418 – Sherry Holub’s Custom Fields Approach to Website Design  ## Metadata - Author: [[WP Builds]] - Full Title: 418 – Sherry Holub’s Custom Fields Approach to Website Design - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e0a51b99-adc9-49aa-ac6b-92f0b961499c ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Sherry's WordPress Journey** - Sherry started using WordPress about 18 years ago after experimenting with various CMS platforms. - She has focused on custom design and coding custom plugins tailored to client needs. Transcript: Nathan Wrigley Sure. Sherry Holub I've been doing this for a long time. Basically, I graduated from UCLA School of Art in 1995, which seems like an eternity ago, and didn't know what to do with an art degree. Other than, you know, I was very creative, but I wasn't kind of like that super highly proficient illustrator or anything. So I was doing graphic design on the side. And I thought, well, why don't I just put all my eggs in this basket and kind of started, you know, a small little agency. Was probably about 15, 18 years ago that we started using WordPress. So quite a long time. We were in the space of doing basic websites of HTML, just plain old HTML, and then thought, you know, there's these systems, these database driven sites coming out. We looked at Joomla, you know, some other very early kind of things that I can't even remember the name of, but a lot of just PHP based database driven stuff. And then people were talking about this blogging platform. And I thought, okay, maybe that has some potential. People were tweaking it a little bit, you know, creating websites off of this platform. And so we started messing around with it. And we thought, hey, this is a lot easier to modify than Joomla. And kind of since the beginning, the whole thing I hang my hat on is custom design. So we wanted something that was, you know, completely customizable that we could plug in any sort of design to it. So that's where WordPress, even in the early days, you know, with the basic theme, we were able to tweak that enough to, you know, insert our custom designs. So that's kind of where it all started. And, you know, over the years, we've looked at other things. But nothing, nothing satisfied that completely customizable need that we had, except for WordPress. So, you know, the fact that it was open source and everything ([Time 0:05:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5af77a92-32f8-4812-b7a6-aa22f65d4109)) - **Creativity Beyond Art Brushes** - Creativity in web design blends design, marketing, and psychology to solve client problems. - Limitations of technology can actually enhance creative solutions. Transcript: Sherry Holub Know it's funny because when i was when i was younger and I was, you know, sitting at my Commodore 64 typing in like basic and things like that or, you know, playing Infocom games, I was Not thinking like that I would be using a computer and there would be this thing called the Internet and, you know, all of that. Like, I just, I don't know why I just didn't see that coming. And it just, you know, as things evolved and the funny, funny story, way back in 1995, my very first website client came through a friend who was taking vocal lessons from one of the top Vocal coaches in Los Angeles. I still lived in LA. And she said, yeah, Liz needs a website. Can you do that? And I was like, sure. You know, I hadn't really, I mean, I'd kind of messed around because in another lifetime, I was actually a rave DJ in LA and producing electronic music. So I had put up a little website for that. And I thought, sure, yeah, why not? You know, I was, I was just doing graphic design, but I'm like, I can do this. So we, I built her that website. Um, she's still a client by the way, uh, after all these years, which is kind of awesome. But, um, I find that I use the limitations can bring out the creativity, you know? So, you know, if you have to creatively, you know, put branding into something, you know, like, how do you, how do you do that? Where you're taking concepts, basically, you know, and fleshing them out and making them real life. And then there's that whole marketing angle, which is, there's a lot of creativity involved there. There's a lot of psychology involved there. All of that blended together, the design, the marketing, all of that. I think how you solve problems is the creative part of that. So it's not necessarily just design and artistic, artistic stuff, but creative thinking. ([Time 0:12:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/30c6ba0a-fa62-4a4a-bcac-e94b94d38db8)) - **Custom Design Scales with Budget** - Custom design can be adjusted according to budget without sacrificing uniqueness. - Low overhead and long experience help scale design work efficiently. Transcript: Sherry Holub Well, like I said, the thing that I've always hung my hat on was the custom design part of it. You know, it's like going to a bespoke tailor where you're not going to get something off the rack. So no matter the budget, we're still kind of focused on customizing a design for each project for each client. And how we scale that back is, you know, less bells and whistles, things like