We’ve been releasing quite a steady flow of themes in the last couple of months (18 since the beginning of this year) and since this is (almost) the middle of 2009, we figured we’d take a little bit of a backseat and just consider our next move.
Whilst it’s our job to make decisions about what kind of themes to release next (and judging by the growth of WooThemes, we’re pretty good at that), we thought it’d be good to put this out there to all our fanboys and -girls and get your opinion / feeling on this… So just as a matter of recapping things, here’s all the “types” of themes we’re releasing at the moment:
- Personal Blogs. These are generally designs that are inspired by traditional blog layouts. The best examples are Abstract and Irresistible.
- Magazine / Content Heavy. So basically these kind of designs are geared towards blogs / websites that publish large amounts of content on a regular basis. Our best-selling themes in this category are Fresh News, Busy Bee & Gazette.
- CMS / Business. Quite a high number of our recent themes have been geared towards businesses and helping them achieve their strategic goals. The best business themes are The Station, Over Easy & VibrantCMS.
- Portfolio. These themes are generally aimed at designers / photographers / artists who blog, so the theme itself is a combo of a portfolio with a written blog. The best examples from our portfolio range is Fresh Folio & Proudfolio.
- Multimedia. So this is a little bit of a more diverse label, as it includes video blogging & photoblogging themes. This is also probably the type of themes that we should expand in the future. Our best multimedia themes at the moment are Aperture & WooTube.
What’s next then?
From the teasers that we have showed you, there’s a portfolio theme, a photoblogging theme, a personal / lifestream theme (similar to Tim van Damme’s own website) and a theme for bands / musicians (multimedia). We’re also releasing a new personal blog theme (for free) and a portfolio theme (by Dan Rubin) before the end of July.
In addition to those, we have 2 magazine themes, a business theme and 2 “girly” blog designs in the works (with our various collaborative partners, along with some in-house design goodness). But the question remains: What should be next?
We would really want to hear from you about what kind of themes we should be designing. We’ve got a bunch of awesome collaborations lined up with amazing new designers, but we’re not sure what to ask them to design. So use the comments and tell us (with examples preferably) what kind of designs you’d like to see us release next. Go on. We know you want to…
85 Responses to “Themes: What’s next?”
Definitely… I want to see a City Theme (Weather, Attractions, Events, Guide, etc.) in a very nice layout.
I don’t think there is a City theme available that was built as a city theme. Though there are lots of themes that can be modified into one.
Do you perhaps have an example of such a design that is currently live? Something we can base a generic theme on?
Hi Adii
For WooContest i designed a theme like that concept (city guid, events etc). You can see a demo:
http://www.maikelneris.com.br/places
Cool stuff. Will definitely have a peek there for some inspiration.
BTW… Did you use a plugin for the integration of Google Maps?
Yep. GeoPress (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/geopress/) – only to insert lat/long in posts. But i think its not a good plugin
(not so usable).
P.S.: sorry for my poor english
Got any suggestions in terms of an alternative plugin?
You can take a look at any city plus dotcom domains. losangeles.com (look at city list on the bottom) or maybe one of your friend (uhmm competitor…) http://gorillathemes.com/demo/traveler/
Thanks for both links.
In terms of the Traveler theme though… There’s nothing special or at least different to the theme, when it is compared to most “magazine” themes. The only thing that’s unique there is the weather widget. So why not just use a magazine theme for a “city theme”?
I’m just playing devil’s advocate btw…
definitively a VERY GOOD idea
sounds very interesting.
also a bar to implement last twitter, xing, forum headlines….
but could be also a fresh vacation theme like this link:
http://gorillathemes.com/latest-themes/traveler-magazine/
But what I really would like to find somewhere would be a multimedia page for e.g. a DJ oder Salsa Dance courses.
Complete with webradio or player, pic album scrolling thumbs with jquery tools. Slider menues on sidebar and a clean look but also with transparent layers which you can define in the css.
haha…. sorry
a bit much I guess for now but those features rock.
A business CMS theme that’s creative, edgy, and untraditional. One that doesn’t have a blog on the front page.
Haven’t we already covered that?
#devilsadvocate
Ditto – more business themes would be great (not sure where the non-blog home page comment is coming from, since you have done that), especially “creative, untraditional” ones.
Some of the latest business themes have felt a bit flat, graphically-speaking, as compared to themes like Cushy and Papercut, even though their functionality & features (I’m looking at you, Station and Suit & Tie) are awesome.
Hehe… In the past 3 months, The Station has been our best-selling theme. So whilst the graphics has been toned down, it makes it much easier for users to customize the hell out of the theme.
