Wordpress Dream Theme Review
Ben Cope got in touch at the beginning of the year about having his Wordpress Dream Theme reviewed but unfortunately it overlapped (underlapped, more accurately) with the planning and development for Mimbo Pro. Regrettable that it took me over two months to do a write-up, but hopefully better late than never!
Overview
The Dream Theme layout and coding (view demo) lean heavily in the direction of the Premium News series: tabbing, featured video and extensive ad management, wrapped in a newsy layout.
By now, this format has become a mainstay in the premium themes market and remains popular for users who want to elevate their site from traditional two-column blog to something more expansive. Custom control panel options allow you to edit Feedburner info, featured categories, color schemes and advertising.
One thing that sets Ben’s strategy apart is his offer to help install and configure the Dream Theme for clients who need help, plus and hour of customization duties and the option of more. This is a level of support many paid themes lack and could be a considerable help to clients just getting their feet wet with Wordpress.
Ben also runs the site Wordpress University which features Wordpress tutorials and info, but also serves as nice advertising for the Dream Theme.
Advantages:
The code and CSS is well organized and easy to edit, which makes customizations (view examples) a more straightforward process. The pages are very close to validating as XHTML, save for the video and widget stuff which is understandably less easy to tame.
Custom control panel options are practically a requirement for charging for a WP theme these days, and a major strength here is the advertising management and multitude of ad placements. In all honesty, heavy advertising and blogs which emphasize making money by blogging is one my least favorite trends, but a theme like this could probably facilitate it well.
Drawbacks:
For the Dream Theme to run optimally, Ben recommends a handful of popular plugins. At the same time, if you choose to use none of them, the theme loses some power. In addition, the layout is appropriately simple and customizable, but very similar to the newsy themes seen elsewhere.
So in a nutshell, what I’d like to see is more originality in both features and design. Instead of merely recommending plugins, maybe including custom scripts that raise the bar and distinguish the theme from its peers. As for the design, it could be a bit sharper and more eye-catching while staying neutral enough to accomodate different types of subject matter.
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Overall, Ben is very ambitous with his ideas and dedicated to the concept of user-friendliness, both in terms of control panel options and direct custom support. Looking forward to what he comes up with next.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Darren,
Thanks so much for the review of my WordPress Dream Theme!
You mentioned that you were looking forward to what I come up with next …
Well, my next project is a premium WordPress theme designed exclusively for video bloggers! It is currently in “pre-launch” mode and will be available for purchase beginning at 1pm on Tuesday, March 18th. In fact, everyone who joins the priority notification list at VideoBlogDreamTheme.com will automatically be entered to win a FREE copy of my new theme for video bloggers!
I also have a $57 deal for the first 57 people who buy a copy of the theme when the doors open …
Hey Darren! I hope you remember me… you designed my beautiful website that has been my sole source of income for the last 3 years… I can’t thank you enough! Well, since we’ve been in touch I’ve gotten into blogging too. I read your post today on the Dream Theme… I am thinking of moving my Blogger blog to WordPress and monetizing it (my readership is climbing steadily and I think there is some real potential there!). I was hoping you might let me know if you think this would be a good theme for me to use. It would need to be adaptable to a weddingy look and feel (banner, colors, etc.) but I like the layout and potential functionality so I thought I’d ask your opinion. Thanks Darren…
Design wise Ben sorry you have a bit to go as I do not think it is clean and smart enough.
However what I am most rapt about is the service you provide. I think service is probably the best selling point about this theme and the biggest feature.
My main grip about themes is that they dont include the Plugins, why cannot they include them? Is it that hard or difficult to include the code within the php?
I am not a graphic designer but I could only say that the sidebar seems too wide. It overemphasize the subscripiton box because of the width of the ‘Featured Video’. If the video is a featured one, then I think it should be in the middle, maybe below the fold a little bit.
I don’t know how Ben would manage it, but the service part will be a challenging one. Coming from a computer consulting background, servicing is a demanding area of my practice and releasing a theme with the service would be a new twist in the WP theme arena.
@Jermanyn, I know it would have been nice to have the plug-in with the package however, plugin authors change their codes at no given time so it will be hard to manage. Besides installation of themes is still typically done with FTP clients or similar.