Nouveau Riche: A Free WordPress Blogging Theme for Creative Minds

Denis Bosire has been working with WordPress for more than five years. As client work became more frustrating, he decided to focus his attention on WordPress themes. After an unsuccessful attempt to monetize themes at Creative Market, Bosire decided to try his hand at developing themes for WordPress.org. Nouveau Riche was approved this week and is his first theme in the directory.

Nouveau Riche is a simple, customizable blogging theme that was designed for creative minds. It offers beautiful support for post formats, with custom icons assigned to each. The theme utilizes the native WordPress customizer to include options for uploading a logo, adding a header and background image, and setting colors for the header, background, and theme.

The sidebar is hidden by default and slides out when clicked. The theme also includes support for two other widget areas- main footer and sub footer.

Check out a live demo to see the theme in action.

Nouveau Riche is based on the Underscores starter theme. “I didn’t use any framework, just _S starter theme, which I use for ALL of my other themes,” Bosire told the Tavern. “No CSS framework either; I find them very unsuitable for WordPress themes because of all the bloat. Took me about three days from start to finish and submitted it immediately,” he said.

Bosire found that building the theme was easy and quick, because he was used to all the WordPress coding standards after finishing a theme for WordPress.com. His commercial theme is currently undergoing review and should be launching in a few days. He plans to release another free theme in September in addition to another commercial blogging theme that is still in process.

His journey began when he started offering free themes on his website. “I started building simple blogging themes and offering them for free on my website,” Bosire said. “I then proceeded to build premium themes that I sell on Creative Market. Sadly, they didn’t sell as expected but I really enjoyed building themes, so I decided to continue doing it, this time for WordPress.org.”

Bosire’s tenacity in continuing theme development after a discouraging experience is admirable. If you build a theme and submit it to one marketplace where it doesn’t take off, don’t get discouraged and stop building themes. If you love creating themes for WordPress users, try again via a different distribution route. If you choose to go the WordPress.org route, you’ll learn quite a bit during the process with the help of Theme Review Team.

Nouveau Riche is a beautiful and simple blogging theme that you can personalize in a matter of minutes. It’s responsive and translation-ready. If your blog needs a fresh design but you don’t have a lot of time, this might be good option. Download Nouveau Riche for free from WordPress.org.