BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Germán Covacevich, also known as Cova, is a freelance illustrator and digital painter based in Rosario, Argentina with a portfolio that features a vast cross-section of disciplines and styles. And he also finds time to sing and play the guitar along with his band.

Germán Covacevich

I’ve asked him a few questions about his evolution as a digital artist and how he handles his work at the moment. I hope that knowing more about his experience will be useful for Noupe‘s readers.

1. Please, tell us how did you get into art?

I’ve drawn since I can remember, I’m self-taught and it was always a passion. I remember some drawings my father did, really good ones, and my mother used to give painting classes at home. I feel very lucky that we had a huge collection of art books, and I had always a pencil at hand. I started copying whatever my older brother did, then from comics, then from photographs.

Jimi Hendrix

“Graphite on textured canvas, made about ten years ago, I think… this is one of the only traditional works I still have… It’s been a long time without doing anything more than sketches…”

I used to sit for hours not only reading those comics, but just watching each frame on every page, paying attention to the lines, the shadows. That was my main way of studying, I guess, figuring out how those drawings were made. By the age of 12 I was already making portraits.
So it wasn’t a decision, nor had I been forced into it. I grew up with art all around me.

Tomá la papa

2. When did you start using digital media to express yourself?

About three years ago. The idea had been in my mind for a bit longer, but I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. I was so amazed what some digital painters were doing that I thought I never would have the skill to do that kind of stuff. All of my life I worked with graphitte pencils or ball-pens, so I was too used to black and white and a certain level of detail in my works. But then I tried a tablet, that’s when I noticed that I could push myself so much more.

3. Do you think that a school education has some advantages / disadvantages versus being self-taught?

Personally, I don’t have experience in art school education, but I think the main advantage is the guidance you can get whenever you face a problem that could take a lot of time and sweat to solve on your own, or the access to methods and techniques that might be hard to get otherwise. On the other hand, being self-taught, gives you the chance to learn at your own time and focus on precisely what you want to do, but you need to be extremely critical of your work.

4. Please describe your design process. How do you start, what tools do you use? What is your work environment? Which applications do you use and why? What tools would you recommend to avoid at all cost?

When I’m creating a painting from scratch, it’s usually because an image came to my mind. I start building it up in my head, the colors, the elements, the composition, etc. and then I do some reference gathering before going into the canvas. From there the process is quite simple, I start with a sketch, not very detailed but trying to get all the features in their right place. I put a background colour to match the mood I’m aiming for, then I do a light and shadow coloring base. After that, all I do is blending and building up the detail on everything until I’m happy with the result.

At the moment I use a pc running on Windows XP, a 23” monitor and a Genius 7×12 tablet. I paint with an old version of Photoshop, from sketch to finish, with only two or three brushes. I use other brushes but for specific things only. I tried other software, like Painter, but I never got the hang of them. Photoshop is still my best option and the one I’m more comfortable with. I never use the filters included in Photoshop, and I avoid using the burn, smudge or sharpen tools. The only one I use sometimes is the dodge tool, in soft touches.

5. In your opinion, what is the biggest challenge of being an artist? Have you evolved since you started your career?

It could be said that the biggest challenge is to get noticed. Of course, the Internet gave the possibility to show your works all around the globe, but it’s easier also to get lost in the huge amount of works out there, so a greater challenge would be to stand out, and the only way is to push yourself to improve.

Grab E.T.

Sure, I notice a lot of changes since I started. I used to set myself daily tasks to get better in my works, practicing speed, colour, proportions, a lot of different subjects.
Evolution is all about challenging yourself, and not only a challenge, but lot of fun too.

6. For you, is it true that artists mostly learn by putting ideas into action and doing?

There’s a lot of action and doing. Observation, theory, practice, imitation, trial and error, criticize yourself, be criticized by others.. learning is a nonstop process so this should be done on a regular basis, and is the best ground to be able to put your ideas on a canvas. And there, when you take it out of your head onto a painting, is when you learn about yourself.

Germán y Hernán

A video of the painting process is avaliable here.

7. What is your biggest mistake or failure?

Neglecting the use of colour for a long, long time, or not having worked with many other different mediums, I think that was a mistake. But I don’t see it as a failure. I paint because I love to do it and now I’m making a career out of it, so it’s quite the opposite.

8. Do you agree with the following quote from Rainer Maria Rilke? Do you believe that patience plays an essential role when it comes to art?

“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come.”

Absolutely. Like I said, learning is hard work so patience is a must. When you’re blocked and nothing comes out, be patient and something will, eventually. The important thing is to love what you do and have fun while doing it. That way you don’t worry too much about things not happening soon enough.

9. Lessons Learned: what are the most important things you’ve learned in your career so far?

For a long time I saw the works of many artists, more skillful, more succesful, and all I thought was ‘I want to be as good or better than these guys.’ And it’s ok in a way, the ambition to be better, it pushes you to improve, in fact. But the important thing is you can’t compare your work to another artist’s in those terms. Everything you have experienced, your culture and your passions is where your art comes from and expresses what you are. So I’ve learned I don’t want to be a better artist, but rather to express myself better.

10. Do you have a marketing strategy to promote your work? What sites on the internet do you find the most useful for promoting your artwork?

