Real Baking with Rose Redesign

www.realbakingwithrose.com
Launched on December 22, 2009
Author / Book / Publishing, Author, Blogs, Bloggers, Food / Nutrition / Health, Food, Build Communities, Name Drop, We Blog

Read about this project on the blog

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What began in 2005 as a way for General Mills to promote their Gold Label flour through the sponsorship of the Real Baking with Rose blog, has become a wonderful online community for passionate bakers. After four year much has changed in blogging and web design, so we felt Rose’s blog needed an updated design. Rose was also about to publish her ninth cookbook, Heavenly Cakes, in the fall of 2009.

A bit of history about the blog…..As of 2007, the blog had become extremely successful. In the two years after launch, Rose had posted hundreds of items from new bread recipes to travel journeys with photos of wonderful foods from abroad. And there were tens of thousands of comments from a wide range of food enthusiasts. Once the community reached a certain size, and many of the individual members became familiar and comfortable with each other, we opened up a forum that’s also been a great success. The forum is built in ExpressionEngine, and is the second ever integration of Movable Type and Expression Engine in one site, that we know about (the Hop Studios Web site itself was the first, but it’s 100% EE now).

The inspiration behind the 2009 blog redesign was Rose’s very elegant and lovely new cookbook, Rose’s Heavenly Cakes. We took the wild rose pattern as well as one of the fonts used in the book and based our colour scheme on the pinks and reds used throughout Heavenly Cakes. Much of the content has been streamlined in the update, with Rose’s cookbooks featured at the top rather than in a sidebar, and the latest comments on the blog and in the forum highlighted at the top as well. Best of all Rose’s blog has evolved into a full fledged website, and so we’ve added site navigation in the header to make it easier to access her terrific content such as recipes, videos, and frequently asked questions.

The final step in the redesign was upgrading to Movable Type 4. It was a bit of a painful process because the first version of Rose’s site was running a very outdated version of MT and upgrading to the current version was very complicated. We also discovered that MT isn’t as well documented or supported as we were used to, which made it difficult to get answers to questions. In the end, thanks to the hard work of Justin, the blog has been upgraded and is running smoothly in the new version.

In 2011, General Mills ended their sponsorship, but Rose has come to love the blog and the community of people that are involved with it, that she remains as passionately committed to it as ever.

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Testimonial

"Until Gold Medal Flour/General Mills offered me this blog I had no idea what a blog was or could be. They suggested we call it either "real baking with rose" or "scratch baking with rose." With apologies to Hop Studios' endearing little duck logo, the word 'scratch' immediately brought up the image of chickens in a back yard so "real" it became and that's how it went on to change my life on many levels.

The power of the blog to reach people all over the world, to dispense information and receive often immediate feedback, is staggering. It is as though little light bulbs of illumination have been popping all over the globe. bloggers are empowered to try new recipes and techniques and in turn share their findings and help others even with problems beyond baking and cooking.

At first all the work of response fell upon me and it seemed to be taking every waking hour but gradually the network of capable bakers widened and bloggers came to my aid and to the aid of other bloggers. As blog master Travis so eloquently put it: "The blog has created a community of bakers."

There has been much praise for Susie's beautiful and workable blog and forums design. Travis keeps things running smoothly and helps immensely by inputting photos and recipe charts. My blog is indeed and thing of beauty and brings joy to many. I am blessed to have Hop Studios as its manager."

Rose Levy Beranbaum

National Park Central Reservations
Live on January 13, 2012

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