Today marks the first day of my employment as a Theme Wrangler with Automattic and it feels great. I’m more than excited to finally let you know what I’ve been up to for the last little bit.
What can I say besides awesome, awesome, awesome? The enormous opportunity for learning and improvement; all the super-talented, friendly people; the chance to work on so many really, really cool projects—it’s almost unbelievable. This is a dream job for me.
So, yes, really excited. To say the least. And I don’t want to say too much right now so I’m going to keep this short. Though I imagine you have one very big question you’d like me to get to.
What’s Going To Happen To ThemeShaper?
Only exciting stuff.
First of all, I’m excited to officially announce that all the commercial Thematic Child Themes I’ve created are now free to download without charge.
Go download them, have fun with them, and make something really cool.
Now, this’ll be a big change for ThemeShaper but here’s an even bigger one: ThemeShaper isn’t just my blog anymore.
This is going to be awesome.
ThemeShaper will become a public-facing blog for the Theme Team now assembling at Automattic. A place where we can help provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in WordPress theming; from the noobiest of beginners to the most powerful of WordPress wizards.
Or like I said above, this is going to be awesome.
Stay tuned to the ThemeShaper blog for more updates. And if you’ve got some ideas for what you’d like to see here I’d love to hear them. Let me know what you think in the comments.
ThemeShaper 
117 responses
Congrats Ian. Really happy for you!
Congratulations to your continued success Ian!
Congratulations Ian! Well deserved.
Automattic wins big by adding your talents & credibility to their team and you win big by improving the state of WP themes – wins for the whole community!
Win. win. win! Definitely very awesome! I’m glad automattic added someone knowledgeable and influential like you to their team. Really exciting news! Can’t wait to see what you guys start pushing out. Wish you the best of luck!
Congrats, Ian! I’m so glad that I chose Thematic to build out all of my WordPress sites 🙂
Well deserved, Ian!
Thematic is essential… glad they realized this.
Ian! Congratulations! I’m really happy for you!!!
Welcome to the Automattic team, sir. A pleasure to have you aboard.
Congrats on the new epic job! Dont know of anyone more suited for it! Best of luck too 😛
Really excited about whats in-store here
huge congrats!
Congratulations! 🙂 I’m only new to Themeshaper but going by my experience so far, WordPress Themes will be taken to a new level with this change!
Great news to WordPress world 🙂
All the best Ian
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Congrats Ian. You’ve given so much to the community that this is very well deserved. I’m looking forward to the changes in ThemeShaper. All good news for you. Automatic, and the WordPress community.
Whoah! Thanks for all the congrats and well wishes, everybody!
Yet another very smart decision by Automattic!
This is so wicked. I’m not surprised. Congrats, Ian!
Congratulations Ian! Looking forward to the kinds of theme wrangling you’ll be involved in!
Welcome aboard !
Congrats Ian! I’m a huge fan and am very excited to see what comes from your new team!
Many congratulations Ian, this is tremendous news. Your hard-work and superior product has paid off. Needless to say I am really looking forward to the changes and enhancements that are sure to come.
Let me add my voice to the chorus, Ian. I’m rapt to hear that you’ve been offered a gig that you’re clearly very excited about.
And personally I’m happy to hear that the time I’ve invested in trying to learn WP ‘via’ Thematic is probably going to held me in good stead.
Congratulations.
Super cool. Congrats.
GREAT NEWS IAN! I’m super excited to see what happens next…
[…] Automattic scooped up another very talented person recently. Ian Stewart of ThemeShaper and creator of the Thematic theme framework has joined Automattic as a Theme Wrangler. Sure big news for Ian, but why should this be something we all take note of? Because more and more Automattic is making slow and steady moves to become a company that could rival Google, Microsoft, or Apple in its importance to how we use computers and the Internet. See I read more into this short statement than just “I’m going to be working with cool people:” ThemeShaper will become a public-facing blog for the Theme Team now assembling at Automattic. A place where we can help provide the best possible experience for everyone involved in WordPress theming; from the noobiest of beginners to the most powerful of WordPress wizards.link: I’ve Joined Automattic […]
Congrats! Great catch — for Automattic.
