If you have been a reader of our blog for a while, you certainly know that we are using Chris Pearson’s Thesis Theme to make this blog unique and to achieve our blogging goals exactly the way we want it. I have working this last week to bring to you Thesis Theme top niche web designers that really impressing me by their unique Thesis customizations and design work, and have them share their opinion about their favorite WordPress framework, I will also tell you about my personal opinion about it and why it’s the only Theme that actually worked for me.
Why I am writing this?
During the last a few months, I have experienced several opinions and got a lot of feedback about our blog design and about Thesis Theme in general. There are a limited number of bloggers who like Thesis the way it is out of the box – they think it’s acceptable to run it without having to get a custom design. For some people, Thesis Theme out of the box is too ugly – they don’t like the idea of having a blog that looks like thousands of other blogs out there. This is a fact – a lot of blogs look exactly the same. I personally don’t like it, and I completely agree with that opinion and with those who understand that to get a fancy blog design you have to pay for it.
I have came across a few articles and blog posts last week that was creating a lot of buzz about Thesis Theme. The first blog post was by Lis who wrote a very good Frugal vs Thesis Themes review, and I think it’s a very honest and kind of deep review, but I found myself at the end thinking that no matter what theme you are using, you will have to be involved into coding to make it unique. Also, the blog examples Lis linked for both themes as a showcase are actually not presenting enough design or development skills. I believe there are many more creative examples out there.
The other blog post was written by Nicholas Cardot who said No to Thesis Theme. That simple short article exploded and got a lot of attention. I have enjoyed the comments more than the post itself. I personally don’t agree with all that Nick said about the Thesis Theme in his post. Although it’s another honest opinion, it will not change the fact that what works for you it not necessarily what works for someone else. The market will keep going because people have different experiences, thoughts, goals and tastes.
After reading a few other Thesis Theme reviews and articles comparing theme features, I realized that supporters of Chris Pearson and his marketing team are playing a big role in selling Thesis. They actually can sell it, and they already have done it by making a lot of people think that Thesis Theme works out of the box, which is true for some people, and at the same time false for others – it all depends on the way you understand it. I personally think that Thesis Theme is one of the few things I bought in my life knowing full well exactly what I was buying!
So, after reading more of what people say and think about Thesis Theme, I was inspired to go to the professionals and ask people who actual work with Thesis Theme what they have to say about it, instead of relying on what others – who actually didn’t even use it – said about it. Maybe we can make some points clear, and maybe we can change some minds about it in a way or another.
What Web Designers say about Thesis Theme
Now I will give the mic to our great web designers guests, those are the people who really made Thesis Theme looks awesome, and other who did NOT feel comfort with it and they preferred to use other theme frameworks or other tools to create their web designs, I will also showcase Thesis Themes that has been created by our guests. So… let’s hear what they have to tell us today.
Note: the order of opinions listed here was regarding respond to my email, nothing else.
Alex Fraiser @blogussion
website: Blogussion.com
Thesis is the only theme I use. On any WordPress project I take on, 100% of the time I will be using Thesis to do it. Why? There are a lot of reasons I see. Thesis is easy to work with, the hooks system is a dream for any WordPress coder. The thought of working in a single file to customize your entire blog really makes the designing and developing parts so much easier. I also like how Thesis is becoming more reliant on the admin panel, and the options are getting more and more useful for designers. In a nutshell, Thesis saves the designer time and cuts down the amount of work significantly.
Bill Chambers @bbbdj916
website: BillChambersDesign.com
I think Thesis is great for someone that wants a “DIY” theme. Thesis has some nice features like a really cool admin control panel for setting the page layout, colors, fonts etc. The downside is, customizing it is overly complicated. I spent more time learning how it worked than actually customizing it. From a designer/developer standpoint, I wouldn’t choose it for a project.
Mark McCorkell @markmccorkell
website: MarkMcCorkell.com
I think it is a fantastic theme, but can be overkill for some small blogs. It is awesome in what it can do, and the complex content managing facilities it gives users. There was a lot of detail and thought put into development of it. But there are limits to what you can do with it visually in terms of customization.
Doyle Calvert @DigitalDoyle
website: DigitalDoyle.com
The reason I’m so sold on using the Thesis framework for all my WordPress development is because I can make it look and work like anything I can imagine and only have to concentrate on two files; custom.css and custom_functions.php. The SEO is top notch right out of the box and lets you fine tune to your heart’s content. Chris Pearson, the mind behind Thesis, does an excellent job of continually improving the framework and adding useful features. Best WordPress development framework, hands down. You can see some of the sites that I, and the lovely and talented Amy Stewart have created using Thesis.