I just try to make me and my work visible. On the internet, or whenever I get to make a professional contact in person. Get it out there and expect it to be seen. DeviantArt was the first choice, I also have a gallery on Behance.net. In YouTube I have several videos of my painting processes, and now I’m on Facebook too. Also I have a personal site with all that and also other stuff I do, like writing and music. All those places have their own advantages I think.

Finish line

11. Are you now involved in any particular project? Do you have projects for your professional future planned?

At the moment I’m working on some requests involving portraits and also covers for a magazine. Aside from that I’m finishing some artworks that will be included at a personal art exhibition soon.

12. Do you think that your work could be categorized into any style? Could you please define your style in a few words?

I guess my style could be called photorealistic, in a way. To me is kind of a ‘Makeitlookrealandfast’ style, where it has a photographic look but a loose feeling underneath.

Aldana

A video of the painting process is avaliable here.

Photorealistic works are far more detailed than what I do, in my opinion. Still, I’m on a learning curve, and I’m always trying new things, approaches, subjects, brushes, etc. So I don’t really know how my style will develop in the future.

Débora y Luis

A video of the painting process is avaliable here.

13. Is there any artist or colleague that inspires you and your work?

I’ve always been attracted to the more realistic styles, obviously, so I guess it reflects on my works. I love Leonardo’s drawings, Rembrandt´s lighting, Bouguereau, Mengs, and mostly Dalí.

Meglia

Carlos Meglia was a comic book artist and penciller born in Argentina. One of his best-known creations is the Cybersix series, done in partnership with Carlos Trillo.

But my first real influences were the argentinian comic artists like Breccia, Olivera, Mandrafina, Meglia, Fontanarrosa and many more. I also get much influence from music, literature and cinema. And though it’s been said many times, life is a factor. Anything that conveys any emotions, will show in my paintings.

14. How do you see the future of your profession in, say, 5-10 years?

Art is and always been there, the mediums or tools might change, but the profession will endure. As for me, I only hope I’ll still be able to enjoy doing this, and if I can make a living, all the better.

Showcase of Cova’s work

Digital works

Into the wild I

Into the wild II

Lara

“Photoshop CS3, standard brushes, Genius 4500 digital tablet, one photo reference [...] the model here is my daughter Lara.”

Winter’s end

Spring conversation

Angelito Negro

Ludmila, a video of the painting process is avaliable here.

Señora

Camila, a video of the painting process is avaliable here.

Stoned

“Realistic and creepy emoticons.”

It feels so good

Maniobra Heimlich

Terrifying

Jimi Hendrix, “Digital Series”

Janis Joplin, “Digital Series”

Speedpaintings and Quick Practices

Gato

Chica

Miau

On Cova’s Youtube channel there are some videos showing a few speedpainting practices in Photoshop, like this one.

Works Still in Progress

Further information

You can find more about Cova on:

• Behance
• Facebook
• DeviantART
• Youtube

(rb)

One of the greatest things about the web can also prove to be its deadliest of business snares at the same time. That is the opportunity it provides for growing and expanding your business via the internet. Which is one of the main reasons that the web based business market continues to grow at the rates that it does, as it does in the design and development fields.

We see so many of our colleagues rushing out to grow their virtual empires. But this becomes a pitfall in our paths when we neglect to note that while the growth potential can be near limitless, managing said growth is a completely different story.

If we do not manage the growth properly, then it can get out of hand, and be damaging to our construct rather than helpful. Image Credit

This is when many designers and developers end up over their heads drowning in good intentions. It is that other side of the coin that many fail to consider when they see how easily they can build on their web based business. And with the number of design and development focused sites still on the rise, it is understandable that many would want to try and carve out a little corner of the market that is theirs to rule over. But like with all things in life, it is easy to bite off more than we can chew, and in this case that could spell stress for us, and trouble for the brand that we are trying to build.

If we are unable to manage that growth then it is going to fall far short of its desired effect of stabilizing and expanding our empire. In some rather extreme cases, it could effectively mean the undoing of it. So below are some considerations that we should make and some questions that we can ask to ensure that our growth is done at a reasonable, sustainable rate, rather than taking us far ahead of ourselves, into deeper waters than we are ready to tread.

Consider This!

Now below are a few of the points that you are really going to want to focus on and look after in order to keep your growth reigned in and from spiraling out of your control. Naturally, none of these are guarantors of success, but they are ways in which we can hope to strengthen our plans for expansion and get things started down the right path. Here are a few that we would recommend you mind.

The Consistency Ratio

First things first. When one seeks to expand their brand online, they tend to have already gotten some sort of foundation fashioned to build on. Most empires do not just spring up out of nowhere, and so it is this foundation that we must keep in mind as seek to expand our business’ reach. There is already an established level of expectation from our followers, readers, clients, etc, and if we cannot manage to maintain and meet those expectations as, or more importantly, after we expand then our brand is going to be in trouble.

The proverbial bar has been set, and if we cannot meet those expectations then this expansion has cost us our ability to compete. Image Credit

If this expansion impedes with your ability to deliver with the same ratio of excellence and frequency as you have before, then your expansion efforts may be all for not as you might find some of your online audience has abandoned you. Find the right people and bring them onto the team, so that you can keep your growth managed and from ultimately costing you and your business. Once our business begins to outgrow our solo efforts, then assembling the right team to help you continue on your path is essential to being able to keep up your consistency.

