WordPress in action on the Web

I have been preparing for a course next month that will teach people how to build dynamic and modern websites by using WordPress. As a result I have been looking round to see what dynamic and modern websites there are out on the web, besides this one.

Matt Mullenweg has compiled a huge list of lists at the WP Codex, which contains more than anyone would need to convince themselves that WP has multiple uses, and can look very different when serving different functions.

Three Examples

I also found another list called 25 Great Examples of WordPress Design which contains an interesting variety of sites. Three of them struck me as useful, as much for their varied content as their actual design.

Circa is a restaurant in Melbourne. At the time I wrote this its website looked like this:

This interested me because I have had a number of students who have wanted to design sites for restaurants and some of them have claimed that WordPress cannot do this. I am happy to have an example to hand to prove them wrong.

I also have students who want to produce online magazines. Crack magazine provides an example of this being done well. It is a design and music magazine that exists both on paper and on the web. Its web incarnation is well designed, and reminds me of the Monocle site, although I am unsure whether or not the Monocle site is made with WordPress.

Clue: if it isn’t then it could be.

Finally, I was looking for a personal site and I chose Girl With A Camera, which is Ashley Baxter’s photography site. This is a design that looks simple precisely because it has been so well designed.

Taken together these three sites illustrate the fact that WordPress can be almost anything that you want it to be. As a framework it is currently unbeatable.