Thesis Wordpress theme - a critical take

I agree, the look of it isn't very good, but the concept behind it (the options) is great. Personally for something similar to this theme (with better looks) I would side with a theme called OneTheme.

I've never read something so uneducated in my life.

You clearly have little understanding of the nuances that make the theme great.

I don't know where to begin.

Let's start with the facts. I am a professional blogger and I use Thesis on multiple websites.

You mention that many of the Thesis features can be found elsewhere and that's the whole point. All features can be found elsewhere. Thesis includes them for convenience and it lets the blogger focus on writing as opposed to Googling Wordpress Plugins.

Overall, I'm happy with Thesis and I would still recommend it to people.

You have a killer header. The Thesis theme could definitely take note.

The blueheader along with the two-tone logo…don't forget the tagline, Make Meaning Blogging. Thesis has nothing on this theme!

I don't know anything about the theme, but I have an issue with your comment about the body font and when you say "[using a] serif font in the body text goes against the principles of typography."

That's actually totally wrong. Serif fonts were actually created for the purpose of making print easier to read at smaller type sizes. The letters flow together better allowing the eye to work less hard to read the material.

For reference, check this Usage section of this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif

Thanks for that article - actually it's the first one which does not try to sell thesis and gives me also the dark side…

Andreas

Take a look at the options that are now available in the 1.1 version of the Thesis Theme:

http://www.thesistheme.org/what-are-my-options/

Sure, if you are a designer or advanced blogger you might want to handle everything yourself. But if you aren't, and you just want the benefits of a blog (like traffic and a nice appearance), buying a theme that works well out-of-the-box, comes with free upgrades, and is well-supported, is worth the money. At least in my opinion.

And by what authority do you claim this is a bad theme? From what I see, correct me if I'm wrong, you're a developer much like myself.

I work with a lot of designers, and I know enough to know that I don't know much. With all due respect, can you tell me about color theory? Typography? Balance? How about usability?

A lot of people take design work for granted, much like they gloss over the naunces of *any* skilled profession. Any monkey can with a text editor and GIMP make a *theme*, but it takes someone who knows their stuff to make a real *design*.

Why do others seek to validate themselves by discrediting others?

I remain a very happy user of Thesis. It does what it says on the label - with ease.

You are entitled to your view and I defend your right to say what you think. Ditto for myself and I think your time would be better spent promoting your own ideas rather than rubbishing others.

I am late to the game here, but I want to leave a quick comment on point.

You mention serif body copy being hard to read, and that you would expect more out of a premium theme. Aside from the fact that you can change the body font to a sans serif option in the Thesis Design Options, you yourself use a serif font for your body copy.

And actually, it looks like it might just be Georgia. Oh wait, here it is in your style sheet (http://www.binaryturf.com/wp-content/themes/master/style.css):

#content .post {
font:14px/1.5 georgia, serif;
}

Speaking of typography, I see that you use Arial for other portions of your site. Speak with some designers and see what they think of Arial. You might want to pick a better sans font.

I realize that you did not pay for this design, and that is most likely the main gist of your article, but Thesis is a well-made theme that facilitates ease of use. It is not meant to be a theme for design gurus, although I have seen people do some great design work on top of the Thesis back end.

You get what you pay for, and Thesis was worth the purchase price. Some people may not agree with the concept of premium WordPress themes, so there's always going to be some amount of disagreement on the subject.

Of course, there are reasons to switch to a premium theme (http://www.binaryturf.com/5-reasons-to-upgrade-your-blog-to-a-premium-wordpress-theme/).

Be well.

Shivanand,

Thanks for the reply. I know nothing of ophthalmology other than I am severely near-sighted (no pun intended). To the tune of -8 diopters. I can see less than two inches without corrective lenses.

Anyhow, I wasn't criticizing Georgia as I love that font, too. I just thought it ironic that you were critical of its use as a body font in Thesis, but then you use it as a body font yourself. And at the same size that Thesis does.

I, too, lack the time to polish my site's theme and design, so that's part of the reason I grabbed Thesis… as a base to modify over time. I still dislike Arial as a sans serif font though.

One thing that we agree on is that sans serifs is the way to go, especially if scaling to small size on screen. I've seen some argue that sans should be used for all elements on screen; however, a lot of designers do not do this for a variety of reasons.

Be well.

@Shivanand - The new release of Thesis, version 1.2, added even more options to the WordPress admin screens. I've got a new post about them on my Thesis Theme blog here:

Thesis Theme 1.2 Revealed

I hope that post is helpful to you in your decision-making process. I wouldn't say that Thesis is perfect as there are definitely a few things I would like to see added to it. But I do think it allows you to focus on real development, like you said. I'm quite happy to let Mr. Pearson take care of my blog design.