Keep Your Finger on the Pulse

Another must for managing the online growth of your business is to keep track of your brand’s impact among the online audiences that you already are, or that you are seeking to be tapped into. Keeping your finger firmly on the proverbial pulse of the online public offers you an important insight into how your business should proceed down this path of expansion. After all, what good is growing your virtual empire if you are cluelessly driving away the very audience you need to make this expansion a true success? So you have to monitor the mood of the masses and regularly connect with them in order to keep your brand’s growth in check.

Not only can this sort of a constant ear to the ground approach help ensure that your growth happens at a controlled rate, it can also be the instigator to the expansion. By keeping up with those your brand is serving online, you can spot trends which can offer you more valuable avenues of reach to your audience, and see which routes for growth you have taken that have worked and which have not. Through this outreach of sorts your brand can find currents to more smoothly navigate these expansive waters. Social media can prove invaluable in this aspect, so having a steady and consistent presence throughout the various networks, being maintained by someone who knows how to harness them correctly is a near must for managing growth.

As you grow, your business needs to keep in touch with your intended audience each step of the way, not only to keep them informed of what is happening, but also for the information you can gain to aid your business. This feedback can clue you in on when to keep pushing forward or even when to back off, so keeping up with it is a step in this process that should never be underestimated or overlooked.

Know the Limits of Your Reach

Another important consideration that has to be examined fully to ensure for proper online growth of your brand, is the limitations of your reach. For years we have heard countless people saying that knowing your limits is a sign of strength, and the same basically applies in this case as well. As your empire reaches out from its foundation, if you do not know how far you can comfortably take this growth and keep it successfully managed, then you risk overextending your brand and you find yourself unable to meet the demands being placed on your business. If you reach too far, not only can you effectively lose your grip on your growth and your business, but you can also lose your way back and be unable to recover.

Sometimes we have gone so far, that we cannot make our way back to where we once where. Image Credit

This is one of the trickier areas to handle when you are growing, and often times we do not know the full limits of our reach until we come to it, and find it tested. But we should always be aware of the potential negative impacts this overreaching can bring. This way, we can hopefully recognize when they are building, soon to be looming in the distance and we can take actions to reel things back in before it becomes too late and we have gone to far. Once we have crossed that line, the trust we have built for our brand with the online masses can become shaken and fragile. Or worse, it can completely shatter. Without that trust in place, managing any kind of growth for your business may become a complete nonissue.

Plan Ahead and Stay Ahead

As with any market, one thing that you have to be able to do in order to stay ahead of the game is to plan ahead. However, the online business market can prove to be somewhat unpredictable, which makes planning ahead that much more difficult. When setting up to grow your business online it is that much more important that you be able to anticipate the trends and read the market, but beyond that you have to expect the unexpected. The web is such an expansive and dynamic place for your business to exist where you can stumble into a viral current and your brand or business could explode overnight.

While it is true that this can effectively be the case with any business regardless of whether they are turning to the digital online landscape or not, the web provides businesses with a much wider international audience in a quicker more compact fashion that you can access for your business unlike any other. So as you start growing in this sort of market you must be ready for that other shoe to drop at any time. Not only that, but you have to also have plans in place for dealing with the viral nature of the interwebs should you suddenly find your business caught in this current. If suddenly tomorrow your brand demanded exponential growth, would you even know where to begin?

So take time to plan for these kinds of occurrences, rare though they may be in the grand scheme of things. It is always better to be prepared, than to be caught off guard. Study the market for similar models that you have seen grow like this for tips on how to tackle it for your own brand should you be faced with it. Also, study those models who have failed in the face of these circumstances and see what lessons can be learned from their examples. If you are ready for anything, then you tend to be able to handle just about everything thrown your way.

Opt for Organic

The final point that we are going to offer up for your consideration to help better control your business’ growth online, is to always opt for a more organic growth. The more naturally your growth occurs, the easier it will be to manage. If you set out trying to force it, then it is often much more likely to blow up in your face. This is where many lose their way and end up on the wrong side of the coin, growing more frustrated and stressed as they lose their grips on their growth. No longer able to keep up with the demands being placed on their brand across the spectrum, multiple areas of the business start to noticeably suffer.

The more naturally we let our growth happen, the better the chances it will strongly root and sustain. Image Credit

So if we allow for our business to flourish along a more natural path of progression, rather than a forced one, we will tend to have a much easier time keeping up with all of the new demands and developments that come with the territory. This also tends to ensure that we do not lose touch with the audience and client base that we hope to grow along with us, which as we discussed already, is itself an important piece of this puzzle.

Question That!

Now that we have gone over a few of the considerations that one should make as they grow in order to keep things on track, we are going to take a brief look at a handful of the pertinent questions that one should ask before they proceed with their expansion plans also. By asking these questions we help prepare ourselves for the road ahead, so that we can manage all that lies there.

What’s the Rush?

