Elliot Jay Stocks

Introducing WooThemes; or, How you can own my WordPress theme designs

Written at 4pm on 09.07.08
Filed under Web Design / ALL CATEGORIES / Wordpress
31 comments (closed)

Today sees the launch of WooThemes, a project that offers a whole new world of ‘premium’ WordPress themes. Instead of paying for individual themes, you can subscribe to the WooThemes Club and receive every single theme we release over the course of your subscription, including the entire back catalogue. Behind all this is the team from the Premium News Themes - WordPress ‘rockstar’ Adii, Mark Forrester, and Magnus Jepson - and now me.

The first theme I’ve designed as part of the WooThemes collective is called ProudFolio, and was created with designers, photographers, and artists in mind. It puts a massive emphasis on the portfolio pieces, allowing for decent-sized thumbnails, huge fullscreen views via Lightbox, and full details on the ’single’ page. The theme file also contains a choice of three different background images and colour schemes.

The coolest thing, though (thanks to coding by Adii) is that the portfolio items and regular blog entries are all still ‘posts’; their look and behaviour is simply defined by specifying the category ‘portfolio’ or ‘blog’. This means that every time you post a new portfolio item, it’ll show up in your RSS feed, and you get to harness the power of the ‘post’, which is a little more flexible than a ‘page’.

If you want to know the nitty gritty, here you go:

• Join the club and get 1 - 2 new themes every month… guaranteed
• At least 1 theme designed by me every 2 months… guaranteed
• Access to our entire catalogue of themes to date
• The highest quality Wordpress themes on the market
• A 3 month subscription starting at just $150

Marketing aside, this is a project I really believe in, and one I believe is genuinely beneficial to subscribers. So head over to WooThemes now and sign up! If you have any comments about Proudfolio or any suggestions for new themes / features, please let me know in the comments below.

31 comments (closed)

Comments are currently closed on this entry, but you can still read those that have already been posted...

• Adii

  09.07.08

  

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  You know what else is *guaranteed* bud? :) That with your absolute design genius involved, WooThemes will continue to push out the most breathtaking WP themes available.

  It is great to have you on board bro (been a long time coming - think I first contacted you in March hehe) and I know that your design skills will just compliment the design & dev skills that Mark, Magnus and myself already bring to the table.

• Epic Alex

  09.07.08

  

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  This looks like a brilliant project, the themes there so far look brilliant, and with all you guys behind it, I’m sure it’ll be a success.

  Good Luck

• Davin

  09.07.08

  

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  Any plans for rolling out to Moveable Type as well?

• johno

  09.07.08

  

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  How come I haven’t heard of this before? I’ve been looking for a great — not simply a good — theme for a site I’m building for a friend (last one!), and I’ve just found the perfect theme over at Woo. Absolutely stunning. There’s a lot of crap around (even when it comes to the so-called “premium” themes. Many thanks; I shall spread the word, sir.

• Josh Stodola

  09.07.08

  

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  If you guys decide to end up designing for other blog engines (you should), be sure to include BlogEngine.NET at the top of the list.

  Relevant links…
  BlogEngine.NET: Creating Themes Webcast
  Porting WordPress themes to BlogEngine

  I think it’s a good idea! Best of luck to you all!

• Dave Child

  09.07.08

  

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  Will the themes be available to buy as singletons for those who only want one specific one?

• Sherwin Techico

  09.07.08

  

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  Congrats on the release. Good luck with it.

• Magnus Jepson

  09.07.08

  

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  Great to be working with you Elliot. I’m sure you will bring diversity to our team and take WP themes to new places.

• adelle

  10.07.08

  

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  Great job on ProudFolio - it is beautiful and as soon as I saw it - I knew it was your “style”. Good luck with it - woothemes is going to be awesome!

