This August I had the pleasure of speaking at WordCamp San Francisco on awesome-ing up WordPress themes with Post Formats. If you wanted to check out my presentation but weren’t there, or missed the livestream, have no fear! You too can check it out, right now, right here, thanks to the magic of WordPress.tv.
If you want to follow the along with the slides, you can do that too by downloading them right here.
If you’re a WordPress theme designer or developer looking to understand the desires of your users you can’t go wrong with one WordPress.com bloggers quest for the ultimate WordPress theme. It’s one of the best WordPress theme posts I’ve read in a long time.
Can you use WordPress to power your web design work? Of course you can. But how? That was the subject of a talk I gave at the 2011 Future of Web Design conference this May in London. If you missed FOWD you missed a great time and some awesome presentations but you didn’t miss everything. The video is available on WordPress.tv and I’m going to share some of the ideas I brought up in my talk right here. Including a free custom theme for you to use in your own projects.
I’ll presume here that you’re already interested in WordPress if you’re reading this but in case you’re not, why WordPress? What’s the big deal? Well, right now, about 14% of the web is built on top of WordPress. That means, as web designers, it’s important that we get this whole theming thing right. Tipping point numbers like that mean more and more of your clients are going to be asking for WordPress. It’s probably starting to happen to you right now.
You’re already a web design expert. You should be a WordPress theme expert too.
I know more than a few of you have been patiently waiting for this announcement: the Duster theme is now available for download at the official WordPress Themes Directory. Go get Duster and let us know how you’re using it on your blog!
Besides being an absolutely stunningly beautiful design it looks like Jessica Hische’s Daily Drop Cap is built on top of our Toolbox theme. Nice!
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Responsive Web Design lately and how it affects — and ought to affect — WordPress Theme Design. Mark Boulton’s latest article A Richer Canvas has me thinking about it even more. Designing from the content out is something I always strive to do. I think all good designers should strive for it. That said, Designing WordPress Themes is an interesting challenge for someone that believes in designing from the content out. It becomes even more interesting when you start creating a responsive layout that adapts to different screen sizes without knowing what content will fill that space. But it’s not exactly a problem. It’s just … interesting. 
What do you think? Have you started to bring Responsive layouts into your WordPress Themes? How do you approach good design without content? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Bonus: If you’re looking for some examples of Responsive Web Design in WordPress Themes check out Sara Cannon and Dan Gavin’s Responsive Twenty Ten, Theme Foundry and Jon Hick’s gorgeous Shelf, and our very own — soon-to-be-released on the WP.org theme directory — Duster.
Lead developer for WordPress core and WordPress security expert Mark Jaquith’s presentation on Theme & Plugin Security from WordCamp Phoenix 2011 is a must-watch video for all Theme Developers. Check it out.
Our previously WP.com-only theme Steira, designed by Made by Elephant, is now available for WordPress.org users. Go get it while it’s fresh!
WordPress Theme Reviewer Chip Bennett explains how to incorporate the Settings API in your WordPress themes and build a robust and secure tabbed theme options page.
Toolbox 1.1, built for WordPress 3.1 and up, is now available in the official WordPress Themes Directory. Have at it!