Intro
I am a London based freelance IT and Design Consultant. My more work based website is at markwhipp.com. That site is a specific overview of the paid work I undertake. My digit43 site is now my more experimental site. It is primarily a test site for new ideas and coding elements. It also contains more of the creative work I undertake that is not specific to client briefs.
This site is currently being used as the testing bed for a new bespoke WordPress portfolio style Theme that I am working on for artist clients. My digit forty three theme is an attempt to offer a cost effective, simple solution for these clients. When I first reviewed many of the sites used by artists in various groups that my partner was involved in, two things stood out. Firstly most of the artists looked like they had had a site built for them on a template builder platform or on WordPress platform using some form of pre-made theme. Secondly, and more importantly, most of these sites had not been updated for years. Most of these artists essentially had dormant, static websites but used their Social platforms like Instagram for the day to day documentation of their work and for updating their followers on exhibitions etc. Clearly most of these artists found Instagram easier, and maybe more efficient, to update than they did their websites.
On checking the hosting and platform fees of many of these sites, it was also clear these artists were paying a premium for having feature rich template sites despite the fact they were not using most of these features. More importantly, these templates were probably a little complex for their needs and certainly a little complex for back end editing. I was also getting frequent requests to build sites for other artists in these groups.
That is why I decided it was time to build a simple, versatile bespoke theme on a WordPress platform that would accommodate the needs of these artists. Simplifying the content to easily manageable sections that gave out key information and work examples without over burdening them with too much to build. Also, by hosting these customised themes on a multi-website hosting platform, I can ensure that the artists get an elegant basic portfolio website presence at a far more affordable price. If the sites are going to stay relatively static for years with only minor updates, paying high monthly hosting fees does not make sense.
Added to this, having a bespoke theme on a website hosting platform that gives me SSH access makes it easier to streamline my workflow and push out theme updates. This enables me to give periodic upgrades to all sites or feature updates to respond to specific requests by specific clients. My clients get a more or less monitored, effortless service. This is certainly something they would not get from using a template site or buying a premium WordPress Theme.