As you set your sights on growing your business online, you want to pace yourself at a rate that helps facilitate this growth successfully. So ask yourself, what’s the rush? Are there any pressing outside factors weighing in on your timetable, or do you have a freer, more open schedule to allow for that organic growth we mentioned? It is easy to be spurred on in this manner, but we have to remember to pace ourselves. Are you rushing this expansion out of excitement? Or even maybe out of fear that someone could potentially beat you to filling those niches or gaps you had your eye on? Chance are, if you do rush your expansion efforts, then things are more likely to get overlooked and out of hand, and can quickly become less manageable. Spelling trouble for your business or brand.

How Solid is My Foundation?

Another question to keep in mind before you leap forward embracing this empire expansion, concerns the base on which it is to all be constructed. Ask yourself, how solid is my foundation here? Do you have all of the pieces firmly in place that you can successfully grow on? Because if you don’t then you are risking doing permanent damage to the foundation of your business should your efforts to grow falter. You could risk toppling your potential empire because your base simply wasn’t ready and you tried to prematurely build on it. How many hits can this base take and still be considered safe and sound? If you have any doubts at all about the strength of your foundation, then you should perhaps give it more attention before you set your sights growing beyond it. After all, the better the foundation, the more growth it tends to be able to sustain.

Why Am I Doing This?

Another question that you must stay focused on throughout this process, is one of purpose. It may become quite necessary even as you work to make this growth happen for your business, to constantly be asking yourself, why am I doing this? Having an idea of purpose, and carrying this sense of mission through the growth process can often ease the stress and feelings of being overwhelmed as you struggle to wrangle all of this in. Which can have a huge impact on your ability to manage said growth. Do my reasons have merit and substance? As long as we can get behind the motivations driving us forward, then we tend to have less of a problem dealing with all that comes with it. So keeping our mission in mind may be key to keeping things in line and growing smoothly.

Can The Brand Survive if this Expand Fails?

Now the final question that we are going to look at today, is actually the most important to ask before you begin pushing forward with this growth. You need to know if the brand can survive should the proposed expansion fail? Should the plans for growth take the proverbial turn for the worst, will your business be able to recover from the negative repercussions that could follow in its wake? If you are unsure that your business or brand would sustain and come out on the other side, then you should really examine whether or not it is truly worth the risk trying to expand. How long will this negatively reflect on the business, and will it be able to endure? The internet has a long memory, and depending on how badly a turn things take, your brand’s reputation could suffer a blow that sticks around longer than your business is able to.

In Summation

There are many considerations to be made and questions that should be asked so that you are able to more effectively manage the growth of your online design or development business, and as many have bore witness to firsthand, failing to think through any sort of expansion efforts can undo years of hard work and struggling. So making sure to cover as many of your bases as possible before, during, and after you set the balls in motion can help you keep the growth of your online business reasonably within your grasp. What considerations or questions would you add to the list?

Consider Some of Our Previous Posts

• How To Improve Your Branding With Your Content is a post from Smashing’s past with more on strengthening your brand through content.
• The Evolution of The Logo is another helpful post from the vaults that discusses the era of the brand that we are in so you can get a better sense of the playing field.

(rb)

It has been a big year for WordPress. If there were still some lingering doubts about its potency as a full-fledged content management system, then the full support for custom taxonomies and custom post types in WordPress 3.0 core should have put them to rest. WordPress 3.1 took those leaps one step further, polishing custom taxonomies with multi-taxonomy query support, polishing custom post types with native template support for archives and feeds, and introducing features (like the “admin bar�) that make it easier to quickly edit and add content from the front end.

In the broader community, we’ve seen incredible plug-in suites such as BuddyPress mature, and even the emergence of independent WordPress-dedicated hosting services, such as page.ly. To celebrate WordPress’s progress, let’s review some new tips that can help template developers and consultants up their game even further.

Foreword for New Developers: What is a “Hook�?

Most of these tips take advantage of core WordPress “hooks.� Hooks are points in the code that allow any number of outside functions to “hook in� and intercept the code in order to add to or modify behavior at a particular point. Hooks are the fundamental concept that enables virtually all plug-ins. WordPress has two kinds of hooks: actions and filters.

Action hooks are intended to allow developers to intercept certain activities and execute some additional functionality. For instance, when a new post is published, the developer may want to add some extra functionality, such as posting the title and a link to Twitter.

Filter hooks allow the developer to intercept and modify data that is being processed by WordPress for display or saving. For instance, the developer may want to inject an advertisement into the content before displaying the post on the screen.

Learn more about hooks on the official WordPress codex.

The Underused Pagination Function

Many great plug-ins are in the official WordPress repository. But using fancy plug-ins to add fairly basic functionality to your theme is often like driving a tractor trailer to go around the block. There’s usually a lighter, smarter way: a bike or even a car. And while plug-ins are a fine solution for consultants who are staging a complete roll-out, they’re awkward solutions for theme developers who want to sell standalone templates.

WP-PageNavi is one of the most popular WordPress plug-ins; and no doubt it is well developed. It is ideal for those who are uncomfortable digging into WordPress code. But did you know that WordPress has a function built right into core that (with a bit of savvy about its parameters) can generate pagination links for everything from comments to post archives to post pages?

The function in question is paginate_links(). (For those who like to fish around in the source, it’s on line 1954 of general-template.php in the wp-includes folder as of WordPress 3.1.) Believe it or not, this underused function has been around since 2.1. Another function, paginate_comment_links(), is actually a wrapper for this function that is designed specifically for paging comments, and it has been around since 2.7.

The function takes an array of parameters that make it versatile enough to use for any kind of paging:

• base
  This is the path for the page number links, not including the pagination-specific part of the URL. The characters %_% will be substituted in that URL for the page-specific part of the URL.
• format
  This is the “pageâ€� part of the URL. %#% is substituted for the page number. For example, page/%#% or ?page=%#%.
• total
  The total number of pages available.
• current
  The current page number.
• show_all
  Lists all page links, instead of limiting it to a certain number of links to the left and right of the current page.
• prev_next
  Includes the “Previousâ€� and “Nextâ€� links (if applicable), just as you might normally do with the previous_posts_link() function.
• prev_text and next_text
  Text to put inside the “Previous� and “Next� links.
• end_size
  The number of page links to show at the end. Defaults to 1 (e.g. 1 2 3 … 10).
• mid_size­
  The number of pages to show on either side of the current page. Defaults to 2 (example: 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 … 10).
• type
  Allows you to specify an output style. The default is “plain,â€� which is just a string of links. Can also be set to list (i.e. ul and li representation of links) and array (i.e. returns an array of page links to be potentially outputted any way you like in code).
• You can also add query arguments and fragments.

Because the function takes all of the information needed to generate page links, you can use it for pretty much any pagination list, as long as you have some key information, such as the number of pages and the current page. Let’s use this function to generate pagination links for an article archive such as a category or main post index:

// get total number of pages
global $wp_query;
$total = $wp_query->max_num_pages;
// only bother with the rest if we have more than 1 page!
if ( $total > 1 )  {
     // get the current page
     if ( !$current_page = get_query_var('paged') )
          $current_page = 1;
     // structure of “format� depends on whether we’re using pretty permalinks
     $format = empty( get_option('permalink_structure') ) ? '&page=%#%' : 'page/%#%/';
     echo paginate_links(array(
          'base' => get_pagenum_link(1) . '%_%',
          'format' => $format,
          'current' => $current_page,
          'total' => $total,
          'mid_size' => 4,
          'type' => 'list'
     ));
}

Here’s the HTML generated by that code on the first of 10 posts pages:

<ul class='page-numbers'>
     <li><span class='page-numbers current'>1</span></li>
     <li><a class='page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/2/'>2</a></li>
     <li><a class='page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/3/'>3</a></li>
     <li><a class='page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/4/'>4</a></li> 
     <li><a class='page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/5/'>5</a></li>
     <li><span class='page-numbers dots'>...</span></li>
     <li><a class='page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/10/'>10</a></li>
     <li><a class='next page-numbers' href='http://mysite.com/page/2/'>Next &raquo;</a></li>

</ul>

Here’s a screenshot of the pagination on m62 visualcommunications, built using the em>paginate_links function.

“I Wish Posts Were Called Articles For My Client.�

Have you ever wished you could change the wording of a built-in menu item or notification? If you’re a bit WordPress-savvy, you may have considered generating your own translations file. But you might not know that you can actually “hook� the translation functions in WordPress, capturing their input and modifying their output.

Be careful with this one. The code you put in this hook will run every time WordPress runs a string through its translation filters. Complex cases and conditionals could add a considerable amount of overhead, especially when loading pages filled with translation strings, such as the administrative pages. But if you just want to rename one thing that confuses your client (for example, maybe changing “Posts� to “Articles� for that corporate client who doesn’t “blog� yet), then these hooks can be very handy.

// hook the translation filters
add_filter(  'gettext',  'change_post_to_article'  );
add_filter(  'ngettext',  'change_post_to_article'  );

function change_post_to_article( $translated ) {
     $translated = str_ireplace(  'Post',  'Article',  $translated );  // ireplace is PHP5 only
     return $translated;
}

Redirect Failed Log-Ins

Adding a log-in form to the front end of WordPress is pretty easy. WordPress 3.0 gave us the flexible wp_login_form() function, which displays a log-in form that can be customized with a number of arguments. By default, it will redirect the user back to the current page upon successful authentication, but we can also customize the redirect location.

wp_login_form(array( 'redirect' => site_url() ));  // will redirect back to the website’s home page

There’s just one problem: it will only redirect upon successful authentication! If your idea was to hide the default WordPress log-in screen, then sending users who fail at a log-in attempt back to the default log-in screen probably isn’t ideal. Here’s a hook and some code that you can put in your functions.php file that will redirect failed log=ins to any location of your choosing.

add_action( 'wp_login_failed', 'my_front_end_login_fail' );  // hook failed login

function my_front_end_login_fail( $username ) {
     $referrer = $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'];  // where did the post submission come from?
     // if there's a valid referrer, and it's not the default log-in screen
     if ( !empty($referrer) && !strstr($referrer,'wp-login') && !strstr($referrer,'wp-admin') ) {
          wp_redirect( $referrer . '?login=failed' );  // let's append some information (login=failed) to the URL for the theme to use
          exit;
     }
}

Adding Excerpts to Pages

With the addition of support for custom post types, content types (including the built-in Post and Page types) are more like abstract objects. Each content type can support any number of core features, such as the HTML editor, titles, featured images and so forth. One of these core features is the “excerpt.� By default, Pages do not support excerpts. Did you know that adding excerpt support to the built-in Page type is as simple as adding a single line of code?

add_action( 'init', 'my_add_excerpts_to_pages' );
function my_add_excerpts_to_pages() {
     add_post_type_support( 'page', 'excerpt' );
}

Technically, that was a couple of lines of code, but many themes already hook init, so the hook might not be necessary.

