Wordpress for the designer?

[RiderOfTheStorm]

I'm a front-end web designer. I have a client who is would like for me to design an online magazine site while using Wordpress (or any other open source) as a means for publishing articles as his blogs.

The client wants to be able to have control to create more subsections of the site for additional blogs (articles). And of course the homepage should be updated every few days with new articles, like you see on sites gawker.com or huffingtonpost.com. Plus, leave some room for future ad space. It'll eventually be an e-commerce type site as it expands. So it will have multiple blogs in the end.

So I'm in a bind, since I'm not a backend person at all and have not worked with a CMS. I'm a designer who is knowledgible in front-end coding (CSS/Javascript/HTML) and ActionScript.

Is Wordpress intuitive enough that I could design the site in it? Or can I design the site in HTML and embed Wordpress articles into the site? Does Wordpress give me the flexibility to design as if it were for HTML? And can I use Flash (albeit sparingly)?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[evo]

I think joomla or drupal would tickle your fancy more. They offer a lot more flexibility from what I've learnt.

ExpressionEngine is a worthy option, if you want to pay for it.

[RiderOfTheStorm]

I'm just taking a look at Drupal.

Basically I want to see if I could realistically create such a website for this client what with lack of PHP, mySQL knowledge (other than copying and pasting those pieces of code when necessary).

[gnomeontherun]

Wordpress COULD give you everything you need. It has the flexibility and plugins. But it doesn't sound like the BEST option. You could arrange the content in the way described, but the notion of adding e-commerce and things makes me think of other options.

Joomla was already mentioned, and I would second that. It does have a learning curve, but if you buy a good book on Joomla and dig in, within a few weeks you should be using it without any trouble. Most books also would help you with templates, and extensions. You really don't need to know/understand PHP, but your templates will have some in it. You will learn the essentials, but the books I've read do a decent job covering the basics.

Here is something worth looking over to give an overview.
http://www.joomlainlibrary.com/tutorials/getting_started/introduction_to_joomla_content_management_system.html

Drupal I hear is great, but honestly don't know much about it. Joomla has a larger community based extensions list, and from my experiences a lot of people prefer it. If you haven't yet, look at www.opensourcecms.com and you will find demos of many systems. Just look at Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla, so you don't get overwhelmed.

[RiderOfTheStorm]

First off, thank you both in advance once again.

I just got back with the client. So as far as e-commerce is concerned in the future, it'll probably be a link to a PayPal account. It's more important that we have enough room for future ad space/banners. Plus being able to design the layout I intended with the foresight of knowing some PHP scripts will be dropped in, and having him add new sections in the future.

I'm taking a look at Drupal's Is Drupal Right For You (http://drupal.org/handbook/is-drupal-right-for-you)?

I will also look at Joomla.