One of my favorite theme designers around is Chris Pearson. If you do not know Chris Pearson, he is the guy who designed Problogger’s old theme and the present theme that Copyblogger is using, just to name the 2 better known names that everyone of you have heard before. Among his stable of themes that he has released for free and got raved reviews for, includes the Pressrow Theme, the infamous Cutline Theme, the old but re-engineered Copyblogger Theme and the Neoclassical Theme which I did a short review for a little while back.
Every theme that Chris Pearson releases catches on like bush fire, because unlike most designers who offers free themes just to earn a backlink without any consideration for the user, Chris Pearson’s Themes are done and released with a conscience that when someone uses the theme, even though free, it falls nothing short from a paid for premium theme. Quoting him from his WordPress Themes page,
Oh, and rest assured that the SEO aspects of the theme are absolutely top-notch. I view my themes as Web site frameworks – not just “designs” – and I wouldn’t bother to build a framework unless it was up to spec in all areas.
Apart from the “top-notch framework” he maintains a support site for those who uses his themes and all enquiries and questions are promptly answered by Chris himself. Take for example the Neoclassical Theme released last November, Chris Pearson maintains a dedicated page just for the Neoclassical Theme users where they are taught how they can get the most out of the theme. I don’t think many professionals does that for their free releases. Even for the Cutline Theme, which has been sold, the dedicated support site is still being updated regularly offering upgrades and new tutorials as WordPress changes. Such is the dedication that Chris Pearson has for all his themes.
Introducing The Thesis Theme For WordPress
Get The Thesis Theme For WordPress
As in all who makes a living from designing Blog Themes and Web Templates, and one who has gained such a reputable position in this field, the natural course to take is of course to offer themes of premium quality that cannot be found in free releases. Chris Pearson’s latest release is The Thesis Theme For WordPress. Going for a very reasonably low price of $87 for a personal license and $164 for the developer’s license, The Thesis Theme comes with a host of features not found in other premium themes. Every Thesis Themes also comes with,
* Lifetime theme upgrades
* Complete access to the Thesis forums
* Downloadable “stuff” that you can use to customize and enhance your theme (like background
images and styles)
* Support from Chris Pearson himself
The personal license limits you to use the Theme for only one site, the footer link has to be intact and you are not allowed to re-sell or modify the theme. The developer license does away with the first two requirements where you will be able to use it on unlimited sites, the footer links can be done away with but you are not allowed to re-sell or modify the theme. This requirements is to protect the interest and the livelihood of the designer which I feel is fair.
Like all his themes, free or otherwise, there is a fully maintained and regularly updated support page where buyers and users of this theme will be made aware of the latest upgrades and bug fixes due to WordPress regular changes.Find out more about Thesis and the DIYthemes philosophy for those who are new to changing Themes.
The Thesis Theme is in Version 1.0.2 after a minor update to make it compatible with WordPress 2.6 and judging from the comments received, this theme is getting really hot. As apposed to the 4 figure fees that Chris Pearson charges for his work if you want his services to design and code a unique theme for you, the $87 price tag is really a good buy. The only thing missing might be just a little bit of uniqueness, but hey, there are millions of blogs out there and the probability of the same guy stumbling on a blog with the same looks is very slim. Anyway being unique is only for the ego, it does nothing for the growth of your blog.
UPDATE: To make the Thesis Theme completely compliant with WordPress 2.7.1, Chris Pearson has updated the Thesis Theme. Version 1.5 has flushed out most of the bugs. It now comes fully compatible with WordPress 2.7.1. All the new WP features like threaded comments and paginated posts are now available with Thesis 1.5. Final release have not been announced yet, but if you can’t wait, you can download the beta version.
From what I have seen in a few blogs using the Thesis 1.5 Beta, the comments threads are really neat. I’ll wait for the final release before upgrading though.
I was toying with the idea of purchasing this theme
Lifetime upgrades – that’s great!
susan,
you got a good thing going over at your site. I like it. One thing though, do you check the themes for “dirty codes” first before uploading them? I’ll love to do a write up of your site and that is my only concern.
Thank for this article – I am thinking about using thesis for myself…
Andreas