Project Community Theme

Have you ever wanted to design a WordPress theme but lack the CSS skills to make the template pretty? Do you have some great ideas for functionality but don’t know a lick of PHP? Perhaps, you’re just too lazy to sit down and do it yourself. You’re not alone. Welcome to Project Community Theme.

What's "Project Community Theme"?

This is a project where my readers get to decide on what the next theme release should be on my site. Everything from layout to functionality to plugin compability, you decide. I’m sure this idea sounds great already.

A few months ago, I thought of this idea but never could figure out a good way to implement it or find the time to actually do it. A good WordPress theme isn’t always about creating something new, something innovative. Sometimes, it’s about giving the users what they want.

How will this work?

I hope to have many of you participating in this project over the course of the next month or so, and it might be hard to implement every single concept.

Basically, I want to hear your ideas. Two- or three-column layout? The Share This or Comment Luv plugin? Built-in AdSense capabilities? Magazine, blog, or both kind of styled functionality? Let me know what you want to see. Whether it be color variations or just something you think might be fun. Send me PhotoShop, PHP, or CSS files. Add icon packages to the project. Whatever.

This is your theme. You, the community, get to decide on what goes into it.

After working out some initial images of what the theme will look like, I’ll work on it in PhotoShop to give you options to vote on. Then, I’ll code it. I’ll keep an updated demo online while we tweak it. From then on, we’ll continue developing the theme and voting periodically on what it should look and feel like until we’ve created the ultimate theme.

So, what's the catch?

There’s no catch, except maybe not all ideas will be implemented because we’ll have to vote on some things. Oh, and, you must have fun participating in this project.

The theme will have a GPL license, which will make it free to use, hack, and distribute for anyone.

Everyone that participates will get a link back to their site for being a WordPress theme developer. So, even if you’ve never designed a theme or never plan to, you can at least say you helped make at least one WordPress theme. You’ve given something back to this community that we all love.

I will write all the code for the theme myself unless you provide code snippets that you want to see. You just have to share ideas.

It's time to participate!

I have no idea how screwed up this project could become, but I thought it might be a neat idea. “The more people, the merrier,” as some might say. Invite others, post a snippet about this on your blog, and start sharing ideas.

The canvas is now blank.