If you look at the WordPress.org site, here’s the official definition:

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.

It’s pretty cryptic, but the next sentence explains it in a nutshell:

More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your website/blogging software, not fight it.

In a standard website (.html based), a developer/designer creates a template shell, saves each individual page as a separate file, and uploads the content. When an item needs to be changed, it has to be changed on the individual file and re-uploaded. If you’re a small business with a small web-budget, you don’t have resources to have someone change a single word every time you need one changed.

WordPress does things differently. Instead of storing the content in files, it stores the content in a database. The database is either stored on a different part of the server, or sometimes on a different server altogether. Whereas a static page contains both structure and content, the WordPress theme envelops and wraps the content in the theme files – meaning you can change, edit, delete, and add new content using one set of template files.

Do you:

• Have a small 3-5 page site that you want to have more control over?
• Do you have content that changes on a regular basis (events calendar, etc.)
• Do you want to add a blog to an existing site?

Then YES, absolutely WordPress is for you.

I was approached to build Authenticity using the National Geographic website as a template.

This website turned out much different than envisioned, but beautiful just the same. Much of the graphical work was a collaboration with, Steve Muth, of SCM Designs.