A challenge: Find a good, clean WordPress theme

[Creole Ned]

I am thinking about updating the look of my site and one way would be to get a new WordPress theme. Most themes are what one might politely call "busy". I'm looking for something clean and simple. I only have a few criteria:

- I prefer fixed width
- it must be 2 column, preferably with menus on the right
- no background images behind the body text

That's about it. I do like my current theme (http://creolened.com/) so it's a good reference point.

Go!

[samuelk]

I'm using a theme called Waterlilly (http://waterlily.blogdesignsolutions.com/), though I edited it to remove the images and replace them with my own.

It's an old theme, but seems to work well on Wordpress 2.6.5.

[Creole Ned]

Thanks, Sam, I'll see how it fits with my site.

When I was perusing themes last night I was struck by two things. The first is the sheer volume of themes out there, possibly numbering into the thousands. The second was how many of the themes just aren't that usable. Sure, a lot of times it is a matter of aesthetics but often themes employ busy backgrounds or color choices that make text just plain hard to read. Seems to be at cross-purposes to putting your thoughts and views out on the wild and woolly Internet.

Many people apparently want loud, garish and over-designed to spartan, clean and straightforward. I'm going to call it Comic Sans Syndrome.

[Paladin]

Abstractica (http://abstractia.robgoodlatte.com/) looks like a possibility.

SplashTheme (http://www.wpskins.org/themes/320/Splash-Theme/) has a clean look and whimsical motif. Very, very plain though.

Premium Chocolate (http://www.wpskins.org/themes/3735/Premium-Chocolate/)

iTheme (http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/wp-themes/itheme/)

Salmon (http://www.justinshattuck.com/2007/04/11/salmon/)



Writerspace (http://www.writerspace.net/), a blog for writers

Plugins (http://www.byzantineroads.info/2008/09/essential-wordpress-plugins-for-writers/) Essential plugins for writers. The second to last 1 actually sounds useful.

[Creole Ned]

Writerspace (http://www.writerspace.net/), a blog for writers

Plugins (http://www.byzantineroads.info/2008/09/essential-wordpress-plugins-for-writers/) Essential plugins for writers. The second to last 1 actually sounds useful.

The link for the second to last one doesn't work. :P

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Tick]

I like Chocolate a lot, tho I think I'd go with something other than brown for it, oddly enough.

[Creole Ned]

I've switched to techmania (http://www.themelab.com/2008/05/18/techmania-free-wordpress-theme/) for my site (http://creolened.com/) -- the image header hasn't been updated yet and I still need to tweak a few small things. I'm also going to post a wee bit more. :P

The WRITE! (http://write.jckrbbt.com/) site is now using iNove (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/inove) by mg12.

[Tai]

I think those both look pretty good, although I find the right hand bar on the write site to be very busy and daunting.

[Creole Ned]

The sidebar can be configured using widgets, so it can be as sparse or dense as you like. I found the theme but jackrabbit installed it, so...

Blame jackrabbit. :nod:

[Q]

Blame jackrabbit. :nod:
We always do!

[Tai]

We always do!

Not me! I like my succulent crab stew and badass okra bouillabaisse.

[Creole Ned]

By the way, if anyone can figure out why there is a duplicated and slightly descended version of the arrow graphic on the headlines in the techmania theme, I'd love to know so I can get rid of it. I've looked over the code for it and cannot ascertain how to fix it. It looks like this:


}
#main h1 {
padding: 8px 0 3px 25px;
text-transform: none;
background: url(images/square_arrow.gif) no-repeat 0% .7em;
border-bottom: 2px solid #f2f2f2;
color: #339900;
}

[Creole Ned]

A follow-up: Techmania is ported from a non-WP CSS template. You can see the original here (http://www.styleshout.com/templates/preview/Techmania1-1/index.html) and note it does not share the issue I describe above. I shall look over its code when I am home this evening. Excelsior!

[Paladin]

I'm not seeing a duplicated arrow with IE 7. What browser are you using?

[Creole Ned]

It appears in both Firefox and Chrome. It's possible the author may have added code to make sure it was IE-compliant and broke it for well-behaved browsers instead.

[Tai]

nod, i see it in firefox but not ie. lousy coding.