Wordpress Themes Aren’t Just Pretty Packaging
I’ve been having some cool email discussions these past few months with folks who originally found the site through this article. We’ve been talking about the potential of Wordpress as a CMS and what can be done with projects like Mimbo. I’ll give some more background.
evolution of a theme
Last spring, I noticed that Talking Points Memo had abandoned their traditional blog format for a layout resembling major news/magazine portals like NYTimes and Portfolio.com. Instead of the same old vertical linear format, the content was now dispersed across a grid; thumbnail photos were used creatively in place of excerpts; more columns made room for neatly summarized subsections - all powered by ordinary blog software. TPM was the first blog I’d seen move in that direction and it inspired a lot of ideas.
I experimented more with Wordpress’s template tag system and it became obvious a “post” could be presented outside the usual title-date-author-content format. I realized a “post” just meant a vessel of information serving whatever creative purpose you assigned it. It’s like the old myth that we use only 10% of our brains, I wondered if developers were only harnessing 10% of Wordpress’s potential as a blog, a magazine, a news portal, a CMS, an image gallery manager, a guestbook, or whatever we want it to be.
This summer I wrote two posts on the subject, in June (”In Praise of Wordpress Template Tags“), in July (”In Praise of Wordpress Template Tags, Part II: The Magazine Layout“), then in August released a magazine-style Wordpress theme called Mimbo which was just revamped. The whole process led me to look at Wordpress in a very different light.
wordpress as a cms
By the time Mimbo came about, I was already disillusioned by CMSs like Joomla and Drupal. No disrespect to the programmers in those communities, but they should have recruited more CSS and UI folks to help out with integration. Both platforms are big and clunky and technical, with too little separation between data and presentation. Without that last detail, the skinning of data is difficult. What both platforms lacked was a consistent query post and parameter system more like Wordpress’s so that designers can control and style data more freely. Wordpress had already proven itself superior in all these areas we design/CSS snobs care about, so why not repurpose it to act more like a CMS?
So that’s what I’ve been doing a lot more of. None of my clients are technically bloggers; they’re medium and large-sized businesses who need custom design plus a back-end to power their “news” (blog) items, calendar, contact form, thumbnail/slideshow gallery, and the ability to edit flat content pages - all of which can be accomplished through Wordpress if you’re willing to get creative with template tags and install the occasional plugin.
So while some developers will argue it’s still not a proper CMS, others will go on using Wordpress the “wrong” way just as musicians find new sounds by using instruments the “wrong” way.
themes as mini-applications
Mimbo was released as a ‘magazine theme’ though it was definitely designed with a CMS-feel in mind. My intention was that it function as its own mini-application within the larger Wordpress framework, not just as pretty packaging tacked on afterward - this is one reason it looks so stripped down compared to most people’s perception of a “theme”. The purpose was to soup up Wordpress’s engine and leave the paint-job to you.
For this reason, I’ve lately been using the Mimbo theme as a starting point for new Wordpress projects the same way developers use Blueprint as their baseline CSS. In that sense, Mimbo is it’s own kind of blueprint, already pre-configured to display a navbar, a sidebar, and a variety of content modules that any medium/large site would need.
i say tomato, you say vanilla
I recently read something by a blogger who begrudged the current crop of magazine themes for being too plain:
“Many of those I’ve seen typically have very sparse visuals and zero style. As a matter of fact, some of them just look like a bunch of columns spanning a page. I don’t consider that design. In some instances, the term minimalist has been taken a bit too literally.”
Mimbo is a design the author might consider distastefully vanilla, but that’s understandable - it’s a reminder that “theme” is not a concrete term everyone agrees upon. However attractive, the designs in those “free theme” galleries are beginning to fall short of many people’s needs. If we keep our expectations open, the more Wordpress’s limits can be pushed and themes can provide more than just a few colors and a masthead image.
Check out something like Frieze. Now take away the photos. You’re left with some grey boxes and columns and modest typography.
Yet to my eye, it’s an elegant site that serves its subject matter well. NYTimes has always been as vanilla and gridded as it gets, but that’s because the emphasis is on content and organization, not graphical punch.
going forward
My selfish hopes are that:
- Theme designers will dig deeper to provide for users who want more than a traditional blog layout
- The themes they offer will spin off into other tools that challenge how Wordpress is used
- The results will influence Automattic to continue gearing Wordpress in the direction of a true CMS
What are your expectations for WP themes?
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Darren,
I agree that I would like to see WordPress have more of a concentrated focus on being a CMS. I don’t remember the last time someone asked me to just design a blog with WordPress. They all want to use it as a CMS.
Chris
Actually Frieze magazine is a very good example, the top slider is one of the things I’d like to reproduce, last time I’ve checked they were running on an really old WP version, something like 2.0.*
On your third point (re: Automattic steering WP in the direction of becoming a “proper” CMS):
The biggest step they could take, IMO, is to take the closes thing they have to custom content types - that little “custom field” that you’ve made such good use of to associate a thumbnail with a story - and inject some steroids into it.
From my limited experience, the ability to define content types is what differentiates blog engines from a true CMS. Drupal’s got it, but it’s confusing as all hell because it requires multiple plugins and the patience of a saint. ExpressionEngine comes darn close to being perfect in this regard…
…but I’d give up on EE forever if WP started shipping with a similar model. No question.
Very interesting post!
To add to Matt’s comment:
Darren as per our conversations: Wordpress has lots of other neat built in features that are just a step away from easy accessibility. For example, it is not that difficult to make separate themes for each categories or to tailor the sidebar to be different for each category. BUT it currently still requires digging into the code.
Adding stuff like a widget panel that allows EASY configuration of multiple sidebars (for different pages or categories) for example would be a big useability breakthrough (perhaps this exists via a plugin??)
I think that Wordpress in its current structure would not take to much enhancement to simplify and mainstream some of the features that would make it more CMS friendly (to the unwashed masses - like me)
Excellent points, Mr. Hoyt, and I have quoted and linked to your article in a recent post at WebHelperMagazine.com entitled, “Where’s the “Blogâ€? in WordPress?”. The answer, is of course, at some websites, there is no “blog” to be found even though that website is built on WordPress. I am certain that WordPress is headed toward CMS — heck, it’s already there, in my opinion. The really interesting question, then becomes, what will it do when we all move beyond Content Management Systems?
I just wanted to thank you for creating this amazing theme framework. I am new to CMS and have been trying to decide which platform best serves my needs. It was not until I found your theme that I realized that WordPress really is the right platform for what I am trying to do.
So, thank you once again.
I definitely want to use WP as a CMS for our nonprofit website. I like Mimbo a lot, but as I worked on a mockup with our content, it didn’t look as good with our stuff plugged in… still, I think it will work.
First, thanks Darrn for creating such a nice theme
I absolutely agree with you that WP is going beyond blogging. I’m the one that currently studying your Nimbo2 theme codes to see if I can hack it to have a look of NYtimes.com.
I hope you don’t mind doing that and I success doing it.
Help! I am no develo[er or IT man, but I need a CMS that I can easily manage. I know not any CSS, PHP or other code.
Is Mimbo able to be managed by such a person.
I wish to set up a book sales site with the added ability to make posts as and when necessary. Do pages appear in Mimbo as would a normal website?
Can I have a front page with a variety of items (books), say 2 colums with 1 side bar of catagories in ‘parent - child format’?
Can you help please? I have looked on forums, theme sites and Wordpress and am bamboozled by the jargon.
As I posted in another page here, I’m now using Mimbo, and my thoughts echo yours as far as what a ‘Wordpress’ site needs to be/look like. CSS Garden anyoone? But I think you really nailed it when you said:
“So while some developers will argue it’s still not a proper CMS, others will go on using Wordpress the “wrongâ€? way just as musicians find new sounds by using instruments the “wrongâ€? way.”