Emphasis Theme Preview: Design Critique
I finally got around to designing a new theme to giveaway to the WordPress community. Before writing the code I would like to get some input from the community on the design, as well as what features you would like to see included. Click on each image for the full-size version.
Features
- Focus on Content
- Clean, effective design
- Author Comment Highlighting
- Widgetized Sidebar
Here is the home page:
Here is a post page (single.php):
Do you have any constructive feedback on the design and layout? If you were to use this theme on your blog what features would you like to see?
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Looks lush, would be great if the date markers would be an optional feature, and another option I love is when pages can be full width and lose the sidebar.
Thanks
@Rob Barham – I wasn’t planning on designing a full-width version, but if I have extra time I will include it as another template. It really isn’t very hard to code.
The dates for the home page don’t really fit the design. Nothing else has rounded corners except the search button and the comment bubble (which hardly look rounded). I would ditch the date box floating off to the side and just have it as a column next to the post. This keeps inline with the rest of the design.
I agree with Rob above, a full width option will be nice.
With the sidbar content I feel like having it a lighter shade of the green would help bring everything together. Not sure how I feel about the side bar floating off like it does, I would contain it… but thats just me.
@Greg – I think you’re right about the dates. I’ll look into a way to redesign that. Thanks for the rest of the feedback!
Like a lot. The top nav is a bit big for my taste, but not hard to customize. Flexible grid system, or so it would appear. All in all, I’m enjoying it.
@Tim B. – The top navigation is easy to change (Just CSS). The grid is actually based on the 950 grid from BluePrint. Though I don’t think I will use their grid.css file. Glad you like it!
I like how the top part with the headline comes above the content with the shadow. Rather neat that one.
I’d lose the round corners on date rectangles though and go with the general shadow idea there as well.
I have taken your comments into consideration and have now started coding! Keep more ideas coming though, since I will be making tweaks as I go.
@Ain – Thanks for the feedback. I agree with ditching the floating dates. Or at least the rounded corners. I’ll keep playing around with it!
Update:
The theme is almost complete and will be released in about a week.
Also I forgot to mention that this free theme is GPL compliant so you can do whatever you like with it.
Stay tuned!