Add Body Classes Based on Special Conditions

If a theme is well constructed, then it would use the body_class() function to automatically generate classes for the body tag based on the properties of the page being viewed, like category, category-3, and logged-in.

Some websites may have sections that should share some styling but aren’t unified by any of the default classes generated by body_class. Say we want page ID 7, category ID 5 and the archive for the tag neat to share the body class neat-stuff, so that we can add a number of styling properties to them all without cluttering the style sheet.

Luckily, we can hook the body_class() output!

add_filter( 'body_class', 'my_neat_body_class');
function my_neat_body_class( $classes ) {
     if ( is_page(7) || is_category(5) || is_tag('neat') )
          $classes[] = 'neat-stuff';

     return $classes; 
}

“You Can Have Settings Access, But Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You!�

Clients often expect full administrative access (and rightly so), including access to settings pages. Let’s look at how we can hook admin “notices� (those warning boxes generated by some plug-ins) to send some warnings to administrative users when they are on settings pages.

add_action( 'admin_notices', 'my_admin_notice' );
function my_admin_notice(){
     global $current_screen;</div>
     if ( $current_screen->parent_base == 'options-general' )
          echo '<div><p>Warning - changing settings on these pages may cause problems with your website’s design!</p></div>';
}

Remove the “Links� Menu Item

With WordPress increasingly being used for full website implementations, the blog roll and links feature is being used less and less. Thankfully, a new, little-known function added in WordPress 3.1 makes it very easy to remove unwanted menu items such as “Links.�

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'my_admin_menu' );

function my_admin_menu() {
     remove_menu_page('link-manager.php');
}

Take Out the Dashboard News Feeds… and Add a New One of Your Own

If you build WordPress websites for clients, then the number of WordPress news feeds loaded by default in the dashboard might be an annoyance. If you’re clever, you might just inject some of your own client’s news.

add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'my_dashboard_widgets');
function my_dashboard_widgets() {
     global $wp_meta_boxes;
     // remove unnecessary widgets
     // var_dump( $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard'] ); // use to get all the widget IDs
     unset(
          $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_plugins'],
          $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_secondary'],
          $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']
     );
     // add a custom dashboard widget
     wp_add_dashboard_widget( 'dashboard_custom_feed', 'News from 10up', 'dashboard_custom_feed_output' ); //add new RSS feed output
}
function dashboard_custom_feed_output() {
     echo '<div class="rss-widget">';
     wp_widget_rss_output(array(
          'url' => 'http://www.get10up.com/feed',
          'title' => 'What\'s up at 10up',
          'items' => 2,
          'show_summary' => 1,
          'show_author' => 0,
          'show_date' => 1 
     ));
     echo "</div>";
}

Add Your Own Credits to the Administrative Footer

If you build WordPress websites for clients, then you should certainly make sure that WordPress gets its due. It wouldn’t hurt to sneak in a little credit to your agency either.

add_filter( 'admin_footer_text', 'my_admin_footer_text' );
function my_admin_footer_text( $default_text ) {
     return '<span id="footer-thankyou">Website managed by <a href="http://www.get10up.com">10up</a><span> | Powered by <a href="http://www.wordpress.org">WordPress</a>';
}

Further Reading

Here are more tips for developers who build websites for clients:

• Customizing WordPress Administration with Twenty-Ten Child Theme
• 10 Techniques for Customizing the WordPress Admin Panel

More WordPress power tips from Smashing Magazine:

• Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers: Reloaded
• Advanced Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers
• Power Tips for WordPress Template Developers

(al) (il)

---

© Jacob Goldman for Smashing Magazine, 2011. | Permalink | Post a comment | Smashing Shop | Smashing Network | About Us
Post tags: wordpress

When you need to display an unknown amount of text in a constrained space you may need to somehow hide text that doesn’t fit. One way is to use overflow:hidden to quite brutally hide it.

Doing this works, and it works cross-browser, but it can be difficult for the user to realise that text has been hidden since there is no visual indication of it. A property from the editor’s draft of the CSS Basic User Interface Module Level 3 that can help improve the situation is text-overflow.

Read full post

Posted in CSS.

Copyright © Roger Johansson

We are always on an endeavor to make our reader’s lives a little easier. That is why every now and again we trawl through the internet for you to muster up some of the best inspiration resources we can find. Great photography can be as inspiring as any other form of art or design.

But, as is well known, one growing problem with finding inspiration in photography online is the sheer abundance of photos out there. There are so many photo blogs, galleries, directories and groups that knowing where to turn can become overwhelming, not to mention frustrating. Also, quite frankly, there’s a lot of bad photography that is published online. Getting to the best stuff takes a lot of filtering.

