Redesigning the Penny Card Auction website

Hannes Widrig
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

The following article explains my redesign of the PennyTheme theme. You can view my redesign live on pennycardauction.com.

NOTE: pennycardauction.com is no longer active, this article still serves to explain what I did for the client.

The challenge: Rework the PennyTheme WordPress theme into a much more modern and mobile friendly website.

The Solution: Custom styling across the entire site with as few PHP modifications as possible.

The theme faced two major problems that I would have to re-imagine from scratch.

Problems

Problem #1, The theme suffered from an extremely dated appearance. Though not uncommon, the appearance would be off-putting to potential users of the site. I had to rethink virtually every element of the appearance. Everything from the navigation bar to the footer gives off a very outdated vibe.

The Original Theme

The old theme left much to be desired, with a lack of focus and clarity. With that in mind, I chose consistent color schemes and visually appealing UI across the board.

Problem #2, the theme lacked any form of responsive design implementation. Mobile users dealt with an absolutely terrible user experience.

Home Page on mobile devices
The Account Page

I had to rethink every portion of the code while relying primarily on custom CSS styling bring about the desired appearance. The homepage presented a uniquely difficult situation due to the way it was programmed and required some minor <div> modification.

The results

After numerous hours of back and forth discussion and design decisions with my client, we found a style that worked for the focus of the site. The results left the client very satisfied with increased growth opportunities and a wider audience.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

~Hannes Widrig

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