Mike Olivella's Photography Blog: Re-Pimped The Pimped Web Site

New cover page

Seems like I can't leave well enough alone. After having recently pimped up my web site, I just couldn't resist the urge to go back and try something different. So, I switched templates, redesigned the cover page, and generally speaking revamped the whole thing.

Switching things up is pretty simple in Squarespace if you don't expect an enormous amount of flexibility. The Squarespace templates are designed to be used by folks with limited amount of web design skills, forcing you to use their pre-determined features within each template. Don't get me wrong, there is a certain amount of flexibility in terms of changing things up within a template but not like you'd be able to do if you were writing the code. Alas, I have no idea how to write code so to a great extent I do what I can within the Squarespace design and am thankful to have a decent looking site after I'm all finished.

I had been using the Momentum template but after checking out some of the newer offerings by Squarespace I decided to go with Fulton. I am still designing my own opening page (Home) by using the Squarespace Cover Page offerings. These pages are really meant to be used as one page web sites but with some tweaking, I use one of the templates as my web site cover page.

The Fulton template allowed me to design the various image gallery pages so that on opening they default to a grid layout of images rather than a slide show of individual images. Clicking on any of the images immediately transforms the view to a full page slide show and a click on the "X" in the top right corner takes you back to the grid. Clicking within the enlarged image advances the slide show from image to image if you choose to remain in the slide show format. I also like the width of the grid which is 1200 or so pixels wide rather than extending full width of the screen and the banner that you can create across the top using an image of your choice.