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The Company Delegate
22. Sep, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in Theme Concepts
Our Business Themes collection is still one of our most popular ranges on WooThemes and to an extent this popularity was sparked by the release of the grand-daddy – VibrantCMS – back in July last year.
So in a recent little internal study to decide which type of themes we should be working on, we decided that since VibrantCMS was still selling really well, we needed to release an updated, more modern and younger brother for it. The result is an awesome new design – entitled Delegate – which we produced internally, with FRESH01 at the helm of the design duties.
Taken from Dictionary.com, this is what Delegate means:
a person designated to act for or represent another or others; deputy; representative, as in a political convention.
So what does this supposed awesome design look like?
Delegate - Homepage
Delegate - Inner Page
As you’ll see, we haven’t tried to reinvent any wheels and Delegate features a similar dynamic, sliding featured area (on the homepage), which made themes like VibrantCMS, Over Easy and more recently – Coffee Break – extremely popular. The design borrows some of it’s glossy, modern styling elements from Apple- / Mac OSX-inspired website designs.
The theme has been purposefully crafted to serve as a professional representation of your business online and along with the sleek, stylish design we think you’ll make a good impression on your existing & prospective customers.
What do you think? Have we nailed it with this design? Any features or specific functionality we have missed?
87 Responses to “The Company Delegate”
22 September 2009 at 6:15 am #
This looks great. Any chance you could look at doing a theme that could be used by small not for profits or community organisations?
22 September 2009 at 6:21 am #
Can’t any theme be used for small NPO’s?
What I mean though is: what unique features would you include in such a design?
22 September 2009 at 6:31 am #
How about Twitpic and Twitvid integration, just like you’ve got Flickr integration.
I’d also like the opportunity to have both pages and categories in the top bar. Perhaps an option to choose what goes up there. I also like the customisation of Daily Edition’s footer.
Can you embed a video on the slider?
26 September 2009 at 3:41 pm #
Incredible teaser guys! I have a couple of suggestions most of which have been mentioned in passing but I’ll ramble of nonetheless
- Pages or posts in the top navigation bar
- SIFR fonts (Such a shame when you get you get excited over a rendered teaser only to find the usual sharp type face)
- Autoscrolling carosel
- 2 or 3 footer widgets below slightly darker blue block (love the contact block by the way)
- Make the contact telephone number in the top right a widget space (I would love to drop my own text widget or twitter status widget in there)
Keep up the good work! I’m looking to freshen up a couple of my clients blogs this winter and this looks like it could be just the ticket!
Any hint as to when this might be released?
22 September 2009 at 6:20 am #
Sorry – to answer your question. It’d be great if this could focus on donating, joining, signing up to a mailing list “out of the box”. I suppose integration with MailChimp or similar is out of the question?
22 September 2009 at 6:22 am #
Not necessarily. We’ve created both Feedburner & CampaignMonitor widgets in the past.
22 September 2009 at 6:33 am #
Given that MailChimp has just released their “freemium” options for small business, it may be something worth looking at.
22 September 2009 at 6:40 am #
Hi Adii,
Fellow South African here, living in Langebaan.
VERY nice looking theme.
One thing I would like to see you do, not just with this theme, but, all your business/CMS type themes….
Include a whole bunch of page templates to be easily modified by the prospective customer.
I know for myself, when it comes to page layout, and graphics in general, I really SUCK.
Having a bunch of page templates as starting points GREATLY reduces time to publish for myself.
Sorry for this link, and will understand completely if you remove it, but, these guys have the right idea with tons of page templates to start working from: http://wpremix.com/
All the best.
Richelo
22 September 2009 at 7:36 am #
Well, I must say Richelo has a good point there. Those ready made pages would be life simpler for many small business owners [ & even webmasters too!!] I bet that if you ran a poll on whether end users would want this, majority would be Yes. Just makes life simpler for everyone, except you, ie.
22 September 2009 at 9:49 am #
I like where Richelo is going with this.
It would be great to see a few options for Gallery page layouts in the theme options panel. A few options for Footers would be fantastic too.
