Author Topic: Any Squarespace users?  (Read 5424 times)

Offline bluestockingpen

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Any Squarespace users?
« on: August 12, 2014, 05:12:48 PM »
About a year ago, I transitioned my calligraphy site from Wordpress to Squarespace. (My site is www.bluestockingpen.com.) On the whole, I've been quite happy with Squarespace, although some things about it are not quite as intuitive. Squarespace is designed with the visual artist in mind, and presumes that you have zero coding knowledge, but sometimes, I've found that's what makes it cryptic.

Does anyone else here use Squarespace for their site? If so, are there certain tips or tricks that you've picked up along the way?
Bluestocking Calligraphy | Abby Farson Pratt | www.bluestockingpen.com

Offline Alexiz

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2014, 08:16:23 PM »
I used squarespace to build my portfolio site and I felt it was pretty easy to get through. (That is once I figured out how to use it). lol. Took me a few days to try to learn my way around it, but you are right, there are some things that aren't so intuivite. What I found most helpful to customize the site more to what you want, is to get into the style editor and go crazy. You can get pretty customized in there with typefaces and how copy blocks lay out in the page. Anything else that I cant figure out how to do, I look in google or in the message boards to see if it can be done. Are there any things in particular you've been stuck on or trying to figure out?

Offline schin

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2014, 01:25:17 PM »
I spent a week setting up my website using squarespace: http://openinkstand.com

At first I was confused, but after a few hours of fooling around, it's very intuitive. As yes it's geared more towards artists and there is not much options for customizing, but the templates are quite beautiful and I don't find that I need to customize much. Probably doesn't work if you want something really extremely fancy and personalized though.. and I am using this template as a temporary thing until I can afford to have a pro web designer do my site..

The big drawback is they don't take paypal!!! They use Stripe instead.. not bad in itself but CMON! If they take paypal then it would be 5 solid stars from me!
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Offline Emily

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2014, 04:21:47 PM »
Hmm, I currently use Wordpress and want to update my theme (I need to totally revamp my portfolio selections, too). But I've heard about Squarespace and wondered if it would work better for me... maybe I'll give it a shot.
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Offline JanisTX

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2014, 09:22:28 PM »
@Schin:   PM me & I'll give you my Internet guy's particulars!!  He's great & easy to work with!!

Offline joi

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2014, 11:25:26 AM »
I spent a week setting up my website using squarespace: http://openinkstand.com

At first I was confused, but after a few hours of fooling around, it's very intuitive. As yes it's geared more towards artists and there is not much options for customizing, but the templates are quite beautiful and I don't find that I need to customize much. Probably doesn't work if you want something really extremely fancy and personalized though.. and I am using this template as a temporary thing until I can afford to have a pro web designer do my site..

The big drawback is they don't take paypal!!! They use Stripe instead.. not bad in itself but CMON! If they take paypal then it would be 5 solid stars from me!

schin your site looks AMAZING!!!!!  i totally appreciate all the work that goes into doing this...it's a lot.  your samples are gorgeous!!!

Offline schin

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2014, 04:58:32 PM »
Thanks Joi!! <3 It's still not 100% yet but I'm pretty happy with it so far!
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Offline lyndsaywrightdesign

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #7 on: September 18, 2014, 12:32:49 AM »
I had used WordPress for years before switching over to Squarespace about 2 months ago.  I have been extremely pleased with it.  I'm pretty much good with the lack of complete creative control, because in all honesty, the last thing I need to do is get bogged down designing a website to a ridiculously detailed level.  I love details and I'm good at them, but they really are my Achilles heel, so I have to very consciously set boundaries for myself.  When I set up my website, I set my priorities:

1. It needs to be functional.  This was first and foremost.
2. It needs to be attractive / pretty.
3. The design needs to be simple and current enough that I'm not wanting to redesign it anytime soon.
4. Kill the blog.  I don't have time to keep up with it, and I don't want my site to look like I haven't worked on it in ages.
5. I needed something that was quick and simple to update often.
6. I wanted control over updating the site, rather than having to ask someone else to do it for me.

The thing I really love is that Squarespace has partnered with all of these other services, so I can use them if I want to without expending a whole lot of effort.  With WordPress, I felt like I was always searching for the perfect / best plugin to do whatever I needed.  This just resulted in my needing to constantly update a large amount of plugins, not to mention having to constantly update my WordPress installation.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!  I'm not a programmer or anything, but I'm pretty comfortable with most tech stuff.
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Offline ValarieW

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Re: Any Squarespace users?
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2014, 03:56:44 AM »
I'm building mine on squarespace right now! I love how clean the designs are and not to mention, blog, ecommerce and hosting all in one place? Go ahead....take my money.

Side rant: one of those lowbrow let's-but-up-domain-names-and-then-sell-them-for-exorbitant-prices companies currently owns the rights to what I want my website to be.

Augh.
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