Throwing Down the Dev Gauntlet
A challenge has be issued by David at BloggingPro.com. He prefaces his post by commenting that the recent WordPress theme competitions were relatively unsuccessful. Interested and nodding, I read on:
Theme releases lately, all seem to be small changes on already released themes. People are releasing “flavors” of their favourite themes, with a link back to their site in the credits. This is not only a bit shady, but also very boring.
The amount of really new themes being added to the pool, seems to be shrinking every day as people rehash old ideas. Those rehashed themes lacking the same creativity and originality of the original theme creator. Are designers feeling paralyzed by something, making them hold back their ideas?
His challenge, as you can read, is to basically come up with something innovative and interesting. By Friday. June 30th. I read this on Sunday and thought I would produce something. I felt up to it, regardless of not being recognized by the theme competition (as well as by David, who has never linked to any of my themes on BloggingPro.com).
I began working on a theme on Monday and continued with it today. It was going to be a departure for me: a strong, dark color scheme (i.e., not a background:#fff; theme). I had some solid ideas to work with and it was going to be another additional to my minimalist theme catalogue.
With but two days left to put a theme together, though, I realize that I’m not going to finish what I’m working on. There’s just not enough time with all my job, my freelance project, and running constant, disappointing Google searches for my own name.
The fact is I’m an amateur: at coding, at design, et al. But I think my work is a respectable contribution to the WordPress community, though I’ve no illusions about making a definitive mark. I’m satisfied that plaintxt.org is in the top ten “wordpress” blog on Technorati (link).
And there are many, many other amateurs out there much more knowledgeable and talented than I am.
The Challenge is a Question
Unintentionally, I assume, David is suggesting that the WordPress community isn’t what it used to be. Or at least the collective sum of creativity therein isn’t.
But blogs have changed a lot (obviously) and so has WordPress. What first began as a blogging platform has been creeping towards becoming a CMS, and I think that this is a good thing. Blogs gave everyone the ability to publish on the Web. Accesbility to CMS-like features just increases this appeal.
Essentially the WordPress community—as well as others—has become a melting pot. The demographic of WordPress users 18 months ago is probably (and this is an assumption) entirely different than what it is now. The Web continues to change me and my fellow know-nothings get our hands on it.
This is going to continue to change drastically as the people who got their feet wet with MySpace (like a billion users or some nonsense) dive into using WordPress.
Digression!
True. Sorry. As a newcomer myself, and a fringe-member at best, I’d like to put forth a few of my own questions for both the great, silent Wordpress-user majority and the entrenched players. Is this slowdown caused by a broadening of the community? Has the percentage of crap themes vs. notable themes increased or decreased, with respect to the total? Why am I so clueless?
I don’t know! I have no idea! For now, though, I eagerly await the results. The gauntlet has been thrown down.
Shawna wrote:
Awwww Scott, I was really looking forward to see what you would come up with.A dark design from you excites me.I think your work is brilliant and it took me a while to be able to fully recognize that.You definitely bring uniquesness to the table with your designs (theme is too small a word for you).Your designs look like no one else’s.Even if they have been twinked a bit, I can always tell a Scott Wallick design when I see it
Now, I agree 100% with what David says, and I have long said that WP theme designers simply build the best stuff for their site and throw their scraps to the WP community.Some themes are high quality, but more and more Wordpress themes are just rehashed versions of other people’s themes that weren’t that good in the first place.
Wordpress used to be the ledaer in theme designing but Movable Type has taken a huuuge step with their Styles Contest and the entries are nothing short of remarkable.Same for the Typo theme competition some months back.The users of those 2 blog platforms seem to be excited about contributing to their communities and you can see it in what they release to the public.
Anyway, I am going to read David’s post for myself and I’m glad you added the live preview feature… Lord knows I need it
Posted 28 Jun 2006 at 8:58 pm ¶
David wrote:
I have not linked to your themes? Wow…how is that possible? I honestly feel really bad. I love Barthelme, blog.txt, and Simplr. I am sorry I have not featured them before, but I promise to do it tomorrow.
Posted 28 Jun 2006 at 10:04 pm ¶
adam wrote:
i’ve typed 3 or 4 comments and deleted them cos they were too whiny.
anyway, i’m with shawna - i wanna see a dark plaintxt theme
maybe you should enter it in theundersigned’s competition. if, you know, it doesn’t suck.
Posted 28 Jun 2006 at 10:07 pm ¶
Scott wrote:
Thanks Shawna and Adam for the nice words and encouragement. I’ll definitely have something together for the theundersigned’s competition.
Adam—Did you ever receive your prize for best two column design? Tell me you did. Please.
Shawna—I agree on those MovableType competition. But $17k in prizes? Wild. The Typo themes, though, didn’t really strike me. Just too many fixed width, two-columns. Lots of pretty pictures and colors, though . . . if you’re into that kinda thing.
David—I was only actually somewhat confused. But your nice words go a long ways. Cheers.
The theme I am/was working on (working title: Spartan) kinda hit a wall. Completely and totally unintentionally, it looks way too similar to Daring Fireball.
Just what David is looking for: the White as Milk theme “reimagined” as Black as Coffee.
Hey, that’s pretty good actually. No, no. Back to the drawing board.
Posted 28 Jun 2006 at 10:32 pm ¶
adam wrote:
god no.
terry’s a sham, i’ll post about it sooner or later. did you see administry’s post? he commented in the thread and emailed terry. it’s ridiculous.
Posted 29 Jun 2006 at 12:01 am ¶
Scott wrote:
Didn’t I just mention that I had to throw out the theme I was working on because it looked too much like Daring Fireball?
Check out Plane Jane. What a kick in the pants.
Posted 29 Jun 2006 at 11:57 pm ¶
adam wrote:
plane jane has that azul feeling to it…
except without the blatant image ripping.
Posted 30 Jun 2006 at 11:13 am ¶
Scott wrote:
Har har har. Good ol’ Azul. Good times.
Posted 30 Jun 2006 at 11:17 am ¶
Shawna wrote:
I’m still waiting for the official release of that theme.I’m hoping he’ll switch it up just a bit though…. maybe use different flowers or somthing.
I don’t like that blue color of fireball.It’s almost sickly looking.Everytime I see it I get a really icking feeling.I love dark themes and colorful backgrounds but you must use vibrant dark colors that lift the spirit.Fireball depresses me.
Posted 01 Jul 2006 at 10:30 pm ¶
Scott wrote:
You’re joking, right? About the ‘different flowers’?
I will definitely keep the vibrant colors in mind. I’m a gray man, myself.
Posted 01 Jul 2006 at 10:40 pm ¶
LHK wrote:
Hi,
my best guess is that it’s the current WP community.
Most root for technology and gimmicks over design, design being understood anyway as divs and semantics, to cite Andy Rutledge, rather than as what it is.
Posted 02 Jul 2006 at 1:26 pm ¶