WordPress is open source software, maintained by a global network of contributors. There are many examples of how WordPress has changed people’s lives for the better. In this monthly series, we share some of the amazing stories.
To coincide with International Translation Day and the final day of the 2021 WordPress Translation celebration, we feature the story of a WordPresser who has made a major impact in the polyglots team.
For Yordan Soares from South America, finding WordPress also meant discovering friends, community, and opportunities. He had not expected to find a whole global movement behind the web development software.
Yordan, who is from Venezuela, South America, said: “The first time I used WordPress, I had no idea what was going on behind the software or beyond it. I knew there was someone making it all work, but I couldn’t even remotely imagine all the people who were making WordPress not just a tool for developing websites, but a whole movement that comes together to share, build, and help make the world better.”
Initially, Yordan earned his income from computer technical support and installing networks for small and medium-sized businesses. Back in 2005, web development and code-writing was just a hobby. When he discovered the concept of CSS and how it could make everything dynamic. This opened up a whole new career pathway for him.
In 2010, an introduction to WordPress through a friend opened up a future he had not imagined. He stopped using any other content management system (CMS) and wanted to explore how much he could do with the platform.
Three years later in 2013, he was able to take his WordPress journey further by starting a small advertising agency with some of his friends. During this time, they crafted commercials for local radio and TV stations. Through WordPress, they found it easy to build more than 15 websites for businesses in a market that previously had not valued the importance of having an online presence.
He said: “We were working for almost four years until at the end of 2017 the economic crisis in Venezuela became too acute, and we decided to close the agency when we stopped making profits. Taking stock of that period, I think we changed the way merchants saw the Internet business in the city.”
One year on in 2018, Yordan began to freelance full-time as a web developer. His first clients were primarily agencies and friends who had emigrated to other countries. Later, he expanded into freelance marketplaces.
At that time, getting started as a freelancer was quite a challenging task in Venezuela. The first hindrance was getting a fair level of recompense. Additionally, the deteriorating conditions in the country with constant blackouts and internet connection failures complicated matters.
At the time, Yordan was living in Guarenas, where the situation was relatively better. He managed to get a reasonably uninterrupted electricity supply with adequate internet speed, which was just good enough to complete his projects.
“Surely if I hadn’t met the community, I would have continued to work on my own, like a lone wolf, doing the ordinary work of solving problems for occasional customers and paying my bills,” he said.
Living in Guarenas, Yordan began to experience stability in his career and made new friends and contacts. He began looking for co-working spaces or technology communities nearby, and that’s when he met the WordPress community in Caracas.
He quickly signed up for the first face-to-face event. As soon as the event concluded, he went to talk to the co-organizer and offered his help. He was inspired to help with designing promotional pieces, managing social networks, and organizing events.
Through such events, he met and connected with several people living in nearby cities.
A few months later, with other WordPress users in the area, the idea emerged to start a new Guarenas-Guatire meetup group. The idea became a reality by December 2019, when they applied to the WordPress community team.
Once the final approvals came in, the team started scheduling the activities. The WordPress Guarenas-Guatire Meetup was officially recognized!
During the first quarter of 2020, just before the pandemic, Yordan and colleagues organized five face-to-face events. With the worldwide lockdown, in-person community engagements came to a halt. However, the Guarenas-Guatire community was eager to continue meeting.
To keep the community active and motivated, and with the support of sponsors, they started organizing online events under a format called “WordPress a la medianoche” (WordPress at midnight).
The format of these events was inspired by Alexis Arnal, who suggested meeting at midnight to make the most of the internet speed that would usually improve somewhat after that time!
At the time of writing, Yordan and the team have organized 16 WordPress a la medianoche events with an attendance of up to 50 people per online gathering. An impressive audience which enabled a comparatively small meetup to keep communications flowing at a difficult and unprecedented time.
One positive of such events, is an opportunity to invite people from other countries and run sessions in partnership with others. An example was a special translation event with Javier Esteban, a member of the translation team from Spain. The meetup also invited contributors from Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia who were happy to participate.
Yordan believes that he would have continued to work on his own had he not met the WordPress community.
He said: “Fortunately, this was not the case and I have been able to live a lot of transforming experiences that have shown me the meaning of the words ‘community’ and ‘volunteerism’.”
Yordan felt empowered by the community and it led him to volunteer for many other roles and activities, including Locale Manager for Spanish Venezuela, a moderator for WordPress.tv, and as a support contributor in the forums helping people with technical issues. He has also developed free plugins for the official WordPress directory and spoken at community events including WordCamp Spain 2020.
