Theme URL: http://bever-gif.com/theme/
This theme aims to present data in a single-page, long form manner. The data is my blog entries from 2005-2015, which I’m currently breaking down and building the tags by hand. (literally!) I would call this an experimental theme, that does not aim to function as a working theme, where new entries can be added and viewed. The theme uses existing WordPress widgets and the structure of the blog as an interactive way of presenting information. This is what I hope to achieve in the virtual part of my work.
Here’s the outline of the theme:
(Note: this sketch is meant to be as simple as possible. My aim is to try and work out the function, before I add in the visuals.)
calendar
At the top of the theme is a calendar. Think of this as the big cloud that holds all the entries together, from various years. The entries are grouped in months rather than years, for example: January 2005, January 2006, January 2007, etc. The months are links: upon clicking them, more specific entries will show up.
month
Let’s take October for example. When October is selected, a tag cloud will show up.
tagcloud
The cloud describes the topics that are written in this month, over the years. This is the key feature of this theme as the tag cloud is an overview of how the content in my blog have progressed in the span of the time I’ve been writing it. A click on the tag will bring up even more specific entries.
Let’s select the word ‘computer’. The theme will then list all the entries written about ‘computer’ in October, over the years.
years
When a specific tag is highlighted, it will list the years with this topic. *I forgot to add, but next to the year, there should be a number that displays the amount of posts.
entries
Upon clicking the year, the entries will finally show up.
This is so great, wish I had the ability to tinker with templates too. Do you think it could also be fun to give people the option of ignoring the calendar entirely? You could offer the date framework as a starting point but perhaps have an alternative template that leads the reader via tag clouds into emotions/thoughts first regardless of the dates. Just a thought!
great suggestion! This is my first draft of the theme, but I might expect it to evolve over the semester as I break down the entries, and re-tagging them. The calendar currently seems a little too static though, but it’s a good starting point for the entries, until I figure a better way to manipulate it. 🙂 Thanks!
Interesting idea to put the metadata first before you even get to the posts! In this sense, the metadata becomes a narrative of its own, a database narrative. Curious why the image is so resolution, it’s basically unreadable on your OSS site, and then its super high rez on your own site!