CHAPTER 9
A MAGAZINE THEME
MAGAZINE-INSPIRED THEMES have become a sub-type of themes, alongside traditional blog themes, portfolios, and niche themes meant for other distinct kinds of Web sites. You know the type, with big blurbs to catch the reader, prominent ad spots, and a content flow that uses images and text to lure the reader into reading the piece.
In short, online magazines with a touch of blog are both a popular and modern style of Web sites. In this chapter, I build one of these.
PLANNING AN ONLINE MAGAZINE
In this chapter, I thought I'd try something different. I'll let you tag along as I create the Notes Mag theme, which is available for free at http://notesblog.com/mag.
The idea is to build an online magazine theme, with all the elements you need to roll out your own online magazine. I include content sliders, image position control in post listings, a grid-based layout, ad spots, and all the widget areas you could possibly need.
So, let's build the first version of Notes Mag 1.0 together!
THE NOTES MAG 1.0 THEME LAYOUT
The first thing I do is to bring out my trusty old (actually it's spanking new) Moleskine notebook. I've made a sketch of what I want to do, with some notes that you may not be able to discern (see my home page layout in Figure 9-1). If my handwriting is anything to go by, I was obviously a medical doctor in a past life. This is the front page, the one that greets readers every time they tap in the URL to a Web site based on the Notes Mag theme.
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