Expect this feature rich dream theme for musicians and bands, designed by Ryan Downie later this month. You might even be able to sell your albums with it…

To get everyone excited for our big milestone we thought we’d tease the theme in a different way. Ryan ‘The Cannon’ Ray has been experimenting with Final Cut Pro X and Motion and this is the result. Not bad if we say so ourselves!

Swatch was designed, and submitted to us, by Oliver Long, and will definitely be our most detailed and feature packed free theme we’ve ever released.

Don’t worry our loyal community of paying customers, you are not being forgotten, you’ll be smiling from ear to ear with our next few releases.

We’re trying our hand at redesigning the news, courtesy of the incredible talents from design maestro, Andy Rutledge.

A couple of weeks ago, Andy wrote an elaborate article about how digital news is broken. His article included an analysis of The New York Times‘, as well as a proposed design of how he would’ve attempted to “fix” digital news. His proposed redesign of The New York Times sparked many conversations across the social web and the design soon become a firm favourite amongst users.

So we acted swiftly, got in touch with Andy about the design and managed to acquire the rights to it. This means that you can soon expect the design – to be called Currents – to become part of the WooThemes collection. Just another way in which we go that one step further for our users.

#99 will be a new niche theme that we’re calling Announcement. Designed by Matthew Smith, the theme is geared at – you guessed it – making specific announcements. But there’s a twist though… The theme includes something new in a widget which is called “Woo – Component” and the only thing we’ll say about this now is: drag & drop, baby!

The second is a business theme called Swatch. Since this will be our 100th theme (can we hear you chanting “Woo! Woo! Woo!”?), we’re planning many surprises with this one. And that’s all you’re getting out of us on Swatch for now…

SupportPress is a help desk & knowledgebase all rolled into one theme (much like the beautifully designed hosted service, Tender). We think this will be a superb application (theme) for managing your customer support elegantly and most importantly: on a budget. Expect the release shortly. Teaser below…

The first new theme you can expect this month, is a brand-new, minimalist photography theme. This has been a very popular suggestion in recent months and we anyway felt the need to release a more modern (in terms of the functionality) version of Exposure (which was popular in its own right in the past). The new photography theme, Statua, is packing some serious punch and was designed by Chris Rowe, who also recently did Simplicity & Delicious Magazine (both that has shot up the popularity chart).

Here’s a little teaser:

Our second new theme for June, will be a grid-based magazine theme with emphasis on loads of content and a multitude of picture formats. This theme hasn’t been dubbed Editorial for no reason at all and we’ve rolled some special (new) functionality into this one with regards to individual post templates, columns and image galleries / sliders. We’re pretty excited about this new functionality, since we had loads of fun experimenting, pulling & prodding WordPress to get this just perfect.

This is what you can expect for Editorial:

They say “good things come to those who wait” and this month’s releases will be no different. Both themes are 99% completed and just about ready to launch; so they’ll go out well before we reach the end of the month.

Further good news is that next month’s themes are also already in the pipeline and well underway; so we’ll be going back to a more consistent & regular release schedule as of next month.

Don’t worry though, we’ll obviously never let a month pass without us releasing some new goodies (which we *will* blog about). Here’s a couple quick teasers for new themes which you can expect to drop in the next couple of days…

We’ve been wanting to work with Matthew Smith for ages and we finally got that opportunity to do so a couple months back. The result is a new theme, Saving Grace, aimed at charities and we’re not bluffing when we say that the design is absolutely pixel-perfect! We’re further excited about this release, as it fills a little hole in our existing theme collection. We’re looking forward to quite a few charities & non-profits joining the WooCommunity in the next couple of months.

Another designer we’ve been monitoring closely is Orman Clark, who has really been making a name for himself with his signature design style and Premium Pixels. We collaborated with Orman on the creation of a new business theme, Kaboodle, which further strengthens our existing collection of business themes. If you’ve seen Orman’s work around the web, you’ll absolutely love this design!

We trust you’re now as excited about these as we are…

A Colab?

Yep, we’re taking on this challenge with a collaboration, as our plates are already filled with a bunch of awesome things we’re working on, which means we simply don’t have enough time to take on every single idea that pops up within WooHQ. A collaboration with some awesome peeps therefore helps add capacity to the WooTeam, brings in some fresh voices and definitely gives the projects we’ll be collaborating more momentum, fire & passion.

