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Website Design

Terrence Murray edited this page Mar 27, 2026 · 1 revision

Website Design

Theme Selection

Property Detail
Parent Theme Twenty Twenty-Five
Child Theme the-digital-front-child (fully custom)
Theme URL https://wordpress.org/themes/twentytwentyfive/
Popularity Twenty Twenty-Five is the default WordPress theme shipped with WordPress 6.7+, making it one of the most widely used and well-supported themes available

Rationale for Theme Choice

Twenty Twenty-Five was selected as the parent theme for several reasons:

  1. Stability and Long-Term Support - As a default WordPress theme, it receives consistent updates, security patches, and compatibility testing with every WordPress release. This ensures the child theme will not break with future updates.

  2. Minimal Opinionation - Unlike feature-heavy commercial themes, Twenty Twenty-Five provides a clean foundation without imposing rigid layout structures. This gave the team full creative control through the child theme without fighting against parent theme decisions.

  3. Block Editor Compatibility - Full support for the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg) while still allowing classic template overrides. The team uses classic PHP templates (front-page.php, single.php, etc.) for precise control over the publication layout.

  4. Performance - Ships with minimal CSS and JavaScript, ensuring the child theme's custom assets are not competing with bloated parent theme resources.

  5. Learning Value - Building on a well-documented default theme allowed the team to focus on understanding WordPress template hierarchy, hooks, and theme development best practices rather than reverse-engineering a third-party theme.

Design System

Typography

Property Value
Primary Font Manrope (sans-serif)
Font Weight 300 (light)
Line Height 1.4
Font Smoothing -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased

Manrope was chosen for its clean geometric forms and excellent readability at various sizes, well-suited for a content-heavy publication.

Layout

Property Value
Max Container Width 1340px
Narrow Container Width 760px (for article/page content)
Responsive Padding clamp(20px, 5vw, 50px)
Header Height 64px (fixed position)
Grid System CSS Grid with .tdf-grid--3 (3-column responsive)

Color Palette

The theme inherits WordPress preset color variables (--wp--preset--color--*) from Twenty Twenty-Five, maintaining visual consistency with the WordPress design system while allowing customization through the Site Editor.

Components

The CSS is organized into 24 distinct sections covering:

Component Description
Base Global resets, box-sizing, body defaults
Header Fixed header with nav pills and responsive toggle
Hero Magazine-style featured article layout with overlay
Buttons Primary, secondary, small, and outline variants (.tdf-btn)
Cards Article cards with image, metadata, title, excerpt
Category Filter Tab pills, date range inputs, filter buttons
Pagination WP-PageNavi and fallback pagination styling
Single Post Breadcrumbs, author info, sharing buttons, video embed, related content
Archive Archive header and grid layout
Footer Centered copyright

Responsive Design

The site is fully responsive with:

  • Mobile menu - Hamburger toggle that overlays content, closes on Escape key or click outside
  • Fluid spacing - clamp() functions for padding that scales between viewport sizes
  • Responsive grids - CSS Grid layouts that collapse from 3 columns to single column on smaller screens
  • Flexible images - All images set to max-width: 100% with height: auto

Visual Style

The overall aesthetic follows a clean, modern publication style:

  • Light background with clear content hierarchy
  • Card-based content presentation with subtle shadows and borders
  • Pill-shaped navigation links and category filter tabs
  • Full-width hero images with text overlay on the home page
  • Generous whitespace to let content breathe
  • Reading progress indicator on single post views
  • Breaking news ticker with pulse animation for visual interest

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