Frank Schulte-Ladbeck

Archive for the ‘Themes’ Category

A two columned, black toned theme with a white background and blue highlights

Maybe I should name all of my themes by the music that I was listening to when creating them. In this case, it was David Bowie’s “Heroes”. I wanted to get away from the textured pattern background for this theme. When I look at possible themes to use on a site, my eye is drawn to dark colored headers with white backgrounds for the content.

This theme was meant to be more general purpose for various small businesses. I noticed a few consultants using that basic idea for their sites, and with some header manipulation, this may be good for your business. Imagine adding a photograph to the right hand side to add a personal touch. If planning to use this as a CMS, I would remove the sidebar elements which suggest blog, like the blogroll and categories.

The sidebar is composed of individual blocks for widgets. The distance between each block is two pixels, to create a divide between each element. The headers are in blue with the buttons in a lighter shade of blue. I thought that the blue would go along with the black, and hopefully not take away from the company logo that could be inserted. The idea is to have these elements noticed, but not clamoring for attention. This color scheme was carried over into the link colors for the content.

I would move and change the RSS button, which is currently in the footer. I am leaving it in the footer in my themes, because I want you to make your own decision to its placement. I discovered with my current theme setup that the footer can be lost from view to many readers. Yet people still find it. I left it orange in this theme, because this is a visual cue to users (most sites have an orange RSS icon). I would change it to match the blue in the sidebar elements.

The navigation is below the header, and it includes a multi-stage menu. I am coming to the belief that this navigation effect is better for business sites. When you plan out your pages, you will find them in groups. A multi-stage menu allows you to maintain those groups, while keeping a clean look for the navigation. I also like the visual cue of having the opened page highlighted, with the others not having that tab outline around them. I went for below the header, because I feel that this would be a better position for the user to navigate from.

If using this theme for a personal site, you will want to remove the pages listed in the footer, like “Terms of Service”, which are meant for a business.

Download Heroes theme.

A three columned theme in grey tones with a paper texture background.

This is the theme that I created for this site. My idea was to have a straight forward theme that could be used by any consultant. I also wanted to begin experimenting with the structure of a theme with three columns. My love of reading physical books, magazines, and newspapers led me to using a paper texture for the backgound.

If you are looking at this site, then you will be seeing all you need to know. As I expressed before, having three columns can be convenient for a site, and the left hand sidebar will not be the most visited, but this setup allows for arrangements which can be cleaner looking as the blog grows. This was also the first time that I experimented with navigation on the top. I am finding that I like the look and feel of this position. When a user loads the page in his browser, that navigation is easy to see and comprehend. If they do not want to see a post, but they are heading to a specific page, this can be convenient for them.

The header was designed to have an element on the right side. As you can see above, I included my logo and my phone number. I think including something of this nature would be beneficial to any small business as a means of creating a brand. You can add your own to the header by editing it in a photo editor. The header is located in the images folder.

Of course, as I develop this site more, certain elements will change from the template of this theme. My concern is what will go into the sidebars. Most themes include the archives section, but I have not been interested in accessing posts in that fashion. I can see where it is helpful, so I am leaving it up for now. For older sites, the archives section can add the impression of stability. Users see consistent postings over a long period. For newer sites, this could be a detriment. Users may remember that they read a post last month, so the archives become handy to navigation. I have also become less of a fan of the blogroll for personal concerns. For the visitor though, these links can provide a wealth of information. If you decide to use this theme and WordPress as a CMS (content management system) for your webpages, I would loose the blogroll, because it really does encourage the belief in your site being a blog. You will see the changes that I make from this theme as we go along.

As always, the footer contains a list of pages that are meant for a small business, but this theme could be used for a personal site. Just remove those links.

Download the Consulting theme.

A two column, red toned theme with a paper background

While listening to Dexter Gordon’s song “Cheesecake”, I began working on this theme, probably also inspiring the colors. The theme uses a softer color palette with uses of red to catch the eye. This was another experiment in using a paper texture as a background. The two column theme has been the structure I have focused on the most when considering what to do for websites that I am working on. Here is my reasoning: The content is placed on the left where the eye naturally falls to begin reading. Posts or pages are the real drivers to bring people to (and bring them back to) your website, so they focus on the writing. As their eye moves to the end of the sentence, they might glimpse something of interest in the side column, so they go back to view it. If you advertise on your site, they may see the ad, and go back to it.

