Just finished a new web site that says aloha to people planning trips to the Big Island of Hawaii. Specifically, it's a visitors guide to Hilo and the Volcanoes National Park -- the area on the east side of the island of Hawaii.
Please check it out, especially if you're unfamiliar with this unique part of Hawaii. The big draws are active volcanoes that rule over the lush ancient lands and the powerful observatories built upon the mountains.
The site -- bigislandeast.com -- uses City, a WordPress theme from the retired Revolution premium line. Revolution now is known as StudioPress. Only developers who bought licenses from the company before 2008 have access to these cool "oldie goldie" themes. I like both the old and new designs, and so do my clients.
The logo was done by Hawaiian/L.A. artist Kristie Kosmides.
The Flash-style gallery is actually a Javascript-based WP plugin known as Featured Content Gallery. That plugin has undergone a major rewrite since the City theme came out, so I did the update and all is well. Themes can live for a long time if you keep up with the updates and upgrades. I have another one that is almost ancient, but I love the look and it still gets the job done, many versions of WP down the road.
Big Island East is typical of hybrid blogs/web sites that seek to capitalize on the best of both formats. Visitors to this site, for example, can comment on almost all of the articles, even though they're not blog posts in the way most people think of them. But the look and feel of Big Island East would never be confused wih your basic Blogger/TypePad/WP theme.
(The closest current Studio Press theme is Lifestyle, which has just been updated to make it easier for average users.)
It's always a rush to finally finish a web site, especially one as content rich as this one. Kind of feels like the kid is leaving home. You're a wee bit sad to see the site leave the nest (always more stuff to fiddle with), but you're doubly glad to have it take flight and get out of your hair.