Kristen Symonds @kristarella
website: Kristarella.com
When you’re working with WordPress themes, it doesn’t take long for you to realize that you want some good frameworks that you are familiar with, that you can depend on to deliver good semantic code and that help you build sites as efficiently as possible. For many designers and developers that might mean writing your own base theme from scratch, which you can then use in different projects, and for others it may mean using something that someone else has written. Among its many features, one that is often underrated is that you can depend on Thesis to deliver clean, semantic code as a strong basis for your web projects. (Kristarella Thesis Theme portfolio)
John Sexton @heyjohnsexton
website: HeyJohnSexton.com
Thesis is an excellent framework. It offers a rock-solid, intelligently coded foundation that can accommodate almost any design. In that respect, the potential for Thesis is nearly limitless.
I also think that much of this potential currently remains untapped, because there is a certain amount of PHP and WordPress programming skills are necessary to take full advantage of what Thesis has to offer. In that sense, you really need to design with Thesis in mind. It can be difficult to shoehorn an arbitrary design into Thesis, but it is also possible to create striking designs with Thesis in mind.
As someone who enjoys both design and development I have tried to push the limits of what Thesis is capable of in some of my work (see my portfolio, which is also a non-traditional design based on Thesis). I would love to see others take it even further.
In short, Thesis allows for enormous flexibility in terms of design and functionality. There is a learning curve, and some coding skills are required to make the most of it, but the returns are well worth the effort.
Bert @berchman
website: Berchman.com
Thesis provides a foundation upon which you can build any WordPress website. The foundation is clean, well-formatted, Search Engine Optimized code “out-of-the-box.” And the elegant simplicity of only needing to modify 2 files (custom.css and custom_functions.php) to achieve great results is brilliant. Before Thesis I had to build every customization from top to bottom, with Thesis I edit 2 files and done. (Bert’s Thesis portfolio)
Greg Rickaby @gregrickaby
website: GregRickaby.com
Thesis is how I make my living! It provides my clients and I with a rock solid foundation held together by bullet-proof code with more SEO power than any plug-in could hope to have. I’ve designed over 100 hundred sites and done 40+ PSD conversions and never, not once, have I ever needed to hack a core file; thus making my clients sites “upgrade proof” and my job to maintain their sites a snap. When time is money, who needs to spend it making sure themes don’t break when a new version is released!?
Not anyone who runs Thesis… (Greg’s Thesis portfolio)
Thesis Theme Showcase
In this showcase I have added some of our guests personal sites, and a few other sites they developed for their clients, I wanted to make sure that you all see the beauty of Thesis as a flexible WordPress theme framework, and what can be done when a creative mind work and invest time to understand it’s power. (I have ordered these designs randomly – to see more awesome designs check out designers portfolios)
Want more Thesis Awesome Designs?
No problem, check out these links, it has some great designs:
- 180+ Thesis Design Customizations You have to See to Believe
- 10 Incredibly Well Designed Thesis blogs
- Top 10 Thesis Theme Customizations
- Thesis Theme Gallery
- And the DiyThemes Showcase
Do Web Designers Point their Clients to the Right Direction?
Do web designers need to know about Marketing, Copywriting, Contextual awareness, Strategy and Psychology?
I definitely agree on that, I know that specialty is good, but what’s better?
Almost all design sites are full of the same content, from huge lists of showcases, tons of design tutorials that you actually don’t have time to read -unless you search for it when you need to solve a problem- and other free for download stuff that help you on creating designs, but what about SEO? what about business strategy?
I have seen a lot of design website that has no SEO at all, all what they thinking of is how to drive massive traffic by submitting their design articles, tutorials and free stuff to design bookmarking sites and other big sites like Digg and StumbleUpon. A lot of design sites are still live because they earn good by selling ads, so.. they are just seeking traffic to be able to sell more!
Should Web Designers read Blogging Tips blogs?
This is an advice and open invitation for web designers to learn and study more, I believe they must know a little about everything, this will expand their horizontals and will lead to more inspiration, it will impact incredibly on their design work and the way designers can manage their project more effectively, it will open their eyes and minds, this is why designers should learn about other things like Marketing, Copywriting, Contextual awareness, Strategy and Psychology rather than focusing on design itself, they must have the ability to serve their clients and help them by providing deeper advices. This is exactly what Paul Boag said on his great presentation about the 5 ‘New’ Skills That Every Web Designer Needs To Know, it’s in my opinion a must see presentation, and he also explained on the video how do web designers can learn all this stuff even in the middle of a very busy life, it’s really amazing and exciting to find that what I think of is actually what pros are saying!