Although, themes with this type of functionality may need another price point in your business model
Great job with the Delegate theme. I can’t wait to see what shows up in the showcase!
22 September 2009 at 2:02 pm #
The only problem with WPRemix is that all of those page templates are static and require tweaking to the templates themselves to actually mean something.
As most of our users would like to stay away from editing code, this is obviously then not an option for us.
But point taken with regards to the page templates and we’ll spend some time figuring out how to include some more page templates into the theme.
22 September 2009 at 2:38 pm #
What about the sort of functionality you see in themes such as thesis/headway where you can specify different column layouts on a page basis for example.
Just a thought.
23 September 2009 at 12:46 am #
And not a bad thought…
That kind of functionality is easily included in any theme, but there are two downsides imo:
So I guess as with anything that we *could* include in our themes, there’s always a trade-off / compromise somewhere; irrespective of how awesome the suggested functionality is.
What do you think?
22 September 2009 at 8:19 pm #
Not to worry Woo, these guys “wpremix” don’t have what it takes to make super goodlooking themes.
23 September 2009 at 12:39 am #
Hehe, it’s not about being worried. I just however pointed out that WPRemix (whilst very innovative at the time) was Bhavesh’ earlier work and that he is now doing some very cool stuff over at PremiumThemes.net.
24 September 2009 at 1:25 am #
thanks for the comments guys. WP Remix was created in 2007 just after Brian Gardner released his revolution theme.
Built with the idea to give lots of choice to people but as Adii said, the code is static and at present times, the flexibility is the key.
Second problem with the wpremix kind of theme is the bloated code that makes customization a bit painful for the site owner. However, based on wpremix idea, the flexx theme from ithemes is quite successful to create blog sites.
Finally, I personally think that done right, wpremix kind of theme could solve many problems and could be popular at the same time. I just need a super awesome coder like foxinni to do that
22 September 2009 at 7:45 am #
I’d say you nailed it.
As far as functionality goes, I know I’m enjoying the heck out of the way Object works with photos & videos (simple embedding, nice galleries, etc.), and its font replacement system. It’d be great to have those in Delegate, too.
22 September 2009 at 2:06 pm #
With Object, we’ve definitely decided to use more core WP function in terms of multimedia management and I think that the upcoming release of Exposure will take that to an even higher level.
27 September 2009 at 6:11 am #
Wanna know why I love you guys? You’re always outdoing yourselves.
Rock on, Adii.
22 September 2009 at 7:57 am #
Are the items in the blue bar under the slider image just shortcuts to the slider image link ?
And on a perhaps related issue…
One thing that sort of frustrates me in most of these themes is that I much prefer a single nav bar with a mix of pages and categories. That means almost every time I have to start fiddling with the code.
22 September 2009 at 7:58 am #
And what I forgot to say: Great theme ! It looks “effortless” and clean
22 September 2009 at 2:08 pm #
The only problem with a combo-type navigation bar is controlling the order in which pages & categories are displayed. Individually this is possible, but as soon as it gets mixed, it’s not possible without 3rd party plugins (which we try to avoid as well).
22 September 2009 at 8:04 am #
Do businesses really use flickr? In our case, I’d want our photos self-hosted.
I’d like to see an alternative photo gallery implementation with a photo template page in the style. Use a jQuery plugin like Cycle. I’ve got to develop a page template for The Station for our photo gallery.
22 September 2009 at 2:10 pm #
Why not use Flickr though? They’re the leaders in the field.
So whilst it’s noted that multimedia functionality is a definite add-on on our business themes (Adam mentioned it above), I don’t see that is an either / or situation with regards to Flickr. What do you think?
28 September 2009 at 11:35 am #
Agree. It shouldn’t be an ‘either/or’ especially since woo implements Flickr nicely.
22 September 2009 at 8:24 am #
Great work! I’m just working on Vibrant for a client – so here are a few questions:
- Does the slider move on auto or only like Vcms?
- Is it possible to make Vcms slider move on auto?