Believe me when I say we count ourselves as the lucky ones. Welcome to the family, Automattician!
[…] Yesterday, highly respected WordPress theme developer Ian Stewart announced on his personal blog that he has been hired by Automattic as a Theme Wrangler. […]
Congratulations, Ian. That’s good news. I’ve been an ExpressionEngine developer since early 2004, yet I love what WordPress has become in the past year or so, and have begun to develop WP sites.
My question is simple:
What happens to Thematic?
Is it over? Will development stop? Will it be folded into Automattic? Have we seen the last of Thematic updates? Or, will it become a de facto standard theme framework for WP 3.0 and beyond?
A note about Thematic.
Don’t worry. Thematic is an open source project. It couldn’t stop even if I wanted it to. And I don’t. And that’s awesome.
And another note about Thematic.
Currently I’m working on the code that creates the widget areas. Then I’ll add support for multiple blogs / sites to the theme options, then the support for
wp_nav_menu(), and so on.Thematic is a community project. If you would like to be part of this community, if you would like to contribute ideas, patches, php code, CSS code, knowledge, tutorials, translations, please contact me or/and Ian. Send us an email, tweet us, drop a note on the Thematic project page or on the ThemeShaper Forums.
[…] folks, some great newas this week for wordpress fans everywhere. Ian Stewart of themeshaper fame has joined Automattic – the good people who lead the wordpress […]
A big congratulations Ian!
I’ve always been a huge admirer of your excellent work and I’m really looking forward to what you can cook up with the Automattic guys.
Best of luck!
And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke Ian.
Hope this means that WordPress might come with a new clean default theme that you add a child theme to.
Good Luck mate.
Hmmmmm.
WordPress 3.0 would be a good place to have Thematic 1.0 to become one of WP’s default themes.
It’s a bit late, but congrats Ian!
also i can’t say anything else but awesome men! 😀
Congrats, well deserved! 🙂
Way to go Ian, can’t wait to see what comes out of this. Very exciting!
Congratulations on your new job!
being a Thematic user myself, I am excited about the future of Themeshaper
Ian, at last… Congratulations! Great news, I’m very excited for you.
Congratulations Ian!
Lots of new things happening in your space! Many good things to look forward to.
you are great, and the community is great. thanks for all the great stuff.
Congrats and good luck
[…] I know Ian Stewart has been hired as a Theme Wrangler for Automattic. That does worry me a bit. Will Ian update Thematic? Perhaps now there will be even more support for the framework? Wouldn’t that be a […]
[…] WordPress.com Blogging: Changing Themes March 13, 2010 tags: wordpress.com themes by timethief New themes are being introduced at WordPress.com more frequently than ever before. That’s probably because the “stylist/designer/theme wrangling” Staff members have grown in number and are continuing to grow. “Today marks the first day of my employment as a Theme Wrangler with Automattic and it feels great. I’m more than excited to finally let you know what I’ve been up to for the last little bit.” — Ian Stewart joined Automattic […]
Congrats Ian, really nice to see you there, Automattic did the right thing, great for the WP community and WP theming and of course you’re Canadian too 😉
best,
-Sam from Montreal
Fabulous news for you, for Themeshaper, and especially for Automattic – Congratulations! 😀
Wow… Congratulations Ian!!!
Great to see that your talent got recognized! Love your themes, keep em coming
[…] Ian Stewart of ThemeShaper fame has joined Automattic—the parents company of brands like WordPress, Intense Debate, Akismet, and Gravatar—founded by Matt Mullenweg. As a result, Stewart has decided to make his own “child themes” from the WordPress theme framework ThemeShaper available for download free of charge. […]