I’ve Joined Automattic

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.

117 thoughts on “I’ve Joined Automattic”

  4. 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!

  5. 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!

  10. 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

  12. 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!

  14. Pingback: Ian Stewart na Automattic | joaobarroca.Net

  15. 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.

  17. Yet another very smart decision by Automattic!

    RE: And if you’ve got some ideas for what you’d like to see here I’d love to hear them.

    I’d like to see Thematic become more of a WordPress community project with more involvement from the many super-talented people around the world who have embraced the Thematic Framework.

    Thematic is great but while it was with ThemeShaper it was clearly heavily dependent on you (your skill set, time pressures etc.) Now you have the opportunity to bring others on board in the way Matt Mullenweg has done with WordPress. It would be great to see Matt’s ability to build strong, successful, focused Open Source communities rub off on the Thematic Framework.

    Specific areas where I would like to see effort put into Thematic in order of importance (to me at least):

    1. Documentation – beginners, intermediate & advanced
    2. Forum – already good but Automattic input should help
    3. CSS – simpler CSS structure in parent theme to allow easier CSS customization.

    All the best!

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

  26. Pingback: Automattic’s Sphere of Influence is Going Beyond WordPress — A View from the Isle
  29. Pingback: Automattic Hires Theme Developer Ian Stewart, Forms “Theme Team” | WordCast - BBlogging news, Blogging podcasts, WordPress podcasts, WordPress plugins, WordPress themes, WordPress news

  30. 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?

  32. 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.

  33. Pingback: Ian Stewart from themeshaper joins Automattic | themesforge.com - Premium Wordpress Themes, News, TIps and More

  34. 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!

  35. 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.

  44. Pingback: With This WordPress Framework I Thee Web | Digital Strategy
  45. Pingback: WordPress.com Blogging: Changing Themes « onecoolsitebloggingtips.com

  46. 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

  47. Fabulous news for you, for Themeshaper, and especially for Automattic – Congratulations! 😀

  50. Pingback: ThemeShaper Framework & Child Themes Now Free

Comments are closed.