Update Part 2: I tried again. I find the way the editor works sometimes difficult to manage. Ultimately, I think I am close. If you see a bug, let me know.

UPDATE: The Twenty Twenty Four theme is causing me many problems. I had to revert it to Twenty Twenty Three. The theme looked drastically different in Safari and would not work correctly.

I updated my WordPress blog (as usual) to 6.4 and switched to the new Twenty Twenty Four theme. WordPress has been moving more and more towards block functionality. The truth is that it is a little hard to understand. They need to be careful about the user experience before it gets too complex.

I edited the theme to try and make it the way I like. It still misses some key functionality, but I was able to muddle my way through. My custom CSS isn’t terribly long, but still more than I would have hoped. They need to add box-shadow capabilities to containers and cover objects.

Speaking of personal sites….

When I mentor young designers, I always ask what they are using to host. I am surprised how many use Wix or Squarespace. If you want a WYSIWYG editor, EditorX and Webflow are clearly superior. They have excellent themes you can choose from. However, the thing that really surprises me is how unwilling designers are to learn HTML and CSS. Using GitHub for hosting is free and allows for much more interesting portfolio designs.

Designers need to be taught more in school. Putting a simple mobile app together is not enough. They should be taught power Figma use and how edit HTML and CSS. It still kills me that every portfolio is boring and minimal. Minimalism is the worst thing to happen to design ever. No joy, no character. I hate it.

Anyway, WordPress is great for me. Long live (and love) Open Source software. ✌️