Copic Markers are awesome, and we were tickled R00-Copic Pinkish White that we got to set them up with a custom Shopify theme!

Collection pages use custom sub-nav tabs to group related products, accessories and description pages together.

This store uses a combination of Custom and Smart Collections to manage a huge inventory of pens, inks and accessories. Eagle-eyed visitors will notice that it blends seamlessly with the Copic Marker WordPress site, too. (Hint: that’s not an accident.)

Using collections and tags for a two-tiered sorting process gave us a tremendous amount of flexibility, which we definitely needed to get this site working the way it should! Shopify has made it really easy to access collections and tags via link lists (in the Navigation tab of the Shopify admin). Navigation: not just for links anymore. They’ve also made some changes to the way tags are handled, which essentially allows users to create collections on the fly using tags.

Bulk order forms let customers quickly add lots of products.

This theme had a lot of custom elements:

• tab-based sub-navigation on the collection pages (which pull in the correct products based on tags)
• overview pages that detail each product family with a graphic and some links
• sidebar graphics that change depending on which collection is being viewed
• related products (again, based on collections and tags – are you sensing a theme?)
• a cool bulk order option, which uses Custom Collections as well as a custom collection template (and a bit of javascript) to add a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to the ‘add to cart’ function

Bloom Essentials has a fresh new look! We first designed this site back in 2008 (it featured one of our favorite custom illustrations: the Bloom Girl) and we were delighted when Kim and Nicole came to us for the redesign.

We love the bold colors and fun graphics on the Bloom Essentials redesign.

First up, we worked with the Bloom crew to come up with a bold new color scheme that really makes the site pop. We added some fun, frilly elements (after all, it’s a day spa!) and a subtle floral background to add a little texture. We had a moment of silence for the Bloom Girl (don’t worry, she’s almost certainly gone off to become an actress or something) and fell in love with the pretty new site design.

After all, what’s not to love? The front page has a slideshow (with the ability to swap out images in the admin area using theme settings) as well as displaying featured products, testimonials from happy customers, and the latest news from the blog. We’ve also got sharing buttons to make it easy to connect with Bloom Essentials elsewhere on the web.

The Bloom Essentials blog is fully integrated with the theme.

Oh, and did we mention the blog? Shopify’s got blogging baked right in, so all we had to do is create a template file and the blog was ready to rock!

Check out the newly redesigned Bloom Essentials site to see it in action.

…and we’ve got a fab new companion site to go with it. Check out the WordPress Visual Quickstart Guide: Second Edition site.

We created a simple, usable theme to complement the cover design of the new edition of our WordPress book.

Designing for WordPress is one of our favorite things – and writing about it is a close second. We were lucky enough to do both for this project, creating a companion theme to the book as part of the process of walking users through the creation of a simple theme from scratch.

Simple is the key word here; we’ve got a few bells and whistles, but for the most part this theme is a simple showcase of the power of WordPress.

Here are some of the features of this custom theme:

As part of a tutorial on integrating custom fonts, we changed the titles on our theme to use Google Fonts.

Author pages help visitors get a better idea of who writes the articles as well as providing an overview of that author's published work.

• Text-based header, which pulls in both the site title and the tagline from the WordPress admin
• Author pages, which display each author’s profile information as well as a Gravatar and links to their published articles on the site
• An author overview section at the bottom of each post
• A simple portfolio section, which uses custom post types to display a thumbnail image, URL, description and relevant tags for each portfolio item
• Google Ads integration in the sidebar

And maybe the coolest part? You can download the whole theme. For free.

Buy the book at Peachpit Press, and download the sample theme on our companion site. And don’t forget to let us know what you think!

Hi, Kendra!

There’s a LOT going on around the couldbe studios offices lately: fun projects for clients both new and old, an in-progress update to our WordPress book (and the corresponding from-the-ground-up redo of the WordPress book site’s theme), and more – but one of the things we’re the most excited about is hiring our first onsite employee!

Kendra Perez has joined the couldbe team as a part-time intern, bringing a knack for numbers (sorely needed around these parts) as well as a love for web design.

<- Intern / Jessica ->

To make room for the new addition we moved Matt’s desk into the smaller office (now that Matt’s got a fab new day job, he primarily develops for us nights and weekends – the smaller office works perfectly for him) and arranged the main office with two desks and a defined space for the kidlets to play while Kendra and Jessica work. (They have a TV, video games galore, snacks, and a couch – we’re jealous!) Aside: we’ve found that the more kids we have in the office, the easier it is for the grownups to get work done (although couldbe kid Ellison is pretty great about keeping himself entertained – or, as he calls it, ‘working’ – while mama cranks out a few websites). When the little ones are at school or day care, the kid area doubles as a snazzy reception spot (although, perhaps disappointingly, we rarely turn on the XBox for our visiting clients).

Kid area in the front

Kendra is just starting out with web design, and we’re eager to find out what works best for her in terms of tricks and tools. We’ve set her up with Coda for coding and Flow to keep track of to-dos, and she’s already got a head start using Illustrator and InDesign. Maybe there’s a blog post in there – what do you think, Kendra?

We’re all seriously excited about all the changes around here and are looking forward to a great second half of 2011.

The last time we saw Fancy That it was called Munchkin Designs – owner Lisa wanted to expand her product line to include more than just kid stuff, so she asked us to help her re-vamp the shop. It’s makeover time!

We kept a lot of the site’s basic structure, but widening the main content area allowed us to use larger product photos which really showcase Lisa’s fabulous wares. The big picture on the front page now links to a featured category, which Lisa can switch out every month.

And she was VERY excited to make use of Shopify‘s built-in blogging feature! Previously she’d just linked to an external blog in her footer, but now that Shopify can handle comments and whatnot there was no reason to keep things separate. We were able to transfer all her old posts so she only needs to update in one place. Handy!

The new site features custom drop-down menus, special overview pages to display grouped collections, and a background that changes color depending on the section. We also used Typekit for the headers to give it a bit of whimsy.

We covet all things letterpress, so working with Paperwheel Press was a treat! Elizabeth creates these fantastic cards, stationery and invitations on a gorgeous letterpress machine (there’s a little video of it in action on her site) and we wanted to reflect the simple yet textured look of letterpress in her site design.

The front page features a slideshow & interior pages each have a custom header image to give them an extra personal touch.

We used TypeKit for the cursive font (Bickham) and enabled the custom background feature inside WordPress so that Elizabeth can give her site a little facelift any time she wants to.

We’ve been lucky enough to work with some fabulous small businesses in 2010. Here’s a quick recap of the sites we’ve created and updated in the last twelve months.

[portfolio_slideshow]

Choosing Health Now | Molly Meow | Baktuli | WeVillage | The Clink Room | Savvima | Moody Eyes Online | PreWired Controls | Selective Premiums | Amy Mcmullen Photography | Trends Under $10

2011 is already off to a great start. We’ve got some seriously exciting new projects in the works & have been in talks with some other fabulous small businesses about creating or converting their online presences. We can’t wait to tell you about what’s coming next!