brilliant

Over the years my blog theme had become out of date and the CSS had been cannibalised. So I was looking for a WordPress expert to do a complete redesign of the current theme. I found Tia from from TRH Development on people per hour.

I explained to Tia what I wanted, we agreed a price and she got to work. My role was to give her feedback as we went along. Here’s a list of work Tia did for me:

• Complete redesign of my blog using a child theme of Twenty Fourteen (to allow for theme updates).
• Coded to the highest HTML5 and CSS3 standards. This CSS3 was essential as the style sheet on my old theme had been cannibalised over the years and was full of conflicts.
• WordPress Menu Functionality – including support for sub-menus. A major reason for this update was to allow me to use the added functionality features of WordPress.
• A mobile/tablet version of the site.
• The ability for the reader to Switch between the Desktop/Mobile versions, which is possible by using a link in the footer.
• Removal of the ‘Go’ button with the search input field.
• Archives expand to include post titles.
• Photo caption boxes have been slimed down at the sides, making them stylistically look better.
• Various minor tweaks based on my feedback to make the theme’s look as close as possible to the old theme.

Tia also added two great new features:

• Pagination – which is the page bar under the blog posts on the home page. I really like this page browsing experience for readers.
• Lightbox image viewer with play/pause slideshow. I love this. I have some great photos. Now if you click any image on a photo post or page (such as Photos) it brings up the image full size without leaving the page and allows you to play/pause a slideshow.

To follow on from Tia’s superb work, I also made a few minor tweaks to the blog myself:

• Changed the font from Arial to Verdana.
• Removal of the large Amazon banner on the sidebar.
• Added book cover thumbnail images on the I’m Reading and On My Bookshelf sections on the sidebar.
• Changed UL in style sheet to square.

Tia at TRH Development was awesome. I intend on using her again, probably later in the year, to design me a WordPress theme for my professional writers website. My feedback for Tia on people per hour really says it all:

Awesome. Brilliant. Excellent Communicator. Job done to the highest standard. I can’t heap enough praise on Tia for the expert knowledge & skills along with her professionalism. Am already planning my next project with her.

So if you need a Developer for a website, I highly recommend Tia from TRH Development.

Blog soon,

Antony