WordPress Theme Designer and Developer
MayDay Rooms is looking for a WordPress theme designer and developer to help redesign our website to make it more user-friendly and structured around our archival content and events.
The website has not had any significant overhaul since it was built in 2014 and is currently being migrated to another WordPress installation. We need someone to work with us to create a design for the new site, which creates user-friendly layouts, structures for our existing content and help us highlight particular features, such as our catalogue, events, publications, projects, blog and featured archive collections.
We are looking for an all rounder who is comfortable designing mocks coding a new custom wordpress theme front and back end, designing layouts for desktop and mobile/table views, as well as some custom icon/ graphic elements. You will be working in conjunction with the digital co-coordinator at MDR and with input from the rest of the staff collective. Please see our brief and how to apply below.
Structure and Design Brief
Project Budget: £3000
Deadline: June 10th 2021
We would like to have the website launched in September 2021.
What is the problem with the Mayday website:
The website and theme have not been updated since 2014. This means that the website is not suitable for wide screens, does not meet any accessibility standards and needs a more contemporary look and a more navigatable design. There is a lot of content that has been published over the years, which is either completely inaccessible or really hard to find. People also find it hard to access our catalogue and how it relates to other archival materials. There are new features that we wish to add like a blog and bookshop/publication section but are not sure how to implement these in the existing design.
Things we want to highlight and structure the new design around:
- Contemporary look, suggested themes is WordPress Twenty-One or Rebalance, but we are open to suggestions;
- The homepage should present the essential features of MDR, opening hours and contact info, the archive, what’s on, news and recent content from the blog;
- More obvious connections between archive, blog events, publication, perhaps through a tagging system or obvious taxonomy of different types of content;
- A new dynamic blog and publication section with ability to tag;
- Readable and accessible;
- Centre our catalogue, collection description, archive logs and archive of the week;
- Structuring existing material by bringing it into a new template and make it more navigatable;
- Mobile and Tablet optimised.
Who we are looking for:
- You are comfortable in producing dynamic mock-ups from a design brief, offering different approaches;
- You can code a custom wordpress theme from scratch and maintain latest best practices in coding standards;
- You are technical confident using CSS/SASS frameworks (Bootstrap 4), PHP, Core WordPress functions and MySQL databases;
- You are able to communicate effectively with the MDR Team and organise a project timeline to meet the brief;
- You are passionate about clear design and site layout that ensure users can access catalogue and archive material;
- You understand the importance of knowing who our users are, what their needs are and how they would use the site.
Application Process
To apply please answer the following questions (no more than 500 words):
a) Briefly describe what changes you would make to the MDR website to meet the brief, within a wordpress framework?
b) Describe what your approach would consist of in working with MDR to complete this brief?
In addition to this please include examples or portfolio of your previous work that has used WordPress, and a relevant CV. We welcome applications from individuals and groups. Please send applications to in-formation@maydayrooms.org