- Can a featured blog post be auto inserted where the Camcorder is?
- Are there any ad-block options (top header in place of address)?
- a 5-column footer similar to this page, would be handy!
- When will it be out? (should I continue with Vcms?)
Woo Rocks.
22 September 2009 at 11:55 am #
I second the efforts for non-profits. Widgets for MailChimp and others would be great. Donation buttons and/or widgets. I use a banner in the header for some sites for donations. That works well.
22 September 2009 at 12:01 pm #
Release it now! it’s awesome as it is!!!
22 September 2009 at 1:25 pm #
Love it! Looking great! Would also like to second the MailChimp integration. We use their plugin, but any integration out of the box would be awesome.
22 September 2009 at 3:57 pm #
There is absolutely no way that ANY of the businesses I deal with would host any pictures on Flickr. It’s regarded as a hobby site for people to dump pictures who are too cheap or technically challenged to host their own. It would be a serious insult to their prestige to use it.
Likewise Twitter is often (but not always) seen as a time-waster and a toy. If I suggest it the usual replies center around “We’ll have to get someone to send messages all the time” and “what return do we get from that effort?”
These services may be good for small businesses run by younger folk, but they sure as heck don;t impress the older crowd.
22 September 2009 at 4:52 pm #
I think Woothemes is a good case study for how a small business can leverage Twitter and build a following. It’s not for everyone though.
23 September 2009 at 12:43 am #
From my own business perspective, I absolutely adore comments like these:
And I agree with you wholeheartedly; my own dad sees things this way as well. But that doesn’t mean that we “younger folk” need to adhere to the rules that seemed to be set in stone in the past. Fact is that corporates generally don’t get social media anyway, but again we’re not going to exclude the integration thereof in our themes because of that. And ultimately a Flickr widget is a widget, because it’s only optional…
5 October 2009 at 3:38 pm #
Talking of cutesy twitter icons…. Is possibly to get a nice twitter icon on to The Station widget?
It just says THE STATION … a little birdy to remind my the sophisticated clientele of my sector that I’m a modern dynamic company in line with the times would be nice
5 October 2009 at 3:44 pm #
Hehe… Unfortunately The Station was designed to be more minimalistic in style, so I don’t think we’ll be adding an icon there any time soon. But feel free to post the question on our support forum and we may be able to help out.
5 October 2009 at 3:44 pm #
jeez, I meant to wrote “Is it possibe to get a nice twitter icon on to The Station widget?”
… at-least that way I could also distract them from my typos, or what about an animated bitmap gif?
23 September 2009 at 12:16 pm #
Twitter has some great case studies:
http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/cases
I think more than just small businesses run by younger folks can benefit from Twitter if used correctly.
23 September 2009 at 9:10 pm #
Maybe, but it’s not my job to “educate” clients in pop culture and social media. They usually have reasonably clear preferences and ideas, and it’s my job to make those ideas happen.
Cute Flickr and Twitter widgets are great for certain themes & demographic targets. But for themes aimed at more serious business sites, I’d like to see more “traditional” inclusions like self-hosted image galleries, integrated newsletter signups, and “highlights” areas for new products, services or events.
All the Flickr and Twitter stuff gets very “samey” after a while.
4 October 2009 at 7:24 pm #
Isn’t the fact that it’s samey testament to the huge amount of relevant traffic at your disposal on these social media sites?
May I ask what is the ’serious business’ that you are in that would belch at the site of seeing a “cute” Twitter or Flickr widget? These applications can harness a lot of power for a lot of different sectors, maybe you just haven’t tapped in to this resource yet?
4 October 2009 at 8:04 pm #
I’ve been having a good think about what type of serious business sectors would turn their noses up at cute twitter icons.
Maybe you’re right, do you work in the tailor made tweed jackets sector in St James, London, where men, (real men ok) still wear brogues and have righteous stiff upper lips?
23 September 2009 at 4:06 am #
Err.. I was designing 70%-80% similar theme… :/ (present continuous).