But I do hear you and we’ll try to release more business themes in the vein of Cushy towards the end of the year.
Having a wordpress to do for my self… I was thinking to use Irresistible.
But I would like to see the Tim Van Damme’s themes released… The teaser looks really nice
To see next? It starts with D and ends in rupal. =)
You have no idea how eager we are to unleash the Drupal themes onto the world… It’s taking a bit longer than expected though and since we don’t know the platform ourselves, we need to be conservative in the run-up to the initial release of those themes.
Totally understandable. The drupal world needs themes like this.
Why not an eCommerce WP theme ? There was lot of concepts for the Woocontest.
We do have one “unofficially” in the works, utilizing the Shopp plugin (http://shopplugin.net). There is however absolutely no ETA on this.
I would have to agree with jeremy. You look to have put magento on the back burner, so I would hope you could get an ecommerce theme out sooner rather than later.
i gotto agree.. ive been waiting on an ecommerce theme for a long time… i played around with the “marketplace” theme but i am not really too crazy about the style of it.
would love to see the ecommerce get a big more of a push to get out!
A shop theme would be great!!!
I love photoblogs so I am looking forward to your new themes for photobloggers. Aperture is nice, but it would be nice to see something with the blog separate from the home page.
Come back tomorrow… We’ll be posting a full preview of the upcoming Exposure theme was is a full-on photoblogging theme (whereas Aperture – whilst awesome – is still a little multi-purposed).
Cool, I can’t wait, because I plan on re-launching my photo blog very soon, and I need a nice theme for that!!
Or a “City Theme”, or a “Ecommerce Theme” or a “Photo-Art Galery of Art Theme”. In WP, please…
Can you explain the features & functionality you’d include in a “City Theme”? Maybe you can show us an example?
WP City Guide:
http://www.maikelneris.com.br/portfolio/
The Theme must be a guide of places in the city with Google Maps.
Many many adds (with js-query?), to the sponsors includes in the city guide.
categories vaery clean… to include the ecnomic sector in the city (e.g.: Restaurants, Museums, Financial, Public services (Police, Firebombs, Hospitals, etc), Shops, etc)
A theme so is a great bussines to woothemes and to woousers
Hi Pablo!
Check a demo of my WP City Guide: http://www.maikelneris.com.br/places
I like this Theme.
As someone that markets products to children, I know there is a large community of mom bloggers out there. As you create your “girly” themes, I suggest you play close attention to this audience of bloggers. There are tons of them, and most of them could benefit from a clean new template
.
R
Great to hear that… We’ve got some fantastic ideas lined up for the moms & girls out there and we’re planning to coincide the releases of these themes with international Breast Cancer Awareness month in October.
I’d love to see a grid/multimedia theme similar to say, Grid-a-licious that utilizes jQuery Masonry.
It’s such a neat way for multimedia artists, bands, designers, etc. to post things and it’ll get you guys into a little more of a non-traditional format (mix up your layouts a bit).
Cool idea. I’ve seen that Masonry plugin in action before, so think we’ll have to get Foxinni to give it a whirl sometime…
I’d snatch it up in an instant, I’ve got a ton o’ bands/art galleries that really like the looser, less organized, more bulletin-board format.
I would love a (it’s a huge long shot) theme that can handle a lot of categories for creating a foodie blog. Some work pretty well, so I can’t hardly complain. Can’t wait to sew the new stuff!!
Do you have an example of such a site perhaps? And what (beyond the handling of many categories) else would you include in terms of features / functionality?
The BuddyPress and Shopp plugins need some WooLove.
I second this.
I would love to see a business/portfolio theme, that looks very clean. For example http://www.4design.nl/template/abe
A light team, with a post page, that isn’t standard. Two columns post page?, with the opportunity of image placing.
An other thing I’m looking forward to see is something like http://www.bbc.co.uk/
A magazine team with everythin on it. Now the most of the premium themes are focused on one communication method, like Youtube (Groovy Video) etc. I would like to see a theme with everythin on it, placed on the frontpage.
What’s next, hmmm.
I think it’s best to launch all coming CMS and some magazine themes on Drupal first. Drupal is a real cms system, WordPress is cool, but mainly a blogging platform. There are already enough WordPress themes everywhere but good Drupal themes are still lacking, so tap into that market and you make a lot of Drupal users happy… Especially me
I also would like to see some Magento themes this year. I honestly don’t get the point in using WordPress for everything like ecommerce, magazines etc. If you are serious about ecommerce you don’t use WordPress, you will use Magento, oscommerce or for B2B sites creloaded B2B edition.
Away from WordPress and more focus on Drupal is what interest me most. Drupal is so powerful, but a bit harder to learn. But if you know how to use e.g. views and cck there are no limits.
If I buy woothemes to build websites for my clients I am now forced to use wordpress which is not suitable in the most cases. This means I will pass woothemes for my client’s websitse unless they want something cheap. But if you make drupal themes I will become a better woo-customer.
WordPress = in the box
Drupal = out the box
…At last that’s my humble opinion.
Personally, I second one of the above requests for themes that have a lot of categories to house lots of content. Here’s two such examples.
http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/
http://www.getdegrees.com
http://www.getdegrees.com/articles/
Excellent suggestions! I second.
i would love to see a kind of “family management” with an uploading function to a special server. beside that you can share pics, movies and all kind of informations.
there should be a ftp file browser included ( pw protected )so that its all private. it would be realy nice if there is a way to show a kind of family tree and share all infos whats going on. so a family member would be a “category” and this network shows everything.
maybe you use some social media, like a 1 page twitterstream.
and for the youngers some flash games. maybe the family grows with a marriage or a new baby and the family should know this all. and its easier then sending pics around the globe
for me i would love to see some themes using the parallax effect. maybe its possible to make a theme that switches the background every month and make it “seasonable”. if someone knows if/where a script like this would be available, pls help me out.
a shop would be great too, no matter if its magneto or wordpress. with a good documentation you can easily setup a shop for flowers, t-shirts, or stockphotos. a grunge style is more then welcome
I don’t have a good example (sorry!) but I would love to see more themes that are solid CMS oriented… and have a good well formatted blog page.
Sidebars optional on homepage or have a diff sidebar on the blog page.
What you are doing with multiple color schemes is right on.
Thanks!
Doesn’t The Station already speak to those needs / requirements?
yes, but different looks are good.
Would like to see a theme like Adii’s new Blog theme on his personal blog. Something like that, where I can take my photo at the top and put videos at the side.
Would also be cool, if every Blog theme gets this notification feature!
I’ve actually changed that design slightly, so will rework it a little and may consider releasing it on WooThemes in the coming months.
I know, I was thinking of this new design, which you show on Flickr. Very cool work!
Adii – check out toledo.com for inspiration on the city theme idea. Classifieds, newsletter, events calendar and local directory are some key features.
I think this concept is right for your next project – but add a little woo-oomph to it.
Also… I really think you need to create a woo plugin for authorize.net or paypal rather than using a third party option. Possibly for donations or a very simple e-commerce site. It’s definitely missing from your line-up.
Great – thanks for that. Toledo.com is probably a little more elaborate in terms of the functionality that we would include in such a theme (should we release something like it), but it’s a good point of reference nonetheless.
Agreed. It’s had years of work to get there. I personally think it’s too busy. The concept is good though – like you said, a good point of reference.
Cheers
Would realy like to see a musician/band theme! That would be great!
Check back to the blog later today… Up for release next month (hopefully) is a new musician / band theme – called Backstage – which was designed by Elliot Jay Stocks… So we’re showing you some previews of 4 new themes later today…
Cool! Looking sweet! Can’t wait to see the final!
A photography blog/theme that integrates a shopping cart for downloadable photographs, i.e in the client area as mentioned above or for stock images.
Another thought would be to sell separate pages that integrate into all future themes.
What do you mean by that? Can you elaborate please?
Modules / plugins?
E-commerce plugin
Newsletter Plugin
I’d be interested to see the grid idea put into action. I guess I’m in the “personal blogger” camp, but I’d really like to see something that can handle a lot of different things… video, music, portfolio/photos and a blog, while being resonably easy to customise and feature nice typography. I’d like to put everything in one place rather than have several blogs doing different jobs. I’m interested in how Big Easy is going to turn out, as I have high hopes for it.
I would love to see a real colorfull theme
What about Mainstream that we released yesterday? —> http://bit.ly/3WncZI
I would like to see a sports/team type theme, with a homepage that works like http://mcfc.co.uk/ – Using a main news banner at the top, with other features pulled in below (results, league table, other news items, twitter & flickr etc).
A hulu type theme. Videoblogging
A hulu, youtube type theme for Videoblogging.
Vote for weather, news, trends and maybe a little fashion
Boonex – Dolphin 6 is interesting.
http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/
There is an online demeo here:
http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/doldemo/
Add a business directory and this might be good for a city/community theme.
I’ve seen Dolphin before, but to emulate some of that functionality, we’d need to implement BuddyPress, which we’re not quite ready to do just yet.
Hi Adii,
How about some elegant yet colorful themes for authors? Not a grunge style like the upcoming musician theme, but maybe Mainstream or Meta-Morphosis redesigned for authors.
