WPCandy is back and better than ever. We’ve been working hard for a little over a month now, and we’re extremely proud to present you WPCandy v3. Ever since we launched WPCandy v1 in October 2007, we’ve been one of the top WordPress-dedicated blogs on the internet, bringing you the latest tips, tricks, and hacks. Today we’ve taken the site one huge step further.
So first off, why’d we do this? Our only real income is from ads, and it certainly wasn’t pocket change to bring in two fantastic designers to help us out. After all, WPCandy isn’t even a year old and we’re already on our second redesign.
Mike and Dan began conferring a few months ago about how much the site could expand. At the time, WPCandy was a quickly-growing WordPress blog with a fantastic collection of articles and tutorials. We decided that a new site would need to feature a much wider range of WordPress-related content, and to do that, we’d have to stray from the typical post-and-sidebar blog layout and try something new.
We first set out on the search for a new logo. Throughout WPCandy’s history, the one thing we’ve lacked is branding. We’ve never really even had a logo until now. Thanks to Matt Davey, now we do! And a sexy logo, may I add.
After a few fruitless attempts at a design, we set a budget from out of our own pockets and began the search for a web designer to help us out. We settled on Sam Brown, a British web designer who runs the design studio MassiveBlue. We gave him the logo and a wireframe and said “Go for it!”
A few weeks later we had our design. Dan immediately opened Photoshop and Coda and got to work. Mike began finding, buying, and coding themes and later helped to rewrite URLs (all 179 of them) and do some of the other dirty work.
Almost two months later, we have version three. The site is powered by a single installation of WordPress, from the themes and plugins section to the articles collection to the discussion area. It’s all under one roof. We’re hoping to expand further and bring in lots of new content, sell some themes, and get some contests going. Let’s take a look at some of the new features.
Homepage
The new site has a lot too offer. Let’s start with the homepage. You’ll notice it’s not your average blog homepage design. We wanted a homepage that would better organize the whole site, instead of just displaying the latest blog posts and a regular sidebar.
Articles
Moving on to the articles section. I’m sure the first thing you notice is that this section is now red, instead of blue like the homepage. Just a nifty little touch. Anyways, you’ve got the latest posts on the left, and our ads, post categories, latest articles, and external links on the sidebar.
Themes
Our themes section is where we’ll be keeping everything about themes, obviously. There’s the featured theme article at the top with theme reviews and collections right under. And right under that is something you’ve gotta scroll down to find out 
Plugins
The plugins section is basically the same as the themes section, except in pink. This will be where everything about plugins will be going down.
Sites
The sites section is our gallery for WordPress powered sites. Yes, we will actually be updating this frequently, so make sure to check up every few days.
Discuss
Now, onto the discuss. We’ve decided to finally incorporate the discuss into the main site so we there’s an easier way of communication between us and you and vice versa. If you are already registered on the main site, you’re good to go for the discuss. If not, just make sure to register!
What To Expect From Us Soon
Themes. Along side with working on the new site, we’ve been working on some themes for you guys. Now, these aren’t going to be the most amazing “Premium” WordPress themes you’ve ever seen, but instead themes with good designs and good functionality.
In a few weeks we’ll have around 6 themes available for purchase. That’s right, for purchase. No these will not be free themes, but instead low cost, high quality themes. As for pricing, we’ll probably charge $20 for individual themes, $40 for 3 themes, and $60 for all 6 themes.
Oh and WPCandy v2 will be released along with these paid themes, but for free. WPCandy v1 will remain free, of course
And last but not least, you can also expect a contests section. We love giving back to the community, so be prepared to win some new prizes!
Conclusion
Holy crap. This post is probably way too long, but we’re glad we got this off our chests. We hope you like the site and we welcome any feedback! Pretty please (with a cherry on top), leave a comment expressing your thoughts on the new WPCandy!
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Posted May 21, 2008
Neri said:
good job! =)
on June 8, 2008 at 10:27 am
Luke said:
Well done mate!
on June 8, 2008 at 10:30 am
Leland said:
Awesome job – love the new logo too!
on June 8, 2008 at 10:39 am
John Blanchard said:
Looks great!
on June 8, 2008 at 10:40 am
Suthan S. said:
OMG! The website is looks soo awesome bro. Well done!
WPCandy, ftw!
on June 8, 2008 at 10:45 am
Rajaie AlKorani said:
I’d give the logo a 10/10!
on June 8, 2008 at 10:48 am
Andres said:
Sexy, just sexy.
on June 8, 2008 at 11:09 am
Lewis King said:
Amazing, just the logo needs fixing a bit. See my post in discuss.
on June 8, 2008 at 11:14 am
Patrick Algrim said:
Looking SICK!!! Awesome awesome awesome!