All this has a boomerang effect, Yordan explains. These experiences helped him grow personally and professionally, as it’s always rewarding to know that you’ve helped improve the WordPress ecosystem.
He also likes being able to directly help people when they need it and feels it is a two-way learning process.
“At first, when I told my family and friends about the community and the work I was doing, they would ask me ‘what do you get in return?’ Perhaps they expected me to tell them a specific amount of money, but the answer is more complex,” he said.
“It’s rewarding to know that you’ve helped improve the WordPress ecosystem, the tool you use to work and put food on the table.”
During his journey, Yordan has met many wonderful people with common interests and values, and the best part is that many of these people are now his friends, business partners, or customers.
At the same time, he has learned new skills and gained experience, which have given him a significant confidence boost in facing difficult situations that may come in life.
As part of the WordPress Translation Day 2021 celebrations, Yordan was nominated for his contribution to the work of the Polyglots Team translating WordPress. The full nominations list and stories will be published in October and November on the WordPress Translation Day website. Check out the final events for International Translation Day.
Thanks to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), Larissa Murillo (@lmurillom), Maedah Batool (@maedahbatool), Chloé Bringmann (@cbringmann), and Nalini (@nalininonstopnewsuk) for work on this story. Thank you to Yordan Soares (@yordansoares) for sharing his Contributor Story, and to Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune) and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) for their support of the series. The WordPress Guarenas-Guatire logo on this page was designed by Bragniel Jimenez
This People of WordPress feature is inspired by an article originally published on HeroPress.com, a community initiative created by Topher DeRosia. The initiative highlights people in the WordPress community who have overcome barriers and whose stories would otherwise go unheard. Meet more WordPressers in our People of WordPress series.
#ContributorStory #HeroPress
We’ve all seen examples of classic design – work that gets talked about for months, years, and even decades after it has served its initial purpose.
Even people who have no idea what the original design was even used for will discuss its beauty, simplicity, and timelessness.
What goes into creating work of that caliber? Today, we’re going to explore some possible explanations and try to get an idea of how a designer might go about creating timeless designs.
Some things might seem as though they will be instant classics. Then, without warning, they fade into obscurity and no one ever mentions them again.
Why does this happen? No one really knows for certain, but there are some possible explanations. The most important, in my opinion, is that the general public – not just the design community – either stopped caring about the design, or never cared enough in the first place.
Design is meant to change the way people interact with one another in the world, not just designers, but everyone. If it fails to do so and generate influence beyond the scope of the original brief, it will never become the classic it could be.
Glitch Mona Lisa by Dan Svetlichnyy
Public opinion is fickle, but it can be greatly influenced by the right advertisement. Brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Microsoft didn’t get to their current level of market dominance by chance.
Even great art like the Mona Lisa has been heavily promoted to be recognizable to a modern audience.
There were plenty of contemporary works that were just as popular in their day, and even some that were more so. But it was marketing that propelled the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David, and other iconic works of the Renaissance to last as long in the public memory as they have.
As I’ve said in the past, if something feels like a trend, it probably is. I’m not simply talking about phenomena that are currently all the rage, like neumorphism or previously flat design.
I’m talking about things that merely look cool without any underlying fundamentals to ground them. Such trends are destined to be one hit wonders, fading as the design world moves on to more solid ideas.
A good way to spot a trend that’s being milked purely for profit is to determine what the most respected members of the design community have to say about it.
If the ‘movers and shakers’ of design are constantly lambasting the trend then there’s a good chance it’s simply a throwaway fad. However, if they don’t have much to say or are even incorporating it into their own work, it’s probably a winner.
Neumorphic Radio Player App by Alexander Plyuto
A lot of designers complain that the current crop of design professionals are too caught up in trends and technology and are ignoring the fundamental principles of good design.
These designers tend to be older and may even feel a bit left out as the world seems to be embracing a completely foreign approach to design.
This happens every generation, with the old-timers complaining about ‘today’s kids’ and their apparent lack of respect for the profession.
I’m sure the designers from the 1940s and 50s griped about ‘whippersnappers’ in the 70s and 80s with their Rapidographs and floppy disks or…whatever.
It’s true that there are a lot more designers actively working now than there ever have been in the past.
But the number of talented designers who have a solid understanding of the fundamentals has not diminished. If anything, it has increased due to the larger pool of designers out there.
The likelihood that at least a handful of these designers will produce something lasting is very high, even though one might have to wade through a lot of junk to find it.
