Darren Alawi Web & brand designer

The March issue of Web Designer is quite possibly the best issue of all time, why? Because I am in it! Web Designer got in touch and told me they were writing a Wordpress feature and asked if I would like to contribute. It’s always cool to be asked to contribute to anything, it shows someone appreciates what you think and in this industry that’s what it’s all about. They wanted my opinion on the latest Wordpress release (2.7) and what I thought were the best parts of the new design of the admin area. 2.7 was a huge deal for Wordpress, it took a step into the ‘beautifully designed’ category with its latest user interface and being a designer I can really appreciate the detail and time that went into the styling, where others might not even notice a gradient or icon.

When asked to offer my opinion on Wordpress it wasn’t difficult and I was more than happy to sing it’s praises. What’s not to like? It works amazingly well, sure it could be a little bit faster but that ethos applies to so many things in life. The biggest benefit of Wordpress is that fact it is open source. This doesn’t just mean it’s free, which is something you should obviously appreciate, it ultimately means the true incentive behind all the hard work, love and sweat put into it’s development isn’t motivated by profit, but driven by perfection and the need to create a tool that performs no other function than being the perfect integrated blogging platform, and I have to admit, it’s not far off. Here’s what I said about the Wordpress 2.7:

For me Wordpress has always been a no-brainer, it’s free and has been developed by the best in the business, you can’t really argue with that. It was always feature-rich but seemed to lack the user interface to tie it all together. With the “Coltrane” release (2.7) that problem was solved and Wordpress went from being a simple blogging tool to a fully blown content management system. The new UI is beautiful and really takes advantage of all the latest web technologies. Everything ties in seamlessly and you can get around quickly using the new left-hand menu. Everything can be customised, like what is shown on the Dashboard and major upgrades are now automatic which as any Wordpress user knows is a superb addition. All the content is easier to manage, review and change. You would need a damn good argument to get me to consider any other blogging platform.

The feature itself is very detailed and written well. I have bought Web Designer before and prefer it’s designer based layout and point of view, opposed to being a developers magazine featuring more coding and database features than design. Some magazines sit on the fence in between developer and designer, it is hard not to include articles that cross over, but Web Designer use a very illustrative design that I think appeals to designers which is probably the reason I picked it up off the shelf. Grab a copy and check me out!