• a friend

  10.07.08

  

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  Sorry about the anonymus name but i have to say something. I respect you and your work, but getting in the same team with adii, who brags about his themes and calls himself rockstar. His blog has 10 original posts, the others are just to write something on the blog about the same stuff. Dude, elliot, i know you’ve went back to freelancing, but getting in this team won’t give you too much self pride. Think about what i’ve said. Take care.

• Adii

  10.07.08

  

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  @a friend - You know what I’ve learned since starting out as a freelancer? Never to trust anything that someone posts anonymously… I might call myself a rockstar and I might (sometimes overly) proud of my work, but at least I have the balls to put my name to anything I do online. Take responsibility for a comment like that and grow up.

• Elliot Jay Stocks

  10.07.08

  

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  Thanks everyone!

  @ Davin: I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s a possibility.

  @ Johno: Thanks man! Which theme did you go for? Or should I not ask…? ;)

  @ Dave Child: You can still buy themes individually, but the subscription is usually the best option: For $150 (for a 3 month single-user subscription) you get access to the entire themes back catalogue (currently 10), plus 3 - 6 new themes released over the 3 months of your subscription. That’s potentially 16 themes for just over the price of what you’d pay for one. This is why I think the subscription model is a much better deal for customers than the previous one.

  @ A friend: While I appreciate at least some of your sentiment (about trying to help me out), I’m not sure why you think that collaborating with Adii is such a bad idea. He’s done loads for the WP community, he’s a great developer, he has some of the soundest business ideas I’ve come across, and he also happens to be a super nice guy. His ‘rockstar’ self-branding is pretty tongue-in-cheek (at least I’ve always interpreted it that way) and if you don’t like his blog… don’t read it. ;) The thing that confused me most, though, was your comment about how “getting in this team won’t give [me] too much self pride.” Why not?

• Adii

  10.07.08

  

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  Thanks for backing me up bud! :) And obviously the rockstar “act” is all tongue-in-cheek and all about creating a brand personality.

• Mark Forrester

  10.07.08

  

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  @Dave Child: Just to clear things up you can in fact buy a single license for just one theme. A single license costs $70 whilst a developer’s license will cost you $150.

  As Elliot points out though the subscription package works out far more beneficial though. You do have the option of both though :)

• Elliot Jay Stocks

  10.07.08

  

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  @ Mark Forrester: Thanks for clarifying, man! I’ll edit my comment to prevent any further confusion. :)

• Celso Soares

  10.07.08

  

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  Half of me thinks this is brilliant and I wish I had thought of it first, the other half thinks, as a designer, themes are a bit demeaning to my profession..and as a client, why would people want to have a website that looks like someone else’s?

  Nevertheless, I’m sure this will be a success. The theme looks cool btw.

• PARIS YOUNG

  10.07.08

  

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  Hi:elliotjaystock
  can you tell me how did you add the “recent reads” and “last.fm” to your wordpress?

• Jauhari

  10.07.08

  

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  Wow, wonderful themes. Just Perfect ;)

• Susan

  10.07.08

  

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  Good luck with the release! :)

• johno

  10.07.08

  

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  @Celso Soares
  I used to share those sentiments. However, when a theme is well-coded and well-designed, it’s pretty easy to “make it your own”—a few tweaks to the style sheet (colour scheme change, a different masthead image—that kind of thing); and it looks tailor made. With a good theme, all the hard work has been done. I’ve used them in the past, and I’m pretty sure that no-one would recognise those sites as published themes. I think in terms pecuniary: $150 to buy a theme that saves me many hours of work (hours that could be earning me a darn sight more than $150).

  And, no, Mr Stocks did not pay me to write about the above :)

• Markus

  10.07.08

  

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  Man, it seems to me that you take a deep look at the YOOtheme website… Its a Joomla template club since 2007. You copied the name and typo of themes…

• Josh Harbaugh

  11.07.08

  

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  Very nice themes so far. I look forward to more being released.

