List of authors posts minus very latest

Question

I'm creating an authors.php page to display all the posts for the author clicked.

But the list(s) needs to show the very first / latest post so I can style it diferently than the rest of the posts?

I did think of just having 2 queries, one query just displaying the very first post, so I can style the thumbnail size, title size etc. in this loop;

<! -- Start the Loop . -->
<?php if(have_posts()) : while(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark"
           title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
    <?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>
    <small><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> by <?php the_author_posts_link() ?></small>
    <?php the_excerpt();
endwhile;
endif;

Then another query minus the first post?

I'd like it done in a way so I can easily style it using divs etc. Does that make sense and is this possible?

Answer 1

There's no need for multiple queries - posts are, by default, ordered by most recent. Just apply a classname for the first post on the first page:

<article <?php post_class( $wp_query->current_post === 0 && ! is_paged() ? 'my-awesome-first-post' : '' ) ?> 

The first post of the first page will have the class my-awesome-first-post.

Update: Based on your updated question's code:

<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post() ?>

    <div <?php post_class( $wp_query->current_post === 0 && ! is_paged() ? 'first-post' : '' ) ?>>
        <h2><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
        <?php the_post_thumbnail();?>
        <small><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> by <?php the_author_posts_link() ?></small>

        <?php the_excerpt() ?>
    </div>

<?php endwhile ?>