CC my redesign and refresh (joomla to squarespace)

[bacchanal]

Please let me know what you think of my website redesign.

Current design: http://fahrenheit128.com/cms

Redesign: http://fahrenheit128.squarespace.com/

The redesign is basically just in a test form right now and just has some random content up so I can get the look down.

I'm planning on moving from a Joomla site to a Squarespace site for reasons of ease of use and functionality, and I'm revamping the look of the site in the process. My site used to be more centered around reviews and promoting shows, but it is now more about my personal photography. Ideally the new design will be more focused and less tedious to navigate. All of my photos are hosted on my zenfolio account btw (which the new design sort of mimics).

[blackshadow]

I like where you're heading with this Drew.

I was using a Joomla + JAlbum setup for a while and have recently gone for WordPress + smugmug for the look/feel/speed and convenience.

[bacchanal]

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Joomla worked much better for me when I actually enjoyed tweaking and working on my website. These days, I wouldn't mind never seeing a style sheet again...and that is probably what is driving my move to Squarespace. It is a little pricey for what they offer, but I think I'm going to downgrade my zenfolio to offset some of the cost (since I don't sell on zenfolio anyway). I'm taking a little bit of a leap of faith hoping that the SEO of squarespace is an improvement over what I had with Joomla (I would be surprised if it isn't).

[blackshadow]

I'm finding WordPress takes far less tweaking than Joomla and once you have your template/style worked out it's very easy to keep it up to date.

All you have to pay for with WordPress is your web hosting which is dirt cheap.

[Dorman]

Drew,

I've been using squarespace lately as a blog site - www.dormanphotography.com - mostly what I have up there is weddings for now. I've found SEO to be excellent, so add a text page "about me" or something and you should be well sorted. I'm hoping they add some additional gallery functionality soon.

[grimm5577]

i just started using wordpress. I find it to be mush easier then joomla. I would be interested in knowing how to plug in a smugmug account though?

also i've heard about drupal being a pretty decent tool. a bit hard to set up initially but has a lot of modules to customize it.

your site looks nice though.

[bacchanal]

Brad - thanks for the insight, your layout and the way you arrange the photos in each post looks really nice.

grimm - You can't really plug in a smugmug site, but you can sort of customize the theme to make it look like the rest of your site and use it as your gallery, or you can just use it for hosting and link to the photos. If you do what Richard (blackshadow) has done and what I've done with zenfolio is you can create a subdomain, such as photos.yourdomain.com and point that to your smugmug site.

I've looked into wordpress (ran a test site on my server), and I think it is a little easier to manage than joomla, but squarespace sort of takes ease of use to another level, and I think that is a top priority for me at this point. Interestingly enough, it is possible to transfer joomla to wordpress, and wordpress to sparespace, so I'm considering using wordpress as an initial go between for joomla and squarespace...that is if I don't just decide to abandon my previous posts and what not.