WP Custom Login Screen
The more I use WordPress the more easily I can pick out other sites that use it. I frequently catch myself appending /wp-admin/ to the URL to see if it’s a WP powered site. But what kills me, especially if it’s fairly obvious that the site has been created by a third party developer, is leaving the WP default login screen alone.
I’m a big believer that the devil is in the details, and if you can spend literally less than 5 minutes and create a custom login screen for your client, why wouldn’t you?
It’s fairly easy to apply some CSS and edit the default page, but what I find is the easiest way is to make use of the fantastically simple and effective BM Custom Login plugin from Binary Moon. By default, you’ll get something like this:
Now, using BM Custom Login is a lot easier if you have Photoshop so you can make use of the included .psd template, but even without it, you can create a .jpg with the same dimensions, and then you can get a customized login screen that looks something more like this:
It take less than 5 minutes, and it might just make the difference in whether or not your client recommends you. After all, we are building sites for our clients right. Let’s at least make it look like we went a little beyond plugging their content into an off-the-shelf WP theme.