This reasoning led to the idea behind the layout. You cannot create the perfect site to be viewed they way you want in all browsers. You can attempt to address as much as you can, and hope that you did it well. My concern has been will a new user bother to scroll over to see what is in the sidebar if they cannot see it. This theme was designed to be 800 pixels wide. This is on the smaller end of what is available for most computer monitors. I believe then that any item placed in the sidebar will at least be seen by the user. To highlight the offerings in the sidebar, I used the red to embolden the section titles. All of this is meant to have them explore the site. Keeping them on the site will help develop the sale or the idea that they should subscribe to the blog.

Another feature of this theme is the multi-stage drop down menu for the pages in the navigation bar. Free themes use a technique to create the navigation bar by listing all of the pages on that bar. This really defeats the purpose of creating a structure to your page content, when you have many pages. On one site, I have over twenty pages, which would place twenty navigation tabs on the site. Crowded navigation is of no use to the user. By designating a page as a “parent” and other pages as belonging to this parent, you will have a cleaner look in your navigation with this theme. Only the parent page will be listed in a tab, while its children will be there in a drop down form.

The header is basic, and my intention was for it to be easily replaced. You would need to upload an image the size 766 width by 125 height to the images folder to replace the header. The image has to be a jpeg file with the name “Header.jpeg”. With the red lettering, a lighter image would be suitable. If you have a darker image, the lettering should be changed to a lighter color.

Finally, as with all of my themes, the footer contains pages common to a small business. I thought that this would be a good general theme for any business. It may be nice for a personal site too. If using it as a personal site, you will want to remove references to those pages.

Download the Cheesecake theme .

A three columned green toned theme with a modern design feel

I had the time to do my touch ups on this one, so I decided to release it today as well. As a reminder, all of the themes that will be listed on this site will be geared towards small businesses, but with minor changes you could use them for a personal site.

Modern Green is another three column theme, but here I place the sidebars on each side of the content. To be honest, I have always chosen the content to be on the extreme left when I was looking for themes, but I wanted to try having certain navigation elements on the left. This was the theme that I was planning to use for this site (the original header was different). Some of my favorite blogs to read have this structure. After focusing on content, as a user my eye drifts to the right first, so items that I might click on would be there. Advertising on the right side of the screen does better than on the left or bottom when the site is geared to a user reading a Western language. More site navigational items go into a left sidebar. A user will look for the archives or maybe even a blogroll, so placing them on the left will be fine for a user who wants to discover those links.

The header comes before the menu navigation in this theme. My idea was to have a logo in the left hand corner with the title and slogan on the right. The logo would have contained contact information. With that setup, a new user would know where they are, who I am, and how to contact me upon first viewing. You can arrange this yourself by manipulating the header in a graphics editor, like GIMP, which I will write about soon.

My inspiration for this theme was the stately brochure or resume. Bright white backgrounds can be nice; dark black backgrounds are energy friendly for your monitor; however, I wanted the feel of the not so bright paper. (With the current theme of this site, I did go for a paper pattern in the background). I thought that this would be a good basic theme for a consultant.

I think that I might repeat this next statement for each theme, but the footer contains a setup for pages that a business may want. If you are using this for a personal blog, you will not need a “Terms of Service” page. Have fun with it.

Download Modern Green.

A three-columned theme with a grunge background

One of my passions has always been the art of design. I will claim no mastery, but working on my own theme inspired me to create new themes of my own. Part of the reason for this site’s makeover was to share those themes, because I hoped that they might prove useful. My plan is to release a theme each week. I do have a few more that I might release early next week, just to have a few themes to choose from.

The inspiration for this theme came from following two independent coffee houses on Twitter. Each was using a different technique to pull in clients. When I thought about it, I felt that they could also use the blog format to help expand on their tweets. My idea was that this theme would fit any small business catering to the creative class.

The menu bar is at the top of the page, so if you have a products page and a user does not want to read a blog post, they can go to it immediately. The content (posts) will be placed on the left side of the screen, which is where the eye of a reader of a Western language will fall. I have two sidebars on the left. Parts of the site which may be accessed more often are on the left sidebar, while remaining items are in the right sidebar. Part of the idea is that if you add other pieces to these sidebars, like advertising, you will not have one crowded long sidebar where the user cannot find what he is looking for.

Since I had a business in mind, I did place in some links for pages in the footer that a business might want to include on their site, like a “terms of use” page. Also, I have the RSS feed placed there. These can be deleted. Look over the theme to see if you need such pages listed or not.

If you are downloading this theme for personal use, I think the only true elements that bespeak business are in the footer. Otherwise the theme would work for personal use. Have fun with it.

Download the zip file for the Building Swirl theme.