I think will switch to something else.. but yeah, this looks really awesome and cleanly done !
23 September 2009 at 4:20 am #
Any ideas, for the release date? 88% chances of buying ! :/
23 September 2009 at 8:34 am #
I think what I’d like to see most out of the Woo “business” themes would be a higher variance in graphics. You do an amazing job, usually, of making a variance in color schemes, but go no further. For instance, this theme’s functionality is amazing, and its structure perfect. But for me to use it for the majority of clients who need the function, I’d have to change all the graphics. As it stands now, Delegate is a little too “cutesy” with its soft edges, rounded corners, etc.
Granted, it is fair enough ot be on me to change the graphics if I so desire. But you asked what we’d like to see.
Thanks!
23 September 2009 at 11:05 am #
I hope this is the next theme release. I have projects ready to launch and this theme is perfect. Great job.
23 September 2009 at 9:17 pm #
Nice clean theme!
Here’s just a suggestion: to have the option to choose between showing the contact info on the top right (company name, phone and email) OR showing an 468×60 ad.
24 September 2009 at 7:57 am #
Great theme – I’d definitely plunk down the caysh monies for this.
Where does this fall in the Woo Queue?
24 September 2009 at 8:39 am #
It’s in there with the rest, so release could be anytime once it’s actually coded
24 September 2009 at 11:56 am #
Delegate looks fantastic!!
A quick wish list:
There are two thing that I would like to see with your business themes. The first is the option to include the slider in every page (ie, home, posts, pages). When someone comes to the site through a long term keyword search on a secondary page or post, the goal is to still sell the product or service. The slider is a perfect way to present it.
The second is the option to have full-width pages. You already started incorporating that with your recent themes. This is much appreciated. Keep up the good work!
Thanks!!
24 September 2009 at 2:28 pm #
I had a side thought about having a “delegate” for a theme (or all themes) that would represent a blog when viewed on a mobile device. I am not sure if this has been brought up much or if it is even something worth while… but one of the things I notice when I visit certain sites on my cell phone, is that it (somehow) creates an alternative CSS where only the the text and essential bits remain.
I good example is when I visit CNN.com on my iPhone. It takes away all the extra markup, columns and gives me just the basic stuff. For a constant blogger, this would be GREAT to learn or have incorporated in a theme to act as a mobile “delegate” for the site.
I have seen a wordpress plugin that does this, but it seems clunky still. (That, and I haven’t tried it since the last big WP update.)
Any thoughts on this? Have you ever thought of making a theme that can be seen differently on a mobile device?
Thanks!!
-Scott
24 September 2009 at 6:47 pm #
I’ve actually been pondering sending all mobile requests to a very stripped down version, a la facebook mobile. Basically just text nav links at top, feed on the bottom. You don’t need a theme for that.
25 September 2009 at 10:00 am #
So, you would need a facebook account to view it?
24 September 2009 at 6:44 pm #
Schweet!
25 September 2009 at 8:42 am #
can you add that GET GRAVATAR jquery plugin in it.
25 September 2009 at 8:43 am #
by the way….. nice buttons!!
25 September 2009 at 8:29 pm #
This is a great look, and any shift of focus towards business is great news!
27 September 2009 at 12:43 pm #
Would it be possible to include a page template for portfolio items?
Instead of just a page listing products, a portfolio item to be able to click items and get a lightbox image/page or take it to an entry.
1 October 2009 at 5:53 am #
This looks amazing! I can’t wait for this one to come out the design looks so professional and I really like the slider incorporation. Great work!
2 October 2009 at 12:31 am #
Can you at least remove the Flickr image sidebar ? Very few serious businesses are going to have their product photos on Flickr. I know it’s just an option, but really it immediately makes the theme feel amateurish to me. If it’s supposed to be a business theme, let’s see business-based widgets, and a self-hosted sidebar gallery.
2 October 2009 at 1:54 am #
Sure – it’s a widget.
3 October 2009 at 2:03 am #
Very cheeky Adii ! I mean get it off any demo view and replace it with a real self-hosted product gallery with captions/links. No serious (non-web) company uses Flickr.
