theme Marketplace, and why I’ll be on it

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WordPress.comIn case you didn’t know, the folks over at Automattic are planning to add a Theme Marketplace to WordPress.com. It’ll allow the users to buy licenses to premium WordPress themes, for use on their hosted blogs. Given that there is more than 1.7m WP.com blogs, that should be a great deal for designers, right?

Well, yes and no. There are a few kinks.

  • You’ll split the asked price for a theme license with Automattic, as in 50% goes into their pocket.
  • You’ll have to GPL your theme and offer it free outside of WP.com, as in every WordPress user with their own install can get it for free.

Basically, this means that if I make a premium theme and sell it on the WordPress.com Theme Marketplace for $50, Automattic will take $25 for every sale I make, and I won’t be able to sell it for use on self-hosted WordPress blogs since they just can download and install it themselves.

Does that sound fair to you?

Tony Hung points out that this should be a great way for upcoming designers to reach a big audience, and I agree – it sure is. But for people like me, who’s used to charge quite a bit more, it isn’t exactly a no-brainer, right? [Read more…]

Designers: The rounded corners are holding you back!

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I know am, dead tired actually. Everything’s rounded these days, sometimes with a touch of gradients for depth. There’s nothing wrong with it, technically, I do it as well since it just plain looks good sometimes, but I do feel that especially blog design have gotten into a slump.

The Kubrick themeI blame Kubrick.

If you’re thinking “The what now?” then you haven’t paid much attention to that default WordPress theme. It isn’t bad, it’s just old and in desperate need of a refreshing update. Or an honorable farewell, perhaps. It’s a bit stunning that they stick to it as the default theme really. Just look at the way it displays tags, as of WordPress 2.3 – a boring centered list below the post. It feels thrown in there, which it probably is.

While it might not be Kubrick that is responsible for all these rounded corner blog design today, it sure has been putting them in a limelight. Yes, it was new and cool, and rounded is the shape of Web 2.0 as well.

But enough is enough.

I’m not saying that you should go all blocky on me, dear designer reader, but maybe you should stop and think before you do yet another rounded box. Consider other forms, consider squares and uneven forms that might or might not bring lots of problems with your CSS coding, since there isn’t a billion tutorials covering that particular form out there.

Solve it. That’s the way we used to do. You see, when 28.8 kbps modems were king, we did table layouts and solved every weird little problem without Google. Without frameworks and CSS magic, Ajax and IE hacks.

Those weren’t the good times, don’t get me wrong here. They weren’t the lazy times either.

Screw the rounded corners in your next design. I dare you. Maybe that particular project will prove to be an eye-opener. Because you know as well as I, that it’s way too easy to just slap something together in Photoshop, rounded with gradients and big fonts, a bit of Helvetica and a touch of Georgia and you’re there.

That might be all right, but it won’t help you evolve as a designer.

Grow Grow Grow, wails PJ Harvey. Don’t mind if I do.