We have 2 distinct and ambitious goals for Standard Theme. The first is the be the de facto professional blogging theme on the market. The second is to be the default theme template that Web Developers and Designers use as a starting point when they design and implement a professional blog in WordPess.
We are proud of the progress we have made so far towards the first goal, and we will continue to make strides in refining the way we accomplish that vision, but this post is about the 2nd goal.
This post is about designers.
I submit for public release the Standard Theme Design Kit [download].
The zip contains a fully layered and descriptive PSD file representing the look, feel, and style of Standard Theme. This will no doubt help you, as the designer, create composites and mockups for clients. You can quickly and easily move items around, stub in and style parts of the page, change text/copy, swap colors, flip images, etc., without ever cracking open a browser (let alone a text editor).
Designers have done an outstanding job customizing Standard Theme to date, a quick peek at our showcase is evidence of that, and we are hoping that this will remove one more barrier to good design.
Special thanks to Umstattd Media and Trisha Cupra for the recommendations in our forum community, to our Creative Lead Jared for starting it, and to our design intern Alex for pushing this one over the finish line.
#win
Woo hoo! I’ve been waiting for this. Thanks for your work!
I was searching the forums for the existence of this. Glad to have it now
sweet deal!
you guys rock it as usual!
Thx Herb!
Excuse my ignorance.
If you take the design kit, totally modify to your needs and the look you want, how hard will it be to export what’s needed into a functioning site – along with the proper CSS etc.
Looks great,
Thanks
Noah
‘
Noah:
It really depends on the extensiveness of the modifications coupled with the skill level of the person implementing them.
Changing the background to be textured and a different color can be done without any programming at all. Adding a large footer with areas for widgets requires a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, and WordPress programming.
Chris
Making it free is making Standard Theme for WordPress free. It’s not so hard to convert a PSD file to a WordPress theme. There are many WordPress theme frameworks offers panel like Standard’s for free.
Just saying.
Batuhan:
The strength of our theme is not wrapped up in the layout and colors. It is in the actual coding of the HTML, CSS, and PHP to achieve a maximum SEO benefit. Something as simple as a misplaced or missing alt=”" can cause your site to lose favor with search engines.
Here is a link to our admin panel screens: http://bit.ly/st-admin
I feel comfortable posting this PSD as a resource because I am confident that it will take more than $50 worth of time to:
1. Search, compare, and find a suitable equivalent admin panel that is free and not full of covert trojan-horse advertising (http://bit.ly/hYLPhI) that will kill your SEO.
2. Translate this PSD into a fully functioning theme that is streamlined for SEO like our is.
Besides. If I wanted to rip off someone’s design, the faster way would be to go to the demo site (http://standardtheme.com/demo) and copy the markup and CSS. Using the PSD is sort of silly
.
The thing that makes Standard Theme great really is the total package. If others emulate parts of our product, it validates our success. As long as they honor GPL while doing so, we have very few concerns.
Chris
Awesome! I had created a makeshift template that I’ve been using which sits on top of the (www.960.gs) grid system. Really like what you’ve done. Would love to see integration of 960 in the future. Great work. I will most definitely try it out.
Thanks Matt!
As much as I love 960gs, it really can be quite rigid. I don’t think it is likely we would marry any specific grid system to our theme. There are too many different cool ones for a wied variety of uses!
Chris Ames
I can’t wait to try it out! Thanks to Jared and Alex.
Now if only someone blogs on how we could use it! Life would be so easy
Thanks guys for everything you do.
Mathew:
Haha! It is really for people who design sites in Photoshop before implementing them with Standard Theme.
But… point taken. We could use more “How To” action around here.
Chris
Where can I find someone who can help my design my Standard Theme? I want to make some changes (if possible) but don’t know anyone who can help.
Lana,
Did you purchase the Support License? The community forums have a lot of resources and suggestions for design related questions and comments. If you aren’t looking to do things yourself, check out http://milkengine.com/.
I downloaded the design kit, opened and created a compressed folder for the zip. Still error on the no css style
I really wanna get this so I can put the menu and navigation bar at the top of the page instead of the middle currently on my blog. Any tips would be appreciated!
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was wondering what all is needed to get set up? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny? I’m not very web smart so I’m not 100% positive. Any recommendations or advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers