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THiCK: Personality Personified
10. Nov, 2008 by Adii Rockstar in New Themes
We’re very happy to announce the release of THiCK at last, after posting the teasers to the theme about a month ago already. But I’m sure you’ll forgive us, since we’ve been hard at work on quite a few other thinks during the last month (which included 4 new theme releases anyway). Plus, you’ll have to forgive us, once you see this beauty in action…
THiCK was designed by the self-confessed, punk rock designer – Matt Brett. This was the first time that we have worked with Matt and he is also probably the most-popular and most-established designer with which we have collaborated. And we can honestly say that Matt lives up to this glowing reputation as rockstar designer – the design of THiCK is awesome and the CSS superior to most websites you will find out there. So kudo’s to Matt for helping us create an incredible theme!
DESIGN
We asked Matt to create an uber-personal blog theme, which resembles the thinking and principles behind the redesign of his own site, which he did a while back. The result is a design that is intended to allow you to take back your own blog and publish all of the various elements that builds your personality (photos, lifestream, your favourites etc.).
The style itself is reminiscent of the style that Matt has become known for… The theme includes both a grunge & clean version, along with the option to use a traditional dark on light approach or a light on dark style. And then you will also have 5 different colour schemes (default – grey, blue, orange, green & pink) to choose from for each of these 4 style options, which makes it 20 possible colour / style combo’s in total.
THE HOMEPAGE
The 4-column grid structure of the homepage acts as a complete “aggregator” of what you are doing online. As mentioned above, we’ve tried to design a theme with a whole lot of personality, which will allow you to really publish yourself online. In our mind, this aspect of THiCK makes it a truly unique theme across the alternatives that are available to you.
FUNCTIONALITY
As with every blog post that announces a new theme, we like to point out one feature that makes this theme different to the other themes we have available. So for THiCK, we’d like to highlight the widget-functionality, along with the truckload of custom widgets we’ve integrated with the theme.
The theme has 3 different widgetized spaces (left and right sidebar, along with the middle column on the homepage), which can either display our custom, THiCK-specific widgets or any default WordPress widgets. For the custom widgets, we’ve included a custom category list, the lifestream widget, asides / sideblog, built-in recent comments, your favourites (Movies, Books etc.), as well as Flickr & Social Media Profiles.
THiCK is probably our second theme (after Over Easy) that integrates such extensive use of widgets and the reason for this, is that we feel it increases your options, as the user of the theme. This approach has been very well received by users of Over Easy and we hope to get the same positive feedback from THiCK users.
ADD SOME PERSONALITY!
So what are you still waiting for? I’m sure that the marketing- / hype speak above, must’ve done the trick and at least prompted you to have a look at the amazing demo of THiCK… Right? 
Otherwise, read more about the specific features of THiCK if we haven’t convinced you yet…
And as always, we’d love your feedback!
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10 November 2008 at 8:45 am #
that is too great, this theme is what i´m waiting for. thank you so much. since the teasers i couldn´t wait any longer and now its here – great release.
i like the dark styles the most, any chance to get this theme in brown too?
my christmas present just arrived – in november!
10 November 2008 at 9:25 am #
@Tom – Glad you like the new theme!
We’re not planning on adding a brown version at this stage, but it should not be difficult to add using the base styles that are already there.
10 November 2008 at 9:26 am #
Great stuff guys!
The dirty styles are amazing!
10 November 2008 at 11:13 am #
Killer theme! The grunge styles are awesome and I think this theme helps to diversify you other offerings (which are typically more clean and polished for the most part). I really like the integration of social networks and interests like gaming, movies, etc.
A gamer-centric theme with XBOX LIVE gamertag integration would be pretty cool for a future release.
10 November 2008 at 11:54 am #
Me being quite a contrarian sometimes, I gotta say I think this theme is too dense, the eyes have no place to rest, 10 px gutters on frontpage, 20 px gutters on other pages… WTF… and there is a tennis-effect between the left and right sidebar columns, which makes matters worse.
The headers are too pronounced, and I overall can’t see what’s so “Matt Breet King of Grunge” about it.
But then again, I’d never heard about him before you mentioned him in a previous blog post, and when I viewed his site, I was like: “What? KIng of Grunge? Hardly… his style is more like a parody of grunge… too strict and pronounced… Jay Elliot Stocks is much much better…”
I’m not trying to be bitchy here, but the above is afterall my opinion.
10 November 2008 at 12:43 pm #
After a deeper look at the theme, yes, it’s too dense
10 November 2008 at 1:46 pm #
First of all let me say that you guys without a make the best WordPress themes on the net. There is no comparison. I didn’t buy a six months license for nothing. I truly believe that you guys have something special here at WooThemes.
That being said, this latest theme is really out of element for you guys. The theme has 4 columns. Mistake number one. Every column is essentially a bunch of blocks stacked on top of each other with a rounded border on the top. It is extremely inefficient and for a lack of a better term; ugly.
To quote my twit response to the announcement.
“A little disappointed on this one. You guys create the most aesthetic and elegant themes on the net. This just isn’t one of them.”
The graphics are either non-existent or unpolished, and the theme is just absolutely impossible to navigate and read without getting frustrated.
Some words of wisdom that I have learned over the years. More content does not mean better content.
There is just way too much going on, and this theme isn’t up to par with what you guys are capable of putting out, and what you have _shown_ you can put out.
I’m very excited to see what you guys come out with next. My opinion about you guys hasn’t changed a bit.
10 November 2008 at 1:48 pm #
@Oliver – Obviously, we’re not able to create every theme for everyone’s taste!
As you already see on these comments; some people will love the theme and others won’t, but that doesn’t make it less of a great release!
Matt Brett is a great designer and it is our believe that he brought that greatness to the table in creating THiCK.
10 November 2008 at 1:53 pm #
@Ben – You published that comment, as I published mine…
And I’ll reiterate what I said to Oliver… THiCK won’t be liked by everyone and yes, it is a very different theme to the one’s we have available at the moment. But that’s exactly the reason we are collaborating with great designers outside the walls of WooThemes; otherwise you will find that our designs would become rather monotonous after a while.
My vote is to let THiCK just go its way and we’ll judge the success (or lack thereof perhaps) after a few weeks of sales (of which there has already been a few since release btw). Some peeps are obviously loving the theme…
10 November 2008 at 2:40 pm #
I waited so long for this theme but After demoing it.. I feel so disappointed. Just look at My Games My DVDs section… so poor comparing it to Matt’s original blog. I think I’ll go with typebased.I looks much better.
Thank you Matt and woothemes staff
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10 November 2008 at 3:09 pm #
Glad to see it’s not just me;-)
Adii > The thing is, great design is great design, because of universal, sound design principles being used, like grids, rules of thirds, harmonic colors (triadic f.e.) whereas aesthetics is something that is individual. I’m all for the distressed look of grunge and punk design, but this theme is poor punk, not cool punk.
Not that today is not my first day as a club-member, because indeed it is, but it is because of all the other superb designs you offer.
If some users might end up enjoying THiCK – all the merrier. After all, you’ve more than released your promised quota of 1 theme per month, so more choice is welcome.
That said, if people like me (who’ve studied graphic design since 1996 or so) don’t tell you our honest opinions, you might run the risk of becoming mediocre in the long run, because of too much quantity and brand reliance on big-name designers (who might in turn be too busy to offer great quality in every assignment, etc) blah blah.
Just my 2(00) cents;-)
10 November 2008 at 3:55 pm #
Ha,Ha,Ha
I know everyone is entitled to there opinions but come on. If all the designs offered by Woo were all the “Typical” boring “Web 2.0″ style what a boring place the web would be to look at.
Matt’s designs are cool, are for people like me, a personal blogger and musician. I don’t want some “boring” straight laced design that some commerce guy would have. I want a funky design.
Just because people study music or whatever for years does not make them any better or worse at judging if they like something or not.
It’s great design by a great designer for people who want something different….maybe some people can’t handle or except that, and take it for what it is….different.
10 November 2008 at 4:39 pm #
New theme looks great guys! I would really love to see some more new magazine blog themes… A gazette 2.0 or something.
10 November 2008 at 5:07 pm #
Matt’s theme is definitely more along the style of his own blog, than the style we are used to here at WooThemes, and not really the style that I would go for.
But then again I would never go for a Mercedes, but a helluva lot of people do. They even think it looks good and so do critics. But we all know that just isn’t true. Catch my drift?
10 November 2008 at 11:34 pm #
@Oliver – Full on. We definitely appreciate feedback from our users (existing or prospective) and as I said – we don’t expect every theme to be liked by everyone of these users.
As you said – if we don’t listen to you, our theme offerings would become bland. And for that exact reason we sometimes need to do something completely different to what we’ve done before…
11 November 2008 at 10:43 am #
love that you offered pink! please keep doing that as an option
11 November 2008 at 10:13 pm #
We all have personal tastes and that is why we need alot of choice. No need to be negative, just pick another theme. There are plenty to go around!
13 November 2008 at 4:32 pm #
Didnt like the categories tabs (they are to bold) + the right side bar widht looks to me also somewhat not right (or atleast the features elements used in thatt sidebar not right for such widht). Not trying to be negative…you asked for what we feel and so we state it
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16 November 2008 at 3:55 pm #
I like the concept of this theme, two things hold me back from purchase:
There’s something off about the fact that the rounded header graphics don’t go to the sides of the main page body, the little sliver of white/dark on the edges looks unpolished to me. The right sidebar also looks too skinny to me, agree with another commenter about that.
The top center tabs are nice with the “About” etc but it seems like it should load in the page rather than having to totally reload everything, it feels not as refined as it could be that way.
On another note, it would be great to be able to quickly and easily customize those headers like “Categories” and “Lifestream” with graphics of our choices to make a more custom look.
Just a noob’s opinion. Love Matt Brett’s style. Looking forward to more of the custom themes, and can’t wait to load new Woo one on my pages!
17 November 2008 at 7:17 am #
From my point of view, it’s good theme. I myself fell into waiting from the design something similar to Matt Brett’s site. THiCK only resembles Matt’s own site, but foremost is a invidual design. Wrong expectations, in other words.
I think that this theme can function well for personal bloggers, but advanced users will need something more, an extra mile. There’s something with the theme’s clarity, white/blackspace and padding that could increase the usability of this layout.
It’s good design, but I’m going to pass this time. Keep up the good work!
19 May 2009 at 10:40 pm #
Awesome design if you ask me! Guys what font is used for that header should I want to design my own? it’s awesome