that. But in addition to that, I also have low overhead. You know, my office is the room above my garage. My main programmer is out in Sedona, Arizona. She works out of her home. So, you know, we're all, we don't have the high rise office. We're not the New York agency. You know, I was never destined to do that. I'm far more like folk art than I am museum, right? So that's part of it is we have low overhead. And we also have been doing this so long now, you know, 18 years with the same content management system and evolving with it. So we really know what we're doing as far as, you know, the programming and the back end of it. So we don't have to spin our wheels and put in huge long hours on each project either. So the smaller project may just have less design overall. Like maybe, you know, we don't do four different kinds of looks, but we may do that for larger projects where, you know, they have, we've done sites where they have different divisions, You know, of the company. And each one of those has kind of a slightly different look and feel. Or we also do, you know, a full range of graphic design and stuff too. So that also bolsters the business where we can do, you know, brochures and booklets and trade show booth stuff and, you know, the whole nine yards. So, and on top of that, we've got our worry-free WordPress maintenance that we offer. So we've got reoccurring income, and I would say 98% of the people sign up for that. Become long-term ongoing clients. So that's a bit of a tangent, but, you know, there's many ways that we can incorporate that creativity and design out other things, you know, like from the website, we also do all of the, You know, the branding or, you know, the print materials. And, you know, we use creativity in each one of those things. So, you know, it's not necessarily that, you know, we have package deals or anything like that. Everything is custom with ([Time 0:18:26](https://share.snipd.com/snip/38ca177d-384f-43f7-a0da-b04a6cbd50ce)) - **Flow in Website Design** - Designing websites gives Sherry a creative flow similar to other artistic pursuits. - She enjoys problem-solving by blending purpose-driven design with marketing goals. Transcript: Nathan Wrigley Heading, really. It was whether or not you get that same feeling of creating websites, that same sense of pleasure. And it's going to sound tenuous at best, but do the constraints of things like CSS, which is, you know, a very programmatic thing. And it's almost like, I don't know, putting a grid on your easel and saying, well, you can only paint things inside the grid. You know, that's all you're allowed to do. And that would kind of wick away fairly quickly the enjoyment that you'd get out of the easel and the paint. I'm wondering if that's the case with design for you or if you do, you know, does it give you that sense of satisfaction and artistic creativity and license and freedom? Sherry Holub It does actually. And that is why, even though I'm the, you know, the founder of the company and, and all of that, I still do all of the design. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Because that is my love, you know, and at this point in the game where, you know, I've been doing this for close to 30 years. It's almost second nature. And sometimes, you know, it's a lot like other creative pursuits where you're like, man, I'm just zapped today. And I'm not thinking of like, you know, the thing that I need to be thinking of, or, you know, you'll take a walk or take a break or whatever, come back to it, sleep on it, you So it's a lot like Other creativity in that sense. So coming up with a creative way to solve a client's problem is what totally lights my fire. And I also love incorporating the aspect of it too. And a lot of, you ([Time 0:22:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/859ef082-edf4-4554-99cc-16b7a04cba82)) - **Protect Your Creative Energy** - Avoid slogging through tasks you dislike by outsourcing or offloading them. - Prioritize self-care like sleep and downtime to maintain creative energy. Transcript: Sherry Holub Yeah, there's definitely things that I'm loathe to do. And I try and like offload those. But that took a long time to kind of figure out that like, I shouldn't slog through this thing that, you know, I don't look forward to, I don't enjoy doing it. And it's not my forte, you know. So I try and offload that sort of stuff. But yeah, you're absolutely right there. I mean, you can't be 100% creative 100% of the time. I mean, it's dips and valleys. And when you're not feeling it, and you've got a deadline, you know, you have to dig deep and kind of come up with something. And, and that's, I mean, not to go on another whole tangent here, but that's why I even tell other people in the field or my peers or whatnot, like, that whole take care of yourself thing Is so important. I mean, I used to do the, you know, the all nighters push myself, you know, kind of thing. And, and you really burn out in not just a creative sense, but truly a physical sense. And there was a year where I just got like everything that went around, I had the flu, like twice, you know, and it just, I just felt awful. And I'm like, I can't