Over the last week i have been spending most of my time trying to work out how to use my theme with a variety of plugins. Although many of the reviews for the plug in online were positive, boasting compatibility and ease of use, i haven't found this to be the case. Perhaps it's my lack of knowledge on the subject in general, but none of the tester plugins i decided to download and try would work with my theme at all (Many of these were infact those that were recommended by reviewers, such as WP Tiles and Page Builder) but none of them actually manifested themselves on the page in anyway, which again lead to more lost time in the project.

At this point it became clear that the only real way to be able to complete this project with a passing grade would be to spend money on a theme. Reluctant to actually but a theme just for this project, i began looking for themes that would enable full manipulation via both plugins and a built in page builder, that would hopefully enable me to use it for a portfolio site in the future.

So, again, not really knowing what qualities i needed in a theme i started by looking into web effects i enjoyed. One of the things that caught my eye that i believe would be good for my site by being rather striking is the parralax effect, this would not only accentuate the appeal of the artwork on the site, but incorporate it in an environment that would compliment the event itself, as i believe the event would be one that was very classy and sophisticated, whilst being laid back, fun and interesting.

The very first theme i came to is a theme actually called Parallax, by Themify. This showcased everything i had been looking for, including full plugin support, page builder qualities with a very interesting web effect. The theme itself was $49, which may seem reasonable to someone in that field, but for me it was slightly expensive for just the one trip out. Fortunately for me the option upon checking out was that i could tweet the company for a 15% discount code, which i promptly took up and now have a them at alot less than i first thought.

By tweeting them i received a $7.35 discount.

Either way, the purchase at this point seemed necessary.

With this theme having the option of a static graphic being slid away by the nav bar upon scrolling gives a unique quality to a site, and if perhaps i could find time somewhere in this project to create my own, then i think that could work quite well with the overall theme i'm trying to give to the show itself. With the nav having a transparency option to it just gives another dimension to the quality of the site itself. This can all apparently be manipulated within the themes page builder instead of having to rely on plugins.

With the ability to use and manipulate the  "portfolio" post type i could use it as the gallery display on the artist page, or use it to arrange the artists page itself. Having the ability with this theme to include multiple different images as appose to just a select few means being able to lay out what i need when i need it.

Also the feature function of the portfolio post enables me to pick an artists most characterising work to use as a display for their event and or their work type. With the inclusion of the titles i can use this feature for many of the different things that appear in my wireframe.

The highlight post theme got me thinking about call to action buttons for tickets or booking. Using this feature i should be able to incorporate many of the briefs requirements into a highlight post such as this one.

The grid layout should and could be useful for smaller items such as past news, an about section and smaller information such as contact and directional information. If i can find a way to display these features in a drop down style i could use this for many of the more tedious parts of the project.

As mentioned before, it was the standard features of the theme that drew me to it, including logo images, built in SEO optimisation, styling, fonts, social icons and especially the drag and drop functionality. For someone that detests web such as myself, a drag and drop functionality takes much of the frustration away from it. Although i have previously done coding and the wordpress make up takes away any skills i've previously learnt, eradicating any necessary acquisition of knowledge really takes the sting out of it.

Uploading this to my site proved difficult, as i previously mentioned regarding images, the server being used is not very accommodating when it comes to much. So uploading took it's time, and the deactivation of every plugin i had previously installed, but after the installation the site began to look a little more like my wireframing, although i had not included the parallax theme in my planning, i think making the jump from static to parallax just adds something i would have completely missed out on last time.

Since the adding of a new theme, adding a few widgets to the site to see how some of the modules worked, and a slight alteration of the setting in order to play around with the colours, my sites homepage has ended up looking like this;

Although the site doesn't look great at the moment, i'm very pleased with the way the modules look. If i can somehow use the built in modules to my advantage and create something that fits both with the style of the artists and the event i think that would be the most important aspect.