How to Change Your Website on WordPress Without It Live
You have a beautiful WordPress-based website that you have spent a lot of time and effort building. Now it’s time to make it live and show the world what you’ve been up to. However, you don’t want to mess with the existing design; you want to bring it down a few notches and give it a completely new, fresh look. Is this possible? Can you change your website’s design on WordPress without impacting its live functionality?
The answer is a resounding yes, and it’s something that every website owner wants to know. When you’re stuck with a poorly-designed website that you don’t want to mess with, the obvious solution is to change it. And what’s one of the best platforms for tweaking and altering designs? It’s WordPress, of course. Let’s take a look at how you can do this.
The Importance Of Being Digital Imprints
Designer and engineer Nick Pope built a very unique and insightful tool that allows you to “scratch” a digital impression of yourself on a piece of cardboard. With these “imprints,” you can change the way your website looks simply by altering them. The great thing about this tool is that it does all of the heavy lifting for you; all you have to do is print out a new set of digital impressions and voila, you have a refreshed new website design. Even better, you can use the tool to “enhance your persona,” or alter your appearance to match that of a famous person.
Why are digital imprints so great? They’re essentially a blueprint for the website; all the measurements and calculations that go into it are etched into the cardstock. And since they’re made from digital information, they’re infinitely flexible and can be used to rebuild your website design in almost any way you could possibly imagine. To give you an example, let’s say that you wanted to change the way your website looked. You could use the tool to help you design a new layout for your blog posts, or change the color scheme of your site. The possibilities are truly endless. If you’re interested in giving it a try, simply follow the instructions below.
Creating the Digital Imprint
To begin, you will need to click on the “Start” button to bring up a preview of the digital imprint tool. In the upper-left-hand corner of the screen, you will see the tool’s title, as well as the “print” and “cancel” buttons. Next, scroll down to the “Paper” menu and choose the kind of paper you would like to use to print out your digital print. The great thing about this option is that you can choose between regular paper or card stock. Once you’ve made your selection, click on the “print” button to bring up a preview of your paper choice. The preview will give you an idea of how your paper will look when printed. If you’re happy with what you see, click on the “print” button to continue.
When the paper arrives, carefully cut it into the shape of a rectangle. You may have to trim some of the excess paper at the edges so that it fits perfectly on the cardboard. Take care not to cut into the image itself; you want to maintain the integrity of the digital print. Once you’ve cut out the rectangle, check to make sure that the corners are square and smooth. If they’re not, you may have to go over them with a file or knife to get the desired precision. If all looks well, let’s move to the next step.
Altering the Imprint
Once you’ve made your digital print, it’s time to get the website design that you want. To do this, go back to the digital imprint and click on the “Alter” button. You will then see a preview of your altered website design. Take a look at the image and you’ll undoubtedly see that something has changed. To see how, let’s examine the altered website one piece at a time. First, notice how the background color has changed. It’s now an off-white color instead of white. This is because when you alter a digital print, you are actually creating a new blueprint for the site. So, when you bring up the altered website design in its entirety, you’ll see that the background color is now different. Next, take a look at the layout of the site. You’ll notice that the size of the header and footer have greatly changed. This, too, is because you are altering a digital print and, as such, the measurements for these elements have changed. Lastly, take a close look at the content on the page. You will see that the design of the website has changed significantly. This is because you’re giving life to a blank canvas; all the elements that went into making up the original design have been excised, leaving only the new content that you’ve provided.
As you can see, with a little bit of careful planning and the use of a digital tool, all of the heavy lifting is done. The only thing left for you to do is sit back and enjoy your newly designed website. Of course, if you want to bring it up live on the web, simply click on the “Live Preview” button and you’ll be taken to your website’s live version. From there, you can enjoy your beautiful new design.