From Wordpress to Tumblr

I just officially moved my site from Wordpress to Tumblr. 

caitlinwinner.com was overdue for a face lift, but the thought of updating my wordpress site was daunting.  I had quite a few hacks in place and I wasn’t sure I’d remember how I got everything working in the first place. 

To help procrastinate I started using a service called Tumblr. I was posting things that I found interesting - sometimes original content, sometimes not.  It was kind of like public journaling.

As my love for Tumblr grew, so did the busyness of the dashboard in WordPress.  I continue to use WordPress to power most of my clients’ sites and with each WordPress upgrade more features and controls appear.  One recent upgrade moved the dashboard navigation into a the left column which still slows me down.

So, one snowy weekend morning I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to use a few Tumblr blogs to display my work?  The idea gained traction and evolved through some sketches. 

I sorted out exactly what it was I wanted from my personal website.

• A way to group my paintings, photography, designs etc. by category, and a way to easily toggle between the different categories.
• A display format that put content at the center, no clicking required.
• A simple site, as close to Tim Van Damme’s “business card” site as I could manage while still adhering to #2.

After inspecting the Tumblr platform more closely I discovered that all my objectives could be met with minimal effort by creating a custom theme.

Following Tumblr’s own lead, I think I managed to keep simplicity (of implementation and presentation) at the heart of this site.