This post bundles together some of the better resources for finding inspiring photography online. We’ve arranged them in themes under news in pictures, photoblogs, photographers’ portfolios, a variety of Flickr resources plus a few tidbits more. To help us make this resource even better, feel free to share your own favorite sources for inspiring photography in the comments.

News in Pictures

One thing to remember with photography is that it captures a moment in time. And a good way to ensure that your inspiration is up to date is by checking out some of the bigger news agencies online. They generally have photographers who are working at the cutting edge of information and technology and have their finger on the pulse of what’s new.

Here are just a few online resources from news publications or agencies that compile great galleries and photojournalism.

Magnum Photos
Has to be one of the all-time classic agencies for beautifully chronicling events in pictures.

The Big Picture
This is the news in pictures from news portal boston.com. It does what it says on the tin pretty well… serves up big beautiful pictures.

BBC News in Pictures
The BBC news photo galleries are chronicled by events, themes and retrospect. Picture Editor Phil Coomes also has a blog about photos in the news. To inspire his audience he runs weekly themes for the public to upload images. For example, recent themes include open spaces and the beach.

Reuters
The international news agency has up-to-the minute galleries of images categorized by theme and monthly retrospect. It also delivers photo-reportage videos with behind-the-scenes stories from Reuters photographers. Reuters, alongside Associated Press and Agence France Presse, is one of the largest news agencies in the world.

National Geographic
No ‘News in Pictures’ list would be complete without the inclusion of the iconic National Geographic. Big inspirational photography can be found at the online news photography section of the website. There you will find nicely grouped galleries, photo of the day, wallpapers, photo tips and you can also browse by photographer.

Photoblogs

There are hundreds of thousands of photoblogs out there. Some update on a daily or weekly basis while others are more sporadic. Some revolve around a theme while others are more free-form. Here are some photoblogs that we thought were worth bookmarking for some occasional inspiration.

Joe’s NYC
This photoblog features mostly photos of New York City, but also sometimes includes photos from elsewhere.

Rion.nu
This photoblog showcases the photography of Rion Nakaya. Many of the photos featured are of people and urban landscapes.

Daily Walks – Diane Varner
The images featured here are taken on daily walks and hikes the photographer takes in Northern California.

Dreams of Light
Dreams of Light is the photoblog of Odilia Liuzzi. The photos featured here are varied in composition, style, and content.

The Gathering Shot
The Gathering Shot is the photoblog of Fernando Rodriguez, who tries to photograph things that are unique or different.

Polydactyle
Many of the photos included here have extensive post-processing. Some really interesting effects can be found in the archives.

AbsolutelyNothing
This photoblog showcases the often breath-taking landscape photography of Tristan Campbell.

Image:Me
Image:Me is the photoblog of Thomas Krebs and features photographs of a variety of subjects, from people to animals to landscapes.

Fotograf by Imran
This site showcases the photography of Imran Saleh, a photographer from Singapore.

Intermittences of Life
This photoblog showcases a wide variety of images including portraits, landscapes, and surprising other content types.

Pic of the Week by Andy Nixon
This photoblog not only features great images, but in many cases it offers background information about each photo. There are also occasional text posts.

Traveling Tribe
This photoblog is a bit different from many of the others in this article, with many longer-format posts featuring collections of images. Photos of shops and travel photos are among the most commonly featured.

Ossum!
Ossum! is a South African-based photoblog that features photos with a variety of content, including landscapes, night shots, and even an awesome series covering the demolition of the Athlone cooling towers.

Tenere
This photoblog mostly includes images taken while the photographer, Yoshinori Fukui, was in the Sahara Desert.

Grant Legassick Photography
Grant Legassick is a photographer living in Cape Town, South Africa. Most of the stunning photos on his blog are of the South African landscape.

Dror Eyal Photography
This wedding photoblog pushes the limits of beautiful wedding photography. The photos included are stunning, and the photographer obviously isn’t afraid to try something different than the traditional posed portraits. There are also occasional posts featuring other types of photography.

Christine Meintjes
The photos featured on this blog include both portraits and landscapes, especially cityscapes. A variety of styles are included.

Flickr

Often when we think of turning to Flickr for inspiration we think of searching either directly through the millions of photos there, or viewing popular tags. But that is a really hit-or-miss way of finding anything of quality. Another option might be to scan through Flickr groups, but similarly many of these groups have grown so large that you run into the same ‘bottomless’ problems as with searching. But there are more refined options that help you filter through the guff.

Flickr Galleries

Where Flickr Groups often have tens or even hundreds of thousands of photos, Galleries are much more selective. Part reason for this is that Flickr actually limits the number of images you can have in a given gallery. Galleries are curated by Flickr members, often surrounding a theme, and can be created by anyone.

Here are a few favorites:

Aviary
This Gallery features images of birds including close-ups, photos of flocks and silhouettes in both duotone and color.

American Apocalypse I
This Gallery showcases images of mostly deserted scenes from around the U.S. as well as a couple of portraits that offer a similar impression.

Expired Time Zero
This Gallery includes photos taken with expired Polaroid time zero film. The color and exposure effects are quite striking.

Clotheslines
The Clotheslines Gallery showcases just that: beautiful images of clotheslines. The colors and shapes in the images are wonderfully inspiring.