Rapidograph & Notebook by Harry Diaz
Think that classic design is boring and behind the times? Think again. Every single designer is influenced by those who have come before them.
If you choose only recent, contemporary designers to be influenced by, you’ll only be regurgitating the most recent trends, which could hasten their demise and make all of your work look horribly dated.
Try heading to the library and flipping through examples of classic designs by the greats of the 20th century. You might even be surprised at how often (and how badly) those designers were ripped off by later copycats.
The post How a Designer Might Create Timeless Designs appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
Latest PECL Releases:
Web designers get asked all sorts of questions. We’re queried for advice on aesthetics, marketing, technology – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Being an endless fountain of knowledge is just part of the job. 😉
Our answers tend to come from experience (or a quick search). Yet, there is one question that seems nearly impossible to answer. It has confounded even veteran freelance designers who dare to take it on: “How long will it take to build my website?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable question. One that should be simple enough to answer. At the same time, it’s loaded with uncertainty.
So much of the design and build processes are up in the air. Therefore, you might even hesitate to provide a guess as to the completion date. Unfortunately, that often clashes with a client’s need to nail down the specifics.
Today, we’ll look at the factors that can impact your project’s launch date. In addition, we’ll provide some tips for determining its length more accurately. Let’s get to work!
It stands to reason that, the larger the project, the more time it will take to complete. And there’s certainly some truth to that theory.
Both the sheer size and scope of a website can greatly impact the timeline. For example, building a site with a massive amount of content could require an equally large amount of work. Even a redesign of a content-heavy site might need a lot of massaging to get just right.
The same goes for functionality. As efficient as features like shopping carts are, they often need at least some level of customization. And if you need to build things from scratch, the time the trial-and-error process takes can be difficult to predict. There tends to be at least some uncertainty when it comes to coding.
The other part of the equation comes down to the available human resources. If you’re working as a solo freelancer, a large project can be a burden. Especially so if you are juggling multiple duties at once.
Getting a website up and running is a two-way street. After all, designers and developers can only accomplish so much without a client’s active participation.
One of the major sticking points here tends to be content and other project assets. With some clients, waiting for these items to arrive can be the longest part of the process. It can be frustrating, as the situation can place an indefinite hold on progress.
There are several potential reasons for this type of delay. Sometimes, it’s a matter of an overwhelmed person with many other priorities. That leads them to seemingly disappear – just when it’s time to put the project to bed.
In other instances, it could be a lack of clear direction within the client’s organization. Design politics can lead to a vicious cycle where ideas are continuously debated and tossed aside.
There’s something to be said about the relationship between clients and designers. A bad one will undoubtedly lead to an endless stream of revisions and misunderstandings. Yet, a good one can keep a project on the fast track to successful completion.
Developing a solid rapport is important. The ability for both sides to effectively communicate needs and ideas is a key to getting things done.
For example, setting clear expectations makes the job that much easier. When your client knows and understands what you need from them, they are more likely to deliver. Conversely, it’s also great to know what clients expect from us as well.
Being on the same page (or not) with clients has a lot to do with how much time it takes to complete a project. The more synergy you have, the greater the odds of an efficient process. Just something to keep in mind.
For better or worse, none of us lives in a project bubble. Thus, it’s likely you have more than one website to focus on. This can be a major challenge when it comes to providing an accurate project timeline.
It’s not just a matter of having additional work to do. The other items we mentioned are relevant to all projects. Therefore, you might face a lot of uncertainty with regards to checking each website off of your to-do list.
One typical scenario: you’re waiting for a few clients to send you those missing project assets. And, of course, they all arrive at the same time. This leaves you scrambling to make progress on multiple fronts.
You’re either waiting for work or swamped with it. Sound familiar? Welcome to the rollercoaster that is freelancing!
With so many factors at play, it’s no wonder that the simplest question seems impossible to answer. The problem is that difficult as it may be, a fairly accurate answer is still a requirement.
The best way to arrive at an answer is through establishing a great line of communication – right from the very beginning. It starts by taking time to find out all you can about a client’s needs and wants. Try to uncover as much as possible now to avoid surprises later. Spell it all out in your proposal.
Clients also have to be aware of your needs and wants, as well. For instance, they need to know how important their role is in supplying project assets such as content. A severe delay in getting you those items can mean missing a targeted launch date.
There can still be unexpected roadblocks, and that will usually be the case. But there’s a chance to minimize them through early communication.
The next time you’re asked that oh-so-important question, bring up the factors mentioned above. Together, you’ll be able to come up with a solid answer.
The post The Impossible Question: How Long Does It Take to Build a Website? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.
