Launching the new Design120
Posted on 05. Jun, 2009 in Design
I’ve always been a big follower of Adii Rockstar, so when he got WooThemes started I thought it cool to do a mod of the free ‘Metamorphosis’ theme (by WooThemes) rather than code a complete site myself. Not to say that I couldn’t do this myself, but during the past few weeks I’ve been on the road through Europe for windsurfing and have hardly enough time to sit and build a complete new website. Modifying a theme is actually a little more fun as you can spend more time on the fun things like semantics, aesthetics, graphics, colour and fung-shui. Which for someone like me, who’s more interested in the front-end of the website than tinkering in the back-end, this is actually pretty cool.
I started by taking out the standard two-tone Woo background and used a CSS random rotating series of 4 large images which I morphed myself in Photoshop. I seem to be doing a lot of websites with the background-attachment: fixed; (which makes the background stay fixed in one spot, and the content scrolls over the top – cool effect!) but I just really like this effect!Â
Then I used a 50px transparent .png with 50% transparencyas a background filler for the content-box on the main page. I also changed the fonts of some of the headings and removed the borders. Wasn’t a whole lot of work, but I think the finished product deviates enough from the original theme to make it worthwhile.
The premise of this latest site design was to relaunch the site in a more professional sense and showcase some of the other things I have done in my life outside of the design work. An online CV of sorts.
I wonder what people think about using somebody else’s theme (albeit, a paid Premium theme) on a website that’s showcasing your own webdesign skills? I guess the market these days is looking for cheaper, more professionally looking websites made in the shortest time possible and modifying themes seems to fulfill these requirements much more cost-effectively than completely coding a website yourself (which is kinda a lot of work!).

Design120 — WP-Premiums
Nov 11th, 2008
[...] uses a great mod of the Fresh Folio theme by WooThemes. In his launch post Sean O’Brien discusses some of the techniques he used in the design and why he used this theme instead of [...]
Wordpress Blog Services - Design120
Nov 11th, 2008
[...] uses a great mod of the Fresh Folio theme by WooThemes. In his launch post Sean O’Brien discusses some of the techniques he used in the design and why he used this theme instead of [...]
Wired Pussy Forced
Mar 4th, 2010
huh.. cognitively text :)