2 October 2009 at 5:18 am #
Can you give an approximate release date? Sorry I just don’t think I can wait for this one, its perfect.
2 October 2009 at 6:07 am #
Before December
4 October 2009 at 5:14 pm #
grrr
Are you any closer to giving an exact date yet? I was going to buy Coffee Break, Over Easy, and The Station but now REALLY want to swap Over Easy for this theme, and have it as my main one. Damn, I wish you guys would make choosing a theme a bit easier.
I really would appreciate a slightly more precise guesstimate if that’s OK because I’ve delayed a project for 2 months already trying to decide a theme … so what about next week? lol
Also, PLEASE include a fully widgetized area in that nice wide footer space.
I will be sending customers over to a complex ‘Get Quote’ contact form with an option to upload a file, so the smaller simple contact form space at the bottom right will have no use to me and would like to swap it for another widget.
5 October 2009 at 12:29 am #
Unfortunately, considering that we have 10+ themes that we’re working on at the moment, it’s impossible that we can accurately determine which themes will be ready then. So it’s because of that, that we’ve decided to adopt a “release when ready” approach.
Delegate will most likely not be release before late November / early December though.
2 October 2009 at 6:34 am #
ok thanks, really can’t wait for this one!
4 October 2009 at 7:49 pm #
On page teases on the first page bellow the jQuery slider (or as many places possible), could you make the titles in to links as well as the ‘Read More’ links.
I believe links that share the same title as a page is good for SEO (amongst a load of other little details obviously)
Adii, ‘white hat SEO; is relied upon by many a non profit and charities with smaller budgets as a very effective way on saving on marketing campaigns for PPC. It is not necessarily a sleazy thing, maybe you are getting mixed up with what’s referred to as ‘black hat’ techniques which have given SEO a bad name amongst some circles.
Incidentally ‘Content is King’ is also the mantra of people who practice white hat SEO, and is the primary lesson Matt Cutts pontificates (Head of the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues, and who uses Thesis for his personal blog). The key is getting the content right, and having a little helping hand with some easily implementable features in a theme to help important content get found (amongst all the SEO themes out there screaming for attention in Google organic search). Yes, Thesis is as ugly as sin, but certain features can easily be adopted.
Good looking design (or awesomeness …ahem) and some SEO features do not have to be mutually exclusive. Lead the way!
5 October 2009 at 12:22 am #
Thanks for the suggestion re the links; we’ll definitely be considering this for Delegate before we release.
And with regards to SEO… I’m still not a fan; albeit white or black hat (I also know the difference btw). Too many people get caught up in supposed SEO & SEM, that they forget what a business is really about: quality products / services, quality content & quality marketing of those two.
6 October 2009 at 5:35 am #
Release NOW!!!
Awesome theme. Great for business (if submenu added and with page). Would be great in Red, Black, White colors!!
Waiting for take off.
6 October 2009 at 8:44 am #
It’s coming, it’s coming!
15 October 2009 at 1:40 pm #
How are we getting one with this rocking new theme guys? Like alot of people no doubt, I’m watching these comments, the blog and twitter for any news
Still looking for suggestions/ideas?
1) How about adding the option to add a post grid (using just the post title and the thumbnail) below the first couple of posts on the homepage? That way those of us planning to use this theme for a business site/blog could display individual products or services in a catalogue fashion on the first page below the feature stroller and a bit of blub. We could control the entire layout using your admin controls and/or sticky posts.
2) How about adding the new Exposure gallery widgets in this or the framework? With the new media functionality in 2.9 these widgets are going to rock!
Keep up the great work!
16 October 2009 at 2:21 am #
Delegate hasn’t even gone into development yet (unfortunately), because we’ve been backlogged with our breast cancer awareness month themes (F01.01 & Royalle). But two awesome suggestions nonetheless and we’ll look into including these in Delegate.
18 October 2009 at 1:39 pm #
Cheers Adii. Are we still tracking towards a “late November, early December” release? I’m looking forward to getting under the hood and putting some personal touches to this bad boy!
18 October 2009 at 3:54 pm #
Yeah, that should be about right. But don’t hold me to it. We have a “release when ready” approach here at Woo and our timing may change from now until November / December.
15 October 2009 at 4:16 pm #
Oh and the ability to set different call to action button text/links on each pages of the featured slider would be ace! Perhaps it could pull in a custom field?
16 October 2009 at 2:21 am #
Yep, this will most probably be included in just this way!
18 October 2009 at 1:42 pm #
Clearly you guys know what your doing so I’m going to shut up and let up and let you get on it;) Keep us posted
18 October 2009 at 3:53 pm #
Please don’t shut up!
We love it when our users ask us for specific functionality or make suggestions as to how they think we can improve a theme; because that really results in us actually releasing a better theme.
20 October 2009 at 2:50 pm #
This is the way the best businesses succeed
Ok, In that case, I really love the look of this theme, but would like to see the titles of services listed on the front page above teasers to be links as-well as the ‘read more’ text (instead of having to click on ‘read more’ only such as on CoffeeBreak)
I also like how on Adii’s own theme Rockstar the title and slogan are searchable, I also like being able to upload JPEG logos like on Woo’s other themes. How about having the option to do either or both? The graphical element of a logo could be uploaded as a JPEG and the title and slogan could be added as HTML.
Lastly, it would be great if the footer is fully widgetized, with another further space bellow for for Copyright text and Privacy Policy links etc.
That’s all really, many thanks for producing the best themes.
3 November 2009 at 10:14 pm #
Also, (hopefully you’re not going to regret saying please don’t shut up soon) one of the things that really attracts me to this theme is the clear contact information at the top right, perfect. I also believe it’s good for this to be in the footer as with Coffee Break… or as an optional widget or whatever.
Could you kindly consider taking it a step further and including vcard and mailing icon, next to the text, and also maybe the possibility to have an optional ’skype call’ or ’skype chat’ icon if the website owner wants to add that also.
An example of what I’m trying to describe here: http://www.headscape.co.uk/
Thanks for listening.
6 November 2009 at 3:01 am #
This theme is really gorgeous. It´s so elegant and in style. Do you already know which features it will have and when it will come?
BR Tobias
6 November 2009 at 3:27 am #
Nope – neither the nitty-gritty in terms of the features or the ETA has been discussed or finalized.
7 November 2009 at 6:53 pm #
I have to say i agree with the Flickr pointers that certainly most of my business would use Flickr for the gallery – but on the other hand – as it is a widget then it can be enabled or disabled – i thik it is a good option. I personally always use nextgen gallery for the gallerys as it is a cracking plugin – and example of this in use on a station based site is here : http://www.ypel.co.uk/components i hav also included the sidebar wiget on some of the pages – so on that i woulod like to see effot put into other areas – on thing that i woould give my right hand for is a slider a-la this site http://titanabseil.org.uk/ with the ability to have it on more pages than just the home page. I did have some contatc with these guiys from the forum when they ran into a bit of trouble – but i have never been able to successfully recreate that slider and get it to work. Now thats what i REALLY would like to see
7 November 2009 at 6:55 pm #
sorry – i meant to say would not use flickr – i should have checked the last post for the multitude of typos before submitting
10 November 2009 at 5:41 am #
Great looking theme! It’s just crazy how easy it gets to build a corporate website with templates like this one. The only downside is that you’ll get many websites looking the same and people will recognize the template. Leave room for customization so people can tweak it a bit.
17 November 2009 at 2:35 pm #
Hey guys! How are you getting on with this one? Early Christmas present from the Woo team perhaps!?
17 November 2009 at 6:12 pm #
Probably not; it’ll likely only be released in January.
18 November 2009 at 4:40 pm #
Mighty shame but thanks for the update!
4 November 2009 at 12:11 am #
Thanks for the suggestions. The vcard will definitely be included and we’ll consider the Skype link.