The Future
The Future Gallery features futuristic-style photographs – mostly of everyday items and architecture as well as a handful of portraits.

Flickr Last 7 Days Interesting

Flickr’s Explore the Last 7 Days Interesting feature is one of its better services for finding inspiration. As noted above in the News in Pictures section, a photograph is a moment in time, captured. Therefore newer photos often capture some amazingly new inspiration. And best of all, Flickr filters the past 7 days to capture the best of what has been uploaded and presents these randomly so every reload delivers new and fresh inspiration.

Flickr Places

Flickr’s Places feature lets you search by geographic area – anywhere in the world. Flickr also includes featured places every day.

Flickr ‘The Commons’

The Commons is a collection of public domain and copyright-free photos from a variety of institutions from around the world, including the Smithsonian, the National Galleries of Scotland, and the Jewish Womens’ Archive. Most of the photos included are of historical significance and can be a great inspirational resource when working on a project with a retro or vintage theme.

Tumblr Blogs

Tumblr has some of the most creative blogs out there and photographers’ photoblogs are no exception. Here’s only a handful of the excellence Tumblr has to offer.

The Photographist
This Tumblr blog showcases a variety of images with a focus on still lifes and landscapes.

Polamour
Polamour is a Tumblr photoblog that posts one Polaroid-style photo every day.

Aviram/Lerner Photography
Most of the photos on this Tumblr blog are concert pics but you can discover other kinds of content too.

iPhotogenic
iPhotogenic takes a slightly different approach to the photoblog posting only photos taken and processed using iPhone apps.

Cela Aussi Passera
A lot of the photos included on this blog have awesome effects including double-exposure and lighting effects.

The Dalai Lomo
The Dalai Lomo features lomo photos using a variety of lomo cameras (and some non-lomos).

Photography Websites

While we have listed a few direct blogs and individual resources above, there are also photography portals that act as collectives for many photographers. These sites serve up tons of great photos from a variety of photographers. Here are a few of the ones we have found useful for inspiration.

Flak Photo
Flak Photo showcases photography from a variety of international contributors. Flak focuses on the art and culture of photography featuring not only great photographs, but also news of new series work, gallery exhibitions and book projects.

Jen Bekman
This site features a variety of photographers exhibited at the Jen Bekman gallery in New York City.

DeviantART
DeviantART has a fantastic photography section, browseable by type and content (commercial, horror & macabre, still life, street, conceptual, photojournalism, etc.). It’s a great resource for finding the more artistic photography.

Carbonmade
Carbonmade includes a hand-picked ‘examples’ page that showcases some of the best photography portfolios hosted on the site. It can be a great place to find photographers that might not be featured elsewhere.

Behance.net
Behance showcases some fantastic photography, mostly commercial or editorial. Just check out its photography, retouching and photojournalism categories (there are also categories for photo illustration and photo manipulation).

Portfolios

Not to confuse portfolios with blogs, a photographer’s portfolio showcases the best work of a particular artist, often exhibiting some of the best photos to be found anywhere online. Portfolios are as varied as the photographers they represent: some with carefully curated collections of only a couple dozen images, others with hundreds of images to view. Portfolios are designed to sell the work and services of the photographer. Here are a handful of eye-candy resources for you to pore over.

Eric Ryan Anderson
Eric Ryan Anderson categorizes his photos into a number of portfolios including “Texas”, “Music”, “Polaroid”, and “Portrait”.

Erik Almas Photography
Erik Almas has a fantastic portfolio of both commercial and editorial photos including fashion, landscapes, portraits and fine art photos.

Jeremy Cowart Photography
Jeremy Cowart has photographed some of the biggest names in pop culture and has an outstanding portfolio of both editorial and commercial photos.

Koen Demuynck
The portfolio of this Belgian photographer includes a wide variety of work including landscapes, portraits and plenty of photomanipulations.

Dave Hill Photography
The photos included in Dave Hill’s portfolio are varied and include many with a cinematic quality rarely seen in still photography. He has some very famous subjects in many of his photos, too.

Rinze Van Brug Photography
The portfolio of Rinze Van Brug includes fashion, architectural and travel photography in a mostly understated style that includes both duotone and color photos.

Raven Photography
The photos featured in this portfolio all have extensive post-processing, mostly to make them look like HDR photos. There’s also commentary for each photo.

Jason Bell
Jason Bell’s portfolio includes a wide array of photos including images of celebrities, portraits, landscapes and more. He also has portfolios of commercial photography and images taken for the entertainment and music industries.

Conclusion

There are a wealth of fantastically talented photographers posting their work online. And of course what one finds inspiring, another may find completely mundane. But there are definitely better resources and finding these online is challenging. Hopefully the above links will put you well on your way. If you have additional resources you’d like to share please contribute them in the comments below.

Consider Some of Our Previous Posts

You may also be interested in some of these other fantastic posts for further inspiration.

Showcase of Beautiful Photography

50 Incredible Photography Techniques and Tutorials

35 Beautiful Examples Of Rain Photography

45 Beautiful Motion Blur Photos

Beautiful Black And White Photos

25 Beautiful Macro Photography Shots

(rb)