WORDPRESS | DRUPAL | BACKDROP | HTML
I develop web sites for artists, writers, journals, publishers, and other arts organizations.
Many of the web sites I develop are like this one: simple sites for individuals, built from a WordPress theme. I talk with the individual and review their material and needs, then select a theme and modify it to their specifications. Sites like this are inexpensive and fairly quick to build. This one’s on the simpler side, but sometimes I create ones even simpler. On the other hand, some of these sites can grow quite complex, like Hank Lazer’s site, an ecommerce site with more than thirty books and a wide range of supplemental materials.
When appropriate, I can go much further into WordPress development, with my comfortable familiarity with Elementor Pro. Elementor Pro allows me to build a unique, highly distinctive site from scratch. Such a site requires intimate conference with the client, and can produce stunning and nuanced results. For example, the Lavender Ink/Diálogos site is built this way.
I also develop in Drupal. Drupal is a complex, sophisticated, and not-at-all user-friendly content management system appropriate for medium-sized arts organizations who must do significant amounts of their office management on the web. For example, I developed and maintain the web site for the New Orleans Poetry Festival. This site, with its simple appearance, allows thousands of users to submit panels for inclusion in the Festival, and allows the Festival’s board to analyze, rank, and discuss these submissions. Should the submissions be selected for inclusion in the Festival, the flick of a few virtual switches puts them on the Festival’s schedule.
Modern Drupal, which, as of this writing, is on version 11.3.9, requires significant web resources. Drupal 7, back in the day, consumed resources appropriate for a large web-journal. I designed my own Unlikely Stories Mark V with it.
Unfortunately, Drupal 7 is dated and insecure. If you’re interested in that sort of site, I also work with the new Backdrop content management system. Backdrop is a fork of Drupal 7, and designed to re-create that experience. It has fewer third-party modules available to it, but I designed Unlikely Stories Six with it.
I also work in raw .html, .shtml, and .css code. If you have a site that still runs this way, I’d be happy to maintain it for you. In general, I recommend that you update to WordPress or another content management system, but not everyone wants to. When my friends conceived of Rigorous: a journal by BIPOC, they asked me to code it in old-school .html. .html sites are notorious for not working well on smartphones, but I think we did a decent job with this one.
References available upon request.