  On a side note, Elliot, I enjoyed your recent interview on Boagworld. I always enjoy hearing about how freelancers get their starts, and what they do to keep afloat.

• Riccardo

  11.07.08

  

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  Hello Elliot,

  Many compliments for your recent interview on bloagworld. I very enjoyed listen it :)
  I’m following your tutorials very often ;)

  I really like your new woothemes business with the other guys…excellent idea…

  Anyway, please consent me a critic, I hope you don’t mind this…
  well, knowing you are an amazing designer, I think the background in http://www.woothemes.com/demo/proudfolio/ looks kind of not good photoshopped for me…
  Also, I don’t think the dotted border-bottom for the a:hover Latest Projects works for me. There’s a jumping after this of 1px maybe.

  Can I know what do you think about it?

  Thanks EJS -u rock ;)

  Ciao!

• Ryan

  11.07.08

  

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  Hey Elliot,

  Looks great mate. Well done!

  Best,
  Ryan

• Chris

  12.07.08

  

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  Now I can see why you’ve been so impossible to reach. Great stuff and good luck.

• kevadamson

  12.07.08

  

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  Good job. Some nice stuff on there :)

  Quick point: I love the ‘Next’ and ‘Prev’ jQuery functionality on the site home page and on the Vibrant CMS example.

  My only concern is that it doesn’t work / degrade gracefully with JS disabled. Now I’m aware that there is only, what, 2% of web users that don’t have JS enabled, but as it is quite a prominent area above the fold, t’would be nice if it was 100% non-obtrusive.

  Perhaps a solution would be to have them display at random on refresh if JS is disabled??

  Anyways, good luck with the project compadre :)

• Erica Johansson

  13.07.08

  

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  Hi Elliot,

  I just stumbled upon this site by chance and have to say I love your new Woo themes. Have had a free Wordpress blog for over a year and think it’s time I make my blog more professionally looking.

  Have a few questions regarding the Fresh News Time:
  1. Is it possible to import all blog posts and comments from my old blog?
  2. Can I have more than the intended 6 ad spaces? For example, display ads instead of the video and aside categories.
  3. Can the Colour Schemes title at the end be used as a Blogroll? Or can I only display links on a page?
  4. The Available colour schemes box is obviously not included in the package, but can I make my own box with a very short bio on that same spot?

  I’m really new to this, so I’d be more than happy if you (or someone else who happens to read this) can help.

  Erica

• Mike Smith - Blog Theme Machine

  14.07.08

  

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  Hi Elliot - awesome work there. The theme you did reminds me of this blog kind of with the background :) Definitely a good idea for a site/service.

• Jonathan

  15.07.08

  

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  AH! Proudfolio looks like a combination of designs of Typesites.com and ElliotJayStocks.com

• Elliot Jay Stocks

  15.07.08

  

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  @ Paris Young: These were hard-coded into the HTML and not really integrate into the WP theme, I’m afraid.

  @ Johno: Thanks for the support! *hands Johno ¥10,000* ;)

  @ Ryan: Thanks man! I have fond memories of discussing premium WP themes with you whilst walking through sunny Miami! :)

  @ Kev Adamson: Cheers - that’s a good suggestion. I’ll pass it on to Mark, who designed and built the site.

  @ Erica Johansson: The answer to your first question is yes - that’s something you can do in the Wordpress admin regardless of the theme. With regards to your Fresh News questions, you’ll probably be able to find the answer here. Cheers!

• a friend

  26.07.08

  

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  @adii: i know how you started out. You were great at the beginning mate. You put passion in your work. I always see the passion a man puts in his work. I’m sorry to say I’m failing to see the passion you once had. I posted anonymously because i don’t want to start a riot over this. Adii please get your passion back. Take a vacation, relax, and afterwords strive for perfection or at least try to achieve it as you once had. And stop with the: ” (sometimes overly) ” let other people talk about your work.

  @Elliot: Sorry for the anonymous comment. Respect and all the best.