How was this site designed?

I have only used Wordpress (and FrontPage back in the day) for design, and I’m curious how this page was designed: http://africaisrising.biz/

Does it look like it was done from the ground up or like they used a blogging platform and edited it that way?

It’s pretty basic, but I like the design, and because I’m only beginning to learn design, I’d like some reference points so I can focus my efforts.

Thanks for the help!

Ah! This is paper.li; I retract my question and pose another: Is it Wordpress the best choice for designing a similar site to this, but without using paper.li? Or are there other options with greater flexibility?

Certainly an option, but not the only one by a long shot. This is what CMSes are for, so I’m sure any of the big ones are capable of doing this sort of thing. Personally, I would find it easier to do this with something other that WP, but that’s just me—something like ExpressionEngine, or Craft etc. It’s worth deciding on a CMS that suits you, then learning how it works and using that for your projects.