Just an update to clarify my issue – it appears that if I have archives enabled for my custom post type then browsing http://localhost/slug-name displays a blog style list of my articles.
As far as I can tell if I create a page called archive-sd_article.php based on a copy of archive.php I would then be able to customise the layout.
What I would like is to display my posts using the layout used in the portfolio and if possible use the filter available in the portfolio but I am not sure how to go about editing archive-sd_article.php – basically I want all the portfolio stuff but using my custom post type of ‘articles’ as my client posts both blogs and full articles I do not want them to share the default blog categories but have separate ones.
if you could advise me here I would appreciate it.