keep doing this, you know. So that is, that is an important aspect of, I think, a creative person's work is, you know, they call it the work life balance. And really, it's it kind of is that but it's, you just have to take care of yourself and prioritize, you know, like prioritize sleep, prioritize downtime. You know, and for me, it's it's like ([Time 0:26:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/81d94f50-4328-4c8d-957f-9e1231b871e9)) - **Creativity and Constraints in Web Design** - Advances in CSS and WordPress features are unlocking new creative possibilities online. - Pre-made themes often constrain creativity because they serve broad audiences, limiting customization. Transcript: Nathan Wrigley Said earlier. You know the pain. And then CSS came along and it did some of the things, but it wasn't entirely brilliant. And in fact, CSS hasn't been particularly great in some respects. You've had competing browsers with different standards, but it feels like that's all behind us now. And some of the things that are coming down in CSS in the near future, hopefully, will unlock a whole generation of people being creative online. Because it feels like it's the place everybody's hanging out. You know, nobody's really going out and buying magazines anymore. I mean, maybe they are in your part of the world but that whole thing of obsessing about every friday you'd go down and you spend your money and you'd get a magazine and you'd flip over and You'd look at all the beautiful layouts and ponder how it was all done and what have you everything now seems to be done through the prism of either a computer a laptop or a rep you know or The the mobile phone and um and this is the new this is the new place to be creative and i think i think there is going to be a lot of creativity in the future. I hope so, at least, anyway. Sherry Holub I hope so, too, because for a while there, it seemed like a lot of the creativity was stripped out of things. Yeah. You know, we'd go through phases of, like, it's just a very, like, white screen with giant font or one image or something. And I think, you know, some of the newer software and everything kind of more aligns to that in some ways, like the fast iteration. I mean, people may think I'm a total dinosaur, but I still mess with Photoshop. Oh, yeah. Because one, I'm familiar with it. I mean, I've been using it since 1993 or something. So, you know, it's just something I know inside and out. But some of the newer things where you're not even opening a design software, you're already iterating. You're in the code or the program is doing it for you, the code part, and you're just adding elements like color and typeface and things like that. I think the software, the process, the, you know, all of that definitely changes what you see as far as what's on websites these days. Also, you know, the fact that there's so many pre-made themes out there where it's somebody else's box, essentially. And that's, you know, that's kind of a drum I've banged a lot is this you know you are stuck in somebody's box and the theme developers are they don't know your business they don't know Who your audience is they are creating this thing for as many industries and audiences as humanly possible So, yeah. ([Time 0:29:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/905c7e21-d4e4-41a4-b31d-3545ccc626ec)) - **Simplify Client Edits With Custom Fields** - Use custom fields to create flexible, easy-to-use page sections tailored to client needs. - Hide complex editors to simplify client content management and reduce errors. Transcript: Sherry Holub Sure. We realized with advanced custom fields that we could code in our design in a more custom way, essentially. We weren't stuck in a box where the template or whatnot within the theme as, okay, here's your hero image, here's your three boxes under that. So, you know, we've come up with these kind of flexible, you know, they're very movable, you can move them around. And they're standard things like, okay, columns, um you know full width content or yes there's a hero image kind of thing or a video background or whatever but you know we create a field For each one of these things and they have switches on them for um you know adding padding adding margin turning this off or on um sections like background wraps, visibility wraps, you Know, just whatever we found that ER designs needed, we created a field for it, essentially. And the sections themselves, you know, can be added or removed from a page easily enough. We have a lot of clients who need special use case things, like they're doing a marketing piece and they need a landing page, so they don't want navigation on the top. So we created a switch to turn on or off the navigation on every page, on each individual page. So it's really, we just found that it was a way to strip out a lot of the bloat that we would see in some of the other themes or builders out there because they were kitchen sink things. You know, everything but the kitchen sink is in these things. Nathan Wrigley You're right. Okay. Yeah. Sherry Holub You know, and so we've slimmed that down and it's really only what's necessary to be, you know, for the site