I love WordPress. When I first started Beyond the Rhetoric way back in March 2006, the blog was powered by GoDaddy’s propriety QuickBlog platform. Blogging was nearly as huge a phenomenon as it is today, so I wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable about what was out there, about what was available. There were platforms like Movable Type, but those cost money and I didn’t want to spend any money on a personal blog. The GoDaddy-powered blog was supposed to be temporary, lasting only until I found a suitable alternative.

That alternative, of course, was WordPress and plans went into action in February 2007 to migrate to WordPress. The migration was complete later that month and I couldn’t be happier. There’s just so much customization that you can do, and better still, it’s intuitive and free.

Before I migrated Beyond the Rhetoric to WordPress, I gave my freelance writing site an extreme makeover. MichaelKwan.com is the home to my freelance writing business and it’s where I send potential clients if they’re interested in my portfolio, services, and so forth. There is a series of testimonials (I call them references) on there too.

Well, the long and short of it is that I’m starting to grow weary of that design and I’d like to make some changes. Instead of coding from scratch (which I can’t do anyways), I figure the easier solution would be to re-create the site using WordPress. Although most people use WordPress for blogs, the content management system (CMS) can also be used for static sites. I want to keep things simple and easy to update, so WordPress sounds like a proper fit.

And this is where you step in. If you are able to find a nice (free) WordPress theme that would be suitable or if you want code a custom theme, I’d be greatly appreciative. I haven’t decided on the finder’s fee just yet, but seeing how I’m in Las Vegas for CES at the moment, there’s a good chance that I’ll have something nice to give away when I come back. Maybe I’ll follow up this post with a more formal contest, but I’ll keep it unofficial for now.

If you have any other feedback or suggestions, I’m totally open to ideas. In terms of layout, the template should be static site friendly, and I’d heavily prefer the navigation to either be just below the header image or aligned as a left sidebar. But hey, if you find something totally awesome that doesn’t fit this criteria, that’s cool too. Feel free to either use the comment form below or you can contact me directly via the contact page.