Dan you did a really good job of coding this up — I am going to peek into the CSS code later just to see your style kid. Definitely an amazing job for someone so young.
on June 8, 2008 at 11:23 am
Darren Hoyt said:
The colors, typography and new logo really tie together well — excellent stuff. I also appreciate the more compact ‘digest-style’ homepage rather than the traditional blog format.
on June 8, 2008 at 11:37 am
Nouman Saleem said:
http://wpcandy.com/wp-content/themes/wpcandy3/images/buttons/buy_theme.gif
dun dun dun
Looks great!
on June 8, 2008 at 11:51 am
Josh said:
Nice.
One question though: why are you randomly using
h6s? It looks stupid in Google Reader, and you seem to be also usingh3s (much better) for the same purpose. Please stick to theh3s.on June 8, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Dan Philibin said:
@Josh we’ll get that fixed, sorry.
on June 8, 2008 at 12:50 pm
DameryWorld said:
So many good moves then you have UNDER CONSTRUCTION right smack in the middle. Come on man! That is just pushing it out too fast. I also get anxious when I want to show off the new stuff but come on man put up a beach scene as a place holder or a bowl of candy…anything but the kiss of death UNDER CONSTRUCTION!
on June 8, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Brady Valentino said:
Quite a nice little surprise to wake up to. Congrats guys.
on June 8, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Nouman Saleem said:
Is the discuss area based off the functionality of prologue?
on June 8, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Zach Kollegger said:
Awesome design, guys. Everything is great, from the logo, to the home page layout, to the post page layout. And, of course, the Themes/Plugins/Sites/Discuss Sections are awesome too. I love how the color schemes change on each of them.
Great Work!
on June 8, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Lewis King said:
LOVING THE SITE! Also loving the 404 pages:
http://wpcandy.com/randomtextheredoesnotmatter
and watch the vid. Great job on the site!
on June 8, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Dan Philibin said:
@Nouman the Discuss page is a single file in the theme folder that is based off Prologue. We do not use the Prologue theme, however, just its post form and PHP functions.
on June 8, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Nouman Saleem said:
Thanks for the explanation, Dan.
on June 8, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Nyssa said:
Looks good guys. Logo is nice but doesn’t seem to fit where it is and some text seems a bit small in some places. I love the new look though!
on June 8, 2008 at 5:18 pm
FMatt said:
Well done!
on June 8, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Michael Cromarty said:
Post not long enough haha.
Nice on mate well done.
on June 8, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Epic Alex said:
Wow wow wow! The homepage is absolutely awesome, and the new article/post layout is brilliant. Great Work.
on June 8, 2008 at 9:04 pm
flisterz said:
Great job on the redesign and branding guys! Love the logo
on June 9, 2008 at 12:56 am
Mostly Lisa said:
sweet theme. get it? sweet.. candy… mint?
on June 9, 2008 at 1:51 am
daus said:
This is great, dudes!
on June 9, 2008 at 4:03 am
Michael Castilla said:
Thanks everyone, we worked our asses off!
on June 9, 2008 at 8:55 am
Pasquale said:
Fix the logo and nav nowwwwwwwww go go go
on June 9, 2008 at 10:34 am
sofish said:
Good navigations…fresh & lite…Love it…
Perhaps the COMMENT form can be more beautiful….
on June 9, 2008 at 12:06 pm
K-IntheHouse said:
Nice work guys! Really like the new design and the different sections. I can see a lot of hard work that has gone into this. The logo and favicon could be a little bit more exciting but it’s not bad either.
on June 9, 2008 at 4:35 pm
ansel said:
Hey, nice redesign. But where’s the original wpcandy theme page? It comes up as a 404 now.
on June 9, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Michael Castilla said:
@ansel The WPCandy v1 Theme can be found at http://wpcandy.com/themes/wpcandy-v1-wordpress-theme.html and can be downloaded from here
on June 9, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Jermayn said:
I really like the changes a lot.
One of the better updates to websites I have seen for ages, like how the sections are colour coded and the homepage spreads the information out.
on June 10, 2008 at 2:48 am
Kyle Eslick said:
Changes look great!
on June 10, 2008 at 8:25 pm
milo said:
SEO on frontpage meta: meta name = ‘ robots ‘ content = ‘ noindex , nofollow ‘
….
Hum, a few mins later it changed.
on June 11, 2008 at 4:08 am
Justin Tadlock said:
Very cool, Michael. I’m a huge fan of the different colors for different sections. This is how newspapers have done it for ages. It’ll help people more easily recognize what a particular section is about.
I’m also looking forward to seeing the new themes.
on June 11, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Social Bookmarking said:
Great changes made. love the color combination.
on July 9, 2008 at 5:06 pm