The Evolution of Visual Design Frameworks aka “Builders”

Oct 22, 2015 | Articles

No Need For WordPress Developers — Drag & Drop With Headway

As a graphic designer who started in print, when I came to WordPress I really didn’t want to produce websites that someone else designed. YET…I also didn’t want to learn to do all the hand-coding to build WordPress themes from scratch. After a few sites using WooThemes I discovered the concept of “frameworks”. Frameworks provide, well… a framework, for building a site, without someone else’s visual design imposed. So I get to do the creative part without having to do all the coding. There are a lot of frameworks out there. Since I began in WordPress in 2009 I’ve worked my way through a few. This post was originally written in 2011 and has been updated to show the evolution of my work experiences using a few of the leading frameworks. This is an overview of at WPBeginner answering the question What is a WordPress Theme Framework? and this article by Chris Lema includes a list of current “builder” frameworks.

I presented about this subject at the Seattle WordCamp Beginner Edition, October 2015.

PageLines- HT-125x125_wb.pngMy first framework was Headway

Sample Headway sites I’ve designed

UPDATE: November 2012 Photocrati
PageLines- PC-250x250PhotocratiThemesAd01.jpgI have become very fond of a specialized photogallery theme for certain kinds of sites, called Photocrati . This is my Photocrati affiliate link.

Sample Photocrati sites I’ve designed

UPDATE: June 2013 Pagelines DMS
PageLines- PL-DMS.jpgI’ve started using Pagelines. They just came out with DMS (Design Management Services). It has a front end drag-n-drop editor in Chrome and better customer relations than my experience at Headway. This is my Pagelines DMS affiliate link.

Sample Pagelines DMS sites I’ve designed

UPDATE: March 2015 Elegant Themes Divi
PageLines-divi.jpgThe beginning of this year I did a pro-bono site and decided to use it to explore a new framework. I’d been hearing great things about Elegant Themes, especially their Divi theme. I’m enjoying the backend drag-n-drop layouts and especially LOVE their excellent forum support and Facebook user group community. This is my Elegant Themes Divi affiliate link.

Sample Divi sites I’ve designed

2020 Best Divi Facebook Groups

Resources for further Framework/Builder investigation