On April 4th 2014, PiercingMetal.com celebrated the achievement of having been online consistently for nine years (discussed HERE) while its companion Blog “PiercingMetal Musings”; reached its own “Lucky 7th” milestone only a few days later (discussed HERE). With 2014 almost at its halfway point, I made the decision to move on from the sites original design (seen for one last time in this posting below our logo) and move forward with new articles and images in a WordPress model. They say that the only constant is change and this is especially true when it comes to technology and all the things that you can do with it. Change is also cited as being good for the most part but I will admit that in this particular instance it was a bit daunting because I was so used to the layout that I had and have been using it since February 2005. New readers will not know this but there was a couple of months of live testing time before the “Official Launch Day” of 4/4/2005 and back then you could have a live website that no one knew about until you told them that it was there to be perused. Here is the final official glimpse of it.
I was indeed hard to move on from a layout that one has gotten so used to for so long but while I loved the way that PiercingMetal.com looked during its beginnings and over the years and how it felt to me as a technical person in terms of content building, it was high time for a more modern flow using the powerful tools and means that software such as WordPress provides you with as a creative entity. As you can see on the new Menus, almost all of the options that were found in our original design are here to be enjoyed in the new framework. I did drop a couple of items since I have not yet figured out a way to best offer them up here and some others are gone for good. That said there are still items forthcoming, but they require some serious adjustment before being presented in this new model. The photo galleries in particular is the area that needs the most rethinking in WordPress.
The Menus will offer up easy access to the Official PiercingMetal Blog which of course hosts our Comic Book themed posts and the films that we enjoy the most. With this WordPress installation the two sides of PiercingMetal will work even closer in tandem than they had before. This was not easily possible in the old design. If you are wondering about the few thousand review articles that I had online, well they are still here for you to peruse but for the time being you need to access them differently. For now, the menu option “Legacy Reviews” is where you can read and enjoy those articles. Please bear in mind that it’s a simple directory listing but it can easily be searched by the band or album title with the “Ctrl-F” function once you are there. These are the actual reviews that you used to see on the original site and over time I will be transferring all of these articles into the new design while at the same time keeping focused on giving you some exciting new articles that will sustain your Metal hungers. The difference between how an article posted in traditional HTML as opposed to WordPress requires that each item be looked at carefully but at least they will take the most advantage of it. The dates will reflect the same as they did on the original site because that is when they were done, so something written way back in the beginning shall be posted with that same date in the new framework. Our Social Networking options are pretty visible in the new layout and so is our ever-popular calendar and one of the things this allows is for a presentation of our most recent blogs which I think is pretty cool because PiercingMetal Musings has become a voice of its own during its seven-year lifetime. One of the things I have been doing since this quiet relaunch is importing many of the music related blog posts into the new WordPress installation. There are some things that are duplicates over there and were used to entice the frequenters of blogs to come visit the main original website.
Though converting the old stuff will be a lot of work, at the end of the day it will make PiercingMetal a much better experience for you readers and that has always been the goal. Many thanks to all the readers who been coming here for a while, I’m glad that you do and I hope that you will keep on with us as we continue to raise the horns of Metal for the masses in this new fashion. Welcome to any new readers, I look forward to entertaining you. Feel free to let me know what you think about our sleek new phase in our comments section, and I shall see you in the field sometime soon if you are in our region. Don’t forget to give some love to our various social networking accounts which are down below for your easiest access.
Ken Pierce, Founder and Principle Creative
PiercingMetal.com
IMPORTANT UPDATE: (7/20/2014) – Hey there readers, I just wanted to add an Editor’s note to this post about the status of the “PiercingMetal Musings” blog that was referenced here. There have been some rather dramatic changes to it and you can learn what has happened by clicking HERE.
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Dig the new layout Ken. Best of luck moving forward as always \m/
Looking cool here! Everything under the same roof on here.
Like the new layout. Keep up the good work
The new site looks great!
Change is a good thing. The site looks great and it’s so much easier to navigate when you have everything in one place. As long as I keep getting my metal news, music reviews and ticket giveaways I am a happy camper. Rock on!
Awesome job Ken diggin the new page!
I like how streamlined the site looks. Look at all the different types of articles down the left side. The calendar is right there for the lasted concert updates. The fonts are big and clear. Tons of categories across the top and down the right hand side. Lot of social media options to follow as well. This is really well designed. Keep up the good work.
horns up to the new layout! cant wait to see the final product \m/
The new improvements to the site look great, best of luck!
I love the new layout. It’s easy to navigate so I can read the reviews and featured articles, see what concerts are coming up, and even enter some of the contests. Keep up the great work!