How many times have you bought a theme that would look perfect for your next project only to discover it’s not the right fit? I have gone through this experience multiple times but the companies I dealt with didn’t have refund policies. Instead, I had to learn a $60-70 lesson with no recourse. Unfortunately, the…
The founders of UpThemes, a commercial WordPress theme business started in March of 2010 has published an open letter to their customers and to the wider WordPress community. It’s a fascinating look into how the company has evolved over the past four years. The letter is filled with lessons learned and contains what I consider…
Sorbet is a beautiful responsive blogging theme with post formats on parade. The theme has been a big hit on WordPress.com ever since it was added at the end of January. This weekend Sorbet made its debut in the WordPress Themes Directory and is already a favorite, with more than 1,000 downloads in less than…
Aquarius is a new free theme in the WordPress Themes Directory. The typography features the Georgia font and the home page is geared toward personal bloggers. The single post design focuses on the content with post meta data displayed unobtrusively at the bottom of the page. In addition to being fully responsive, Aquarius has two…
Chip Bennett has outlined a list of proposed changes and revisions to the WordPress Theme Review guidelines. The changes are listed in two sections, required and recommended. The required changes would take effect immediately while those that are recommended could become guidelines in the future. Some of the recommendations include: Bundled Plugins: Themes must not…
Prospecting theme designers should take note of the nine WordPress design trends outlined by Rachel Adnyana of WPKube.com. Many of the trends on her list are carry overs from last year. Responsive is definitely not a trend but an expectation. Websites that are not responsive are at a serious disadvantage considering at least 17.4% of…
You’ve probably heard the advice that you should delete old or unwanted plugins from your WordPress installation. Plugins are often on the forefront of WordPress housekeeping lists. This is probably due to the fact that on a normal WordPress site you’re usually running just one theme and then multiple, sometimes dozens, of plugins. Unused plugins…
The folks at Site5 have just added a new theme to their growing collection of free WordPress themes. Moments is a new personal blogging theme that allows you to record your life with beautifully designed post formats. It also responds nicely to mobile devices. Features included in the Moments theme are geared toward making it…
January has been a rocking month in the world of WordPress themes. With everyone kicking off their blogs for 2014, we’ve seen a gaggle of pure blogging themes released this month. If you’ve neglected your blog, it’s not too late to get started. You haven’t missed the boat. Find a new theme that inspires you…
No, Post Formats haven’t gone anywhere but theme support and their use appear to be waning. Joyce Grace over at ManageWP.com has published a great article that explores some possibilities as to why the feature is not being used, why we might see the feature make a comeback, and the SEO issues surrounding them. Outside…
This week GovFresh, a government and technology blog, launched a new WordPress theme project to help promote the use of open source software among governments. If you’ve ever visited a local government website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1999, then you understand the problem that the folks at GovFresh are trying to…
Progeny MMXIV is a new free child theme for Twenty Fourteen. It was created by the folks at AudioTheme, a commercial theme shop that focuses on themes for bands, musicians, and labels. Although most of the design strongly resembles its Twenty Fourteen parent theme, Progeny MMXIV is unique in that it offers integration with the…
One of the features within the Stargazer child theme we are using on WPTavern are the social icons located at the bottom of the site. The social icons are not images but rather, Genericons. As explained by Konstantin Kovshenin, Justin Tadlock used a method to add social network icons that are portable between themes. By…
PressCastle launched this month with an ambitious goal: to put every WordPress theme in one place. The site currently has more than 13,000 themes that are categorized and searchable. The themes were collected from more than 250 sites and represent 400+ theme authors. If you visit the Themes section of the site you can filter…
The last time I spoke with Jason Schuller, it was 2008 at WordCamp Chicago. He had just launched his commercial theme company Press75. Since 2008, he’s launched a number of projects such as ThemeGarden, the first ever WordPress theme marketplace that gave 100% of the sale back to the theme author. Lately, Jason has been…