It might include a blog, picture of author on the top, speaking tour schedule, a section containing thumbnails for a few of their books with the most recent one large and on top, links to purchase the book, links to see videos of the author, FAQ, etc.
Thanks so much!
Rahim
That’s not a bad idea… I’ll add it to our ideas list!
You’ve got a great set of themes and I think you should update most of them to the current platform. Personally I’m waiting on Gazette 2!
Gazette 2.0 is on it’s way… Fox has been recoding a lot of the functionality in the past week and I believe that it should be released next week.
i’d like to see stronger e-commerce themes built on WP.
BuddyPress is coming along by leaps and bounds, especially now that bbPress forum integration has been made much easier and, also, WordPress MU is being merged into standard WordPress. That is all going to make running a BuddyPress site a practical option for far more people and a good premium theme would really clean up.
I totally hear you and I’d love to release BuddyPress themes on WooThemes… The only problem is a little shortage in time at this stage… We obviously don’t know BuddyPress as well as we do WP, and we don’t have the spare time to invest in that learning curve at the moment.
Yes, I understand that you have to be careful in how you invest your time but it is worth noting that you’ve already done the hardest bit: you’ve assembled a varied, high-quality collection of WP themes. Andy Peatling has made adapting WP themes to BuddyPress much easier by providing a skeleton theme as part of the BuddyPress Skeleton Component:
http://testbp.org/resources/bp-skeleton-component-1.2.zip
… using your existing PSD -> HTML -> WP workflow, you could simply use the skeleton theme to show you what page types are necessary and what BP code you needed to stick into your HTML version of those page types. The learning curve is probably not as steep as you imagine.
Obviously, far fewer people are going to have BuddyPress sites than standard WordPress sites but the financial argument for offering a BuddyPress theme is that a far higher percentage of BuddyPress sites will actually pay for their themes because they will be businesses, organizations, churches etc for whom piracy would not be an option.
Also, the existence of a BuddyPress theme in your collection would be appealing to potential customers considering club membership because, although they might not have immediate plans to create a BuddyPress site, the possibility is interesting to most site owners, they would certainly perceive the inclusion of a BuddyPress theme to be an added value, even if they never actually get around to using it. It is also the sort of move that would garner a lot of publicity and goodwill within the WordPress community.
The market for premium BuddyPress themes is wide open because none of the free themes look very good. Andy Peatling himself created an impressive theme for the main BuddyPress site, which gives a hint of what is possible:
http://buddypress.org/
… but he will not be releasing that as he wants the main BuddyPress site to remain distinctive. Aspects of Andy’s design remind me of the upcoming Antisocial theme by Tim van Damme, that could be a very good starting point.
I only mention all this because it would be good to see some Woo tastiness appear in the BuddyPress world but I totally understand how easy it is to get bogged down in your existing business commitments, to the extend that pursuing new markets becomes impossible.
I wouldn’t say that pursuing BuddyPress is impossible, but it is most definitely a different ballgame to the one we’re used to… Even though your argument is compelling (and I wholeheartedly agree), every business still faces limitations which they need to find solutions / workarounds for and we’re pretty much at that stage now concerning BuddyPress.
http://buddypress.org/forums/topic/theme-authors-take-note-templates-and-loops-are-not-just-for-the-member-theme
More options for business sites are always good, but in particular, when I’m talking with real estate agent prospects, I find myself turning to Gorilla Themes’ two real estate options. The support for listings that are easily managed is very compelling.
A theme that is centered around events would also be an excellent addition. There’s an innate problem in the presentation of displaying events because of how they need both a publication date and an event date, not a natural course for WordPress. Last time we had to tackle this problem, none of the event plugins really cut it so we went with embedded Google calendars.
Finally, as a Shopp beta tester, the idea of an e-commerce theme that is already expecting Shopp to be installed would be truly spiff.
Aaron is absolutly right. We need serious themes for business. There is the money.
Also by using a Event Calender, if the client is a company who wants to promote upcoming events, Courses, meetings and so on.
This would work great with a subscribtion possiblity for this particular event and maybe showing the free places left.
This is more a custom work I guess. But what do you guys charge for custom work?
I’m hoping they don’t want custom work, since that’s what we do.
But WooThemes has made our work tremendously easier, which is why we bought into their Developers Club within a day of learning of it, afraid they’d come to their senses and charge more, which we’d then end up paying anyway.
Every body love cms, not just you guys. Definitely love the themes. In fact I have been building website for years and never use cms theme before until recently. cms Code is really a cool that everybody can have their website now .
I am wondering if there might be plans for a different layout. I adore this layout on a photographers blog but I don’t know if they use wordpress or not. http://www.sarahrhoads.com/blog