Minimalist Wordpress Theme
April 27th, 2007 · by David Bradley
Here’s a simple trick* for creating your very own minimalist Wordpress themes, as discussed endlessly by Diggers. First, download and install your chosen theme from any of the various Wordpress theme sites. Next, accidentally on purpose delete the themes image folder. View your blog with all of the theme’s original images missing.
That is what I did inadvertently when first installing the Ocadia theme a couple of years ago on another site. The end product, without the swirly duotone graphics of Ocadia was far nicer to my eye than the way the site should have looked.
This theme tip works with just about any theme, including the default and classic themes in a standard Wordpress installation, although you may have to edit your CSS file a little to remove references to the images and prevent 404 errors. You should also check for text on the same color background, which will obviously be unreadable and potentially get you banned by Google as a blackhat site.
*Please don’t try this at home, unless you know what you’re doing. It worked for the site in question, but won’t work for everyone and could mess up your blog if you are not careful.
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19 responses so far ↓
Jim // Apr 27, 2007 at 7:37 pm
That’s actually pretty funny. It’s certainly a start toward minimalist.
Scott // Apr 27, 2007 at 7:40 pm
A similar but slightly more complicated technique can be found in a recent article at Digital Web Magazine.
More or less.
Jenny // Apr 27, 2007 at 7:42 pm
that’s interesting. i wanna try it out on my demo blog.
Haochi // Apr 27, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Instead of deleting the image directory, renaming it would do the same trick, but less pain. (no need to wait for the files to be deleted and re-upload the files again in case something went wrong…)
David Bradley // Apr 27, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Yes, renaming the folder is fine, but getting rid of the folder altogether and removing all references saves on error messages
db
Hans // Apr 28, 2007 at 5:44 am
lol for that tip…In my opinion I think if someone wants to get with a minimalist theme, then start with these blank wordpress themes and with some css mastery tips, add to these little to no colour. Minimalist themes won’t have headers too and little to no icons. That’s it all, no wicked potion for that lol.
David Bradley // Apr 28, 2007 at 8:31 am
Hans, of course, you’re right. But, I just thought I’d share my experience of creating by pure accident a minimalist theme. By the way, it’s not this site that got built like this.
Charity // Apr 29, 2007 at 4:38 am
This is a terrific idea. I’ve been contemplating the best way to start modifying or creating a theme, and this sounds like as good a start as any. Another thing that just came to mind - if anyone is nervous about deleting the images folder - view the theme without images using the Web Developer extension for Firefox. That would give a quick visual to see if you wanted to put any real effort into developing that theme further. Just a thought.
owl // Apr 30, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Couldn’t you also just temporarily rename the images folder?
David Bradley // Apr 30, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Owl, you could indeed. In fact, that’s probably the safest approach.
Swollen Pickles // May 1, 2007 at 12:28 pm
This theme looks almost identical to the Cutline Theme with the exception of the header image being removed/replaced.
I don’t mind the idea behind what your saying, but I still thing some credit needs to go to the original creator of the theme, since they put in all the hard work.
This is the web design equivalent of copying a story and replacing the main characters name with something different and then calling yourself the author.
David Bradley // May 1, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Ms Pickles, If you read the original post, you’ll see the tip refers to another site being rendered with a graphics-free version of the Ocadia theme. Not tothe Sciencetext site, which as you say, uses a mildly modified version of Cutline.
Nowhere in the post do I claim credit for anything, to be frank, this was really just a tongue-in-cheek tip.
That said, once I’d discovered by accident how Ocadia would look without its swirly graphics, I began overhauling the theme for that site and changed so much in the end that it really bears no resemblance to even Ocadia sans graphics now.
David Krug // Aug 6, 2007 at 6:05 am
Nice way to steal a theme dood. This is cutline.
David Bradley // Aug 6, 2007 at 8:43 am
Like I said back in April, it’s not this site to which I was referring. Anyway, where do you get off on calling me a thief?
David Krug // Aug 6, 2007 at 9:23 am
I don’t see a link. It’s part of the license. If you violate the license it’s called stealing. Yup yup.
David Bradley // Aug 6, 2007 at 10:06 am
David
This from the licence.rtf file that comes with the theme files:
> “If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice > from any Licensor You must, to the extent
> practicable, remove from the
> Derivative Work any credit as required by
> clause 4(c), as requested.”
Doesn’t this mean one is actually obliged to remove the credit if one adapts the Cutline theme?
More to the point, I don’t see anything in the CC license that one downloads with the theme that says one has to include a link to anything. I may be wrong and in know what should this be taken as legal advice.
By the way, what does “Yup yup” mean?
David Bradley // Sep 25, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Version 2.3 of Wordpress made it full-on debut September 24 - http://wordpress.org/download/
ptamaro // Dec 6, 2007 at 3:12 am
I use the CC license for stuff I create, and I abide by CC and other licenses.
Maybe you could make appropriate changes to the CSS file (using a text editor) and create a completely new theme — with or without images? Wouldn’t that just solve the problem?
You could even use a tool like…
http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/
David Bradley // Dec 6, 2007 at 7:21 am
Ptamaro, to be honest, this post was somewhat tongue in cheek. It was purely by accident that I ended up with the basis of the new design for my other main site. As it stands now, you would not know that the site had used the original theme without its images.
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