that we're building or for, you know, the near future use of a client. And most of our clients, we found, don't log into their sites. But the builder itself is easy. It's so easy. Nathan Wrigley Is it a bunch of meta boxes then, basically? So if I was to go into one of the sites that you have shipped to your clients, would I go to a page and then discover that there's the editor? But beneath the editor, there's a whole smorgasbord of different fields. OK, this is the content that goes in the header, for example. And this is an image and this might be a YouTube video. And OK, you want another YouTube video. OK, repeat that. Only this time replace the URL. Is it basically fields? Sherry Holub Yeah, in a way. We're hiding the classic editor altogether, you know, and we're, of course, hiding the Gutenberg editor. So you start out with, like, a blank page and all you see is the title field at the top, you know, for the page. And then there's a little prompt that, you know, you could add a section, you know. And when you click that, a little menu comes up that lists all the available things. Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's not overwhelming either. Even with the largest sites we've built, there's ([Time 0:34:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7f4a024b-d5eb-4d63-968d-fd3d5a612d2f)) - **Inoculate Clients From Overchoice** - Limit client content options to preserve design integrity and avoid confusion. - Most clients appreciate an easy, curated way to update their sites without overwhelming choices. Transcript: Sherry Holub They don't need. Nathan Wrigley Yeah, it feels as if what you're doing there is you're literally that you're just inoculating them from all of the choices that they would have with a page builder, you know, like there's A thousand and one things that you could drag in. So, okay, well, let's drag them all in and see what they do. And, and obviously, you know, things get balked at that point and the, and the beautiful idea that you had for the, the design and the, you know, the relationship between the font size And the background image and things like that is all shot to pieces. So you're saying just put the text in there and we'll take care of the rest. We'll make it look nice. We'll make it hover to the left or what have you and give it a drop shadow or whatever it might be you just fill in the fields and you're off to the races and you want another one like that okay Just do it again and off you go and so you're stripping away that um that that creativity from them which is kind of interesting um but also i presume you are also mentioning inoculation You're inoculating yourself from the client's desire to have a little bit of uh fun and explore which i'm sure we've all experienced where you know you hand the site over and two days Later you realize that doesn't look like like it did i handed it over so you're immunizing yourself from that as well that's nice kind of yeah um i mean i still tell people that this is very Sherry Holub Flexible you know the way they lay out a page or whatnot if they if they're going to be in there and doing that but like i said um 90 of our clients most of our small businesses or um you know Non-profits things like that so they're're very busy doing the other things required of, you know, their business or their organizations. So they actually appreciate that they can lean on us and even, you know, make content updates if necessary, because they're just, you know, they're busy doing their thing and they realize That, you know, they don't want that. ([Time 0:41:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/12a45766-0d36-400b-9315-7cd19f715559)) - **Manage Plugins to Keep Sites Stable** - Avoid using multiple page builders and plugins on the same site to prevent conflicts. - Clients should consult their site managers before adding new plugins to maintain stability. Transcript: Sherry Holub And, and I've also seen, you know, like small companies, corporate environments where they've had somebody in house, you know, take a site. And these are mostly sites that we then redesign because they're just a hot mess. And you'll find, okay, it's a Divi theme. They've stuffed Elementor in it. And also there's blocks somewhere too. I've seen this. I've seen Elementor, Beaver Builder, and blocks all happening on a single website. So that's kind of the pitfalls of if you really don't know how to use WordPress. I'm not going to say properly, because like we just covered, there's many ways to use it. But there's certain things that you just should not do. And that is one of them, like add multiple builders, people going willy nilly with plugins, you know, just, and I, and I try and train my clients that like, you know, if you're going to Install a plugin, especially if you're on our maintenance, please run it by us first, because that's the only way we can guarantee that your site is going to stay functioning a hundred % and, you know, without problems. And, yeah, I've had a lot of clients like hire an SEO person, a marketing person, and suddenly something's added on the site. And ([Time 0:45:53](https://share.snipd.com/snip/af404242-bf7a-4cc4-8de7-0a1a4ff82ad4))