I believe that Thesis Designers are the most knowledgeable designers with SEO and Marketing than other designers, I am not saying they are SEO experts, but at least Thesis was the first framework that took SEO seriously as s basic future while marketing for it, this opened the eyes, it’s another dimension of blog design and development, the good thing here is I feel trusting designers who are working with Thesis Theme when it’s about search engine optimization, Thesis actually forced those designers to dig more deeper learning such stuff to be able to answer their clients questions and look more smarter, at least they know how to blog!
Here is the point, I think Thesis Designers are the best ones who can actually serve our business because they know more about their clients needs, they actually go out more often, they focus more on what matters to their clients, I even can go more far than that thinking that Thesis is playing a role in redefining the identity of web designers!
Who Am I to say that?
I am just a very simple guy who studied accountant, business, management, project management, production, marketing, and after establishing several offline business I decided to explore the online world and expand my business, I came across web design and I worked for a design company, then I moved work in the media field for an international media organization that has about 250 journalist, thinkers, writers, developers, designers working all together in one big building, I actually didn’t want to work with them as a web designer, I wanted to expand my skills so I worked as an editor, this extremely enhanced my communicating skills while editing news stories and moderating forums, then I moved by my choice to a smaller technology company which offered to pay me more than I am earnings to manage a team of developers and designers to serve big companies and governmental institutes and help them to reach their goals. I moved to live in the States last October 2009 when I first started FamousBloggers to be my window on the internet, it’s where I can meet with great people like you, it’s the best thing I ever created in my life so far!
I am sharing this to let you know that I am not only a full time blogger and web designer as people think, I am actually all in one!
My Conclusion
Thesis Theme is a great framework for developers and designers.
If you are not one of those then you must ask yourself a very important question before buying it, this question is: Are you welling to code and spend long hours to understand Thesis customization? If you answer is yes.. then go for it and buy Thesis Theme now, I will guarantee that you will have the most joyful time working on your blog, and this is not all, you will also learn a lot of interesting WordPress tricks while working with Thesis, it’s the only Theme that actually can teach you, I say that because I love inelegant creation made by humans!
Try to understand the difference between YOU -as a blogger or a business owner- and developers/designers, they are pros, they know what they are doing, you are not going anywhere if you designed your own blog by yourself if you are not a web designer, if you decided to do it, then you taken a wrong decision that might kill your blog and your business future, and you will know at the end that you have just created another ugly blog.
No matter Theme or framework you are using, you still need to do a lot of work to get a unique design, you will never find a way to create your unique design or your client blog design with out being involved in coding, so plz don’t believe anyone tells you that unique designs can be done without coding!
I know a lot of web designers who are not able to manage their own business, this is why I think web designers should expand their knowledge by visiting other non design blogs, they should read about other important stuff like Marketing, Copywriting, Contextual awareness, Strategy and Psychology, especially if they are planning to start a business by their own or establish a successful design company.
Thank You
I would like to thank all our guests for their great cooperation and good respond, with out them I won’t be able to make this article see the light of the internet!
Are we done?
I don’t think so!
Like always.. We have reached the start of our post..
- Are you using Thesis Theme? If not, then… Do you think Thesis Theme is for you? Why? Why not?
- Have you ever thought about hiring a web designer to get unique design for your blog? If not.. What’s stopping you?
- Do you agree with me that Designers should learn more about Blogging itself and other stuff?
It’s very important for me to hear your voice, your thoughts plz!
Article by Hesham Zebida
I create websites, and I develop Thesis Skins. I am a social network lover. I am also the night creature who works hard to keep this project up. Owner and founder of FamousBloggers.net.
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Twitter: Dustinek
May 2, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Hi, You sorta answered this. I want to buy a good theme. I don’t care about spending long hours to try and customize it. Even if my site looks like other sites, that is fine for now (I can hire someone if I want to customize it later). Most of the opinions in this article seemed geared towards working with Thesis as a developer. If I just want to use a good theme for my site, would you say Thesis is the way to go? Or woo themes? Or Elegant themes? I’ve heard all 3 are good.
Additionally, I looked into buying Thesis. It says you must buy Thesis, then pay extra to get Thesis skins? If I have to pay extra to get skins, what exactly am I buying when I just buy Thesis?
