Blackhole on the Edge of Cyberspace » themes

New Design, Big Shock

David — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:16:47 +0000

Oh yeah, like anybody really expected me to stick with one design for an extended period of time. At least I’m getting better, this redesign doesn’t coincide with a lack of activity for months on end. That has to be worth something. This is the product of yet another all nighter, since I fell asleep watching the Blackhawks game last night. Well, during the pregame show, actually. I woke up just after midnight with about 6 hours sleep under my belt and here I am, still cruising right along. I started looking at WordPress theme sites and some best of 2009 lists and ran across this gem.

I began thinking that I really don’t need all those widgets lining the sidebar and for some reason, I’ve always been a bit partial to one column blog designs. I can also remember a few of my early, early attempts to design my own, were one column. Anyway, head over to FearlessFlyer.com. Michael Soriano has some really nice themes there. In case you were wondering, this theme is called ‘Kubrick on Crack’. Of course, ‘Kubrick’ refers to the default WordPress theme that comes with every download from the WP website. Let me know what you think and if you run into any bugs or glitches. I think I need to get the contact page working again. That’s obviously next on my list. I did change the background image to something just a bit different, but amazingly it seems to fit quite well.

I say this nearly every time, but maybe I’ll stick with this one for a while, this time. We’ll see …

DailyNotes WordPress Theme

David — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:17:25 +0000

Released a week ago; Here is a WordPress theme by the guys over at DesignDisease, called DailyNotes. This reminds me of the earlier days of computers with dot matrix printers, monochrome monitors, and an old Apple IIe, which is probably still collecting dust in the basement somewhere.

A light on top of dark, background and 2 column design, it brings the standard blog elements while adding an area on the sidebar to link your twitter account and the logo changer where you have the option of the usual WordPress text title or inserting a logo of your choosing.

More Info on DailyNotes

Preview DailyNotes

Download DailyNotes

Tip of the Hat

David — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 11:55:15 +0000

On the off chance the 3 1/2 people that check out my blog once in a blue moon are thinking of starting their own anytime soon, a few places to look for some outstanding, professional, free WordPress themes.

Yes, I only mention wordpress. Why? Because. I’ve been using WordPress since its early days, its the easiest blog platform I’ve ever run across and between the talent in theme building and plugins in the WP community, just about anything you can think up, can be done, or already has.

: Image via Wikipedia

I just ran across Site5 as I was getting my websites back up and running and since I never stick with one design for very long, it seemed the perfect chance to change to what you currently see here, the Colorbold theme. They’re actually a web hosting company, but have released 5 fantastic themes. Everything from a Holiday theme (Xmas), to a business theme (Wise Business), with a couple designs more typical of standard blogs (Colorbold and Rockwell) as well as a web portfolio theme (Webfolio) which really caught my eye, but there is no way I could do it any justice if I was to attempt to use it here.

Also, Woo Themes. They create some incredibly unique, professionally designed themes, for sale. They have quite a nice variety of for free themes, as well. By looking at them, you’d would swear the free themes belong on the pay side. A few of my favorite WooFreebies are TypeBased, Bueno, Mainstream and Meta-Morphosis. If I could afford it, I would have purchased some of the for sale themes by now, I’m sure.

I’ll dive into some of my favorite plugins a little later on. Just make sure to check out these two sites when searching for a professional or premium, free wordpress theme. If none of those are your cup of tea, there are many great looking themes at the WordPress Free Theme Directory as well.

Happy Hunting …

If I missed other sites offering well designed, premium themes for free, let me know.