The other reason for a collaboration is simply the niche nature of the themes that we’re aiming to release. If you have a look at our best-selling themes you’ll see that our users are predominately buying Business & Magazine-like themes. So whilst we’ve always made a push to release the odd niche theme, we’ve limited these in an attempt to satisfy the greater hunger of our users for Business, Magazine & Blog themes.

This approach however definitely leaves a couple of gaps, which would be great to fill (since we’d love to be *the* theme provider of choice for every single WP user by covering all of their niche bases imaginable). Again, a collaboration basically helps us do just that… Here’s the details…

The Details You Want

We’re teaming up with two awesome individuals: Jay Koster & Mike Jolley (who was previously responsible for some of the code over at our friends, AppThemes).

A few of weeks ago, these two approached us about a new theme they had started working on and wanted to explore ways in which we could collaborate. The theme – an application-like, bug-tracking & development tool – wasn’t necessarily something that we would’ve committed internal resources to and that was one of the main reasons why we loved the idea. Jay & Mike contributed a new passion & vision and we felt that this could be of great value to the WooCommunity.

We have subsequently finalized a relationship & collaboration which will see Jay & Mike join the WooTeam as honourary members (similar to Chris Rowe who joined us on the design front). They will be working on application-like themes, which will be targeting a variety of niches (some of which have been suggested via WooIdeas: Product Comparision, Q&A & Classifieds).

And it goes without saying that all of these themes will be available right here on WooThemes, where all of the club subscribers will get immediate, free access.

The First Theme: FaultPress

As mentioned, the first theme to be released under this collaboration is a bug-tracking & development tool and will officially be called FaultPress. The theme has just gone out to some beta testers and we expect that the release will be imminent. In the meantime, here’s a little preview of what you could expect…

What is this worth to you?

Finally, we’d love some feedback on the pricing of these new themes.

Last year we introduced a new pricing level for our Enterprise Themes (currently only Estate & Listings), as we felt that these themes contained advanced, niche functionality that would enable you to setup and monetize a new business quite easily. Our gut feel is that these new application-like themes would tend to fall under the same classification due to their advanced functionality and niche purpose.

What do you think? How should we classify these themes? And what should their price be?

The new theme, Premiere, is almost ready for release and we’re building quite a few additional goodies into the initial release. We’ve also added an elaborate membership system to the roadmap for Premiere and whilst this won’t be ready for the first version, we’re planning on shaking things up considerably with this functionality.

This is what you can expect to be hitting your computer screens shortly…

Prior to starting this design, we asked Chris to spend some time researching all of the most popular business themes out there and combine the best-of-the-best. Our opinion of the final product is that it’s absolutely fantastic and a guaranteed best-seller. Guaranteed we say.

Here’s a little preview:

In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be continuing this legacy by collaborating with the likes of Cameron Moll, Matthew Smith & Orman Clark, which obviously means that you can expect some extreme awesome on the design-front.

We’ve done this, because this obviously helps out with the capacity in terms of designing new stuff, but also supplements our own design work in keeping the styles & ideas fresh. One of our collaborative designers that has become more prominent in recent months, has been Chris Rowe, who we just recently worked with on themes such as Elefolio, Air & Spectrum. These designs (themes) have all proved to be very popular, which has resulted in us taking our collaboration with Chris to a new level.

Spectrum is now our 14th best-selling theme of all-time

Chris has signed up to become an honorary member of the WooTeam for the next couple of months, which will see him working on at least 6 new designs for us. Our decision in this regard was easy based on the quality of Chris’ design work and we’re hoping that we can leverage the relationship we’ve built to improve our future collaborative designs even further.

A Few Thoughts from Chris

We asked Chris a couple of questions about working with us and here’s what he had to say (divulge)…

Why do you like designing for WooThemes / working with the WooTeam?

I think one of the main reasons is that i’m working with a group of like-minded people. Often in the past I’ve worked with clients who have very little or no knowledge of web development. Explaining the simplest of things can turn out to be quite a time consuming and frustrating task. Working with the WooTeam has been a pleasure throughout, it’s been such a simple and hassle free process every time I’ve worked on a theme.

How does designing for WooThemes (and designing themes) differ from other client work?

It’s quite a contrast when you compare the two. Client work is often done in a controlled manner, with guidelines being set so the end design meets the clients spec / requirements. Theme design is usually the opposite, it tends to be a case of selecting what sort of theme needs to be designed (e.g. business) and then having full creative freedom on it.

Elefolio: Blogging + Tumblogging + Portfolio + Dribbble

What has been your favourite design so far?

I’d have to say Spectrum. When I originally started designing it, it kind of set out to be a version 2 of Gotham News which I’d wanted to do for quite a while. As it progressed it evolved into more of a image based news theme, due to it being a little bit different to the norm I think this is what’s helped it become a pretty good seller.

How does it feel to be the first “honorary member” of the WooTeam?

A true privilege. To me WooThemes is easily the biggest and most recognised WordPress theme selling company out there, to become not just an honorary member but also the first one is a great feeling. Having been able to design the themes I have so far has been a great experience for me so I thank the WooTeam for giving me that chance.

Next up: Food Magazine

The design that finally lead to us inking this new collaboration, is the design for one of our next releases, Food Magazine. It’s a new magazine-style theme – done by Chris obviously – which has a little niche focus: food. Below is a little teaser…

Delicious...

Before signing off, we need to mention that all aspiring designers out there, can take note of how Chris has evolved as a designer and to such an extent that he is now a honorary member of the WooTeam. You can do the same by submitting your designs to us here.

With that said, we’d like to show you a lil’ preview for our first theme of the year – Biznizz. Biznizz is a sweet new business theme, which will add some variety & spice to our existing collection. Expect the release in the next couple of days.

Launch date is imminent (no exact day has been decided yet) and we can confirm that the initial bundle of 10 amazing themes will be selling for $250 (lifetime updates & support, along with the PSD’s). So here’s a look at 5 of those 10 themes (the next 5 will be teased next week), ranging from magazine / news publishing to personal and microblogging to business & photography. It’s all there…

Diverse: Magazine Magnificence

Focused: Sexy Blogging

Nimble: Express Tumblogging

Practical: 1-2-3 Business Profit

SnapBlog: Photoblogging Reinvented

Existing WooThemes users will be able to get these on a significant discount; so don’t worry… We’ll look after you!

In the screencast, you’ll basically see Jeff creating a new custom post type, taxonomy & custom field on the go via the WooFramework, without touching a single line of code. Without giving away too much, we’ll just say that the idea is that you can roll your own directory with Listings, albeit a book directory or a car dealership. Check it out:

Firstly, we have Ryan Downie’s personal portfolio theme design that he originally designed for his own personal use – fueled by his passion for Coffee, Red Bull and lunchtime pot of noodles according to his Twitter stream.

This theme’s release is literally around the corner and boasts more custom post type integration and a great summize of your online presence on the home page.

Caffeinated by Ryan Downie

Then we have another exciting FREE theme coming to you in the next couple weeks. Skeptical is a clean personal design by Nur Fathihah – who submitted a design to us via our site, that we believe should be a hit based on Typebased‘s similar styling and success.

Skeptical by Nur Fathihah

Don’t worry there is of course lots of other development going on behind the scenes – a great new feature to the WooFramework by Foxinni (think sidebar management), an exciting restaurant theme with lots of niche functionality, iPhone testing and SVN management. Hope those hints are subtle enough to get your mind’s racing.

What to expect? Well, Crisp will be a hybrid between a personal blog and a tumblog (available on WordPress only; not Tumblr) and you can expect minimalism, perfect typography and an amazing canvas for your new content. Here’s a teaser…

Our business themes are by far the most popular range of themes on WooThemes (did I just use “themes” 4 times in the same sentence?), which means that a month without a new business theme almost feels kinda weird…

Sealight (by Chris Rowe, who also designed Spectrum) is our shiny new theme which is geared at being the beacon within your business. So expect to want to change your business website when Sealight is released soon. And then here’s the teaser so long…

In recent months, you may have been able to criticize us for a *supposed* lack of updates, theme releases at a fast rate & maybe even innovation. But we have been quietly working on things that will absolutely blow your mind, and the best news is that these will be available to you within the next 6 – 8 weeks.

First up, we have a brand-new real estate theme that will revolutionize the way you are building these type of websites with WordPress at the moment. On show today, is Realtor:

Using the latest functionality available in WP 3.0, we’ve developed something that will be of real value. And beyond this being “just another theme”, we’re also planning some very exciting additions & tweaks to our business model in a way that will influence the way you use WooThemes greatly.

For the moment, let’s just say that Realtor has been built using a the WooFramework + a new, little (!?) add-on.

Expect to love this one!