Thanks
Twitter: trungpc81
April 26, 2012 at 3:29 am
I’m not using Thesis, however, I have to admit that Thesis has many awesome skins, many people who is developing this Wordpress framework, and many popular blogs are using it, obviously, Thesis is a great WP theme to invest on.
Trung Nguyen recently posted..How to Start a Blog That Will Generate Income?
I use thesis theme for all my websites, it’s amazing, simple, and just looks bloody professional! However I’m trying to find another theme as I don’t want all my websites to look the same, any ideas Hasam?
Hi David, there is more than one solution to get the most out of Thesis Framework:
1- hire a designer or a developer.
2- buy a new skin
3- learn how to do it yourself!
Quite an interesting post! Enjoying reading through all the experts haha :]
Working on coding required you to spend long hours to understand Thesis customization plus it takes a lot of focus and trial and error work. And that makes the process so tiring
But as an old saying says that “If there’s a will, there a way 
There are lots of websites about thesis theme tutorial. So it’s not so difficult to work with thesis theme
I’ve always been impressed by thesis architecture and i know it is great for SEO purpose too but i wish i had the designing skills to have my blog stand out
Salman recently posted..Amzer Super Clear Screen Protector with Cleaning Cloth for HTC Desire
Hi Salman,
Why not take a look to ThesisAwesome.com, there is quite nice and customizable skins for thesis that might help.
I’ve read about the Genesis Theme framework, and there are opinions that Genesis is better than Thesis. I actually don’t use either.
A comparisson between both themes would be a good post, i think.
samuel recently posted..Como reconquistar a un hombre
Hi Samuel , I’ve wrote some thoughts about Thesis and Genesis frameworks that may interest you!
I bought Thesis two weeks ago, and was able to put together a bit of a unique look faster than I could have imagined. I can’t wait to begin my next project, which will have a totally different look and feel than this one. It seems you must always code anyway, so Thesis makes it very easy.
Rick
Rick LaPoint recently posted..How to Craft Your Public Identity- Secrets of the Guerrilla Logo
This is pretty cool Rick!
And I agree with you , we will code anyways
Twitter: jvprime
August 18, 2010 at 9:58 am
Thesis is great.I love it too.
when i know about this, i bought the developer account and i am waiting for version 2.0
Hung | JVPRIME recently posted..Place Your Advertising On Thesis Theme
Everybody it waiting for Thesis version 2.0 I hope it will bring much more features!
I have a basic Thesis theme running on most of my sites and i see the great possibilities, but all these guys talk about editing two files. When I look at their code, I see much more in the way of plugins. Some of these listed sites have tons of them. I’m sure that plays a huge role in how the site looks since they have to be customized as well. Too overwhelming for me. I was a sucker that bought the developer edition.
The Blogging Dad recently posted..Reasons Why I Suck at Blogging
True!
If you can add the functionality of a plugin to those 2 files, then probably it will speed up your site load, this is how I think about it!
Hesham, I am sure it is a great theme. From what I read about it, is that it is not available to customize probably due to encoding. If this is true, what are the advantages to having a theme that you cannot completely customize?
If there are options to change everything (_everything_), then I would not have any issue, but for now I will stick with my own custom themes until I get some cash to try out Thesis.
Aaron recently posted..New Bing Webmaster Tools – No more backlinks
Late reply!
After solving Thesis GPL problem, now you can customize it like any other GPL theme! plz read the new licence!
Hi Hesham, their testimonial are enough to make me sure about this Themes valuable and how great is this themes. thank you Hesham.
Julia recently posted..Vrije Gewichtsverlies Programma’s
You are welcome Julia , glad to hear your opinion!
I blogged on this subject myself recently, and it was great to see your take on it Nicholas.
Many thanks,
dronski089
Would you point me to what you wrote about Thesis?
Wow there is ALOT of content here. Checking out some of the reviews and a few of the main points just goes to show how justified the 9,000 of something searches for “Thesis Wordpress Theme” a month on Google. Clearly there is no question that this theme is a “power house” and well worth it if you have the money to buy it. Really great article…I don’t know how you do it. But you sure know how to build connections on the web…getting all these awesome designers to write for your
AJ recently posted..C&M Clean And Minimal Wordpress Theme
It took me over 2 weeks to prepare this article AJ! glad you find it useful!
By the way, I like your new grvatar image, this is awesome man, don’t hide anymore
Thesis theme is not the end and start of blogging needs. As a theme, it provides everything configurable under a single roof, but for an enthusiast who is hell bent on learning the in and out of Wordpress, it does not offer much and more over, there is every chance that one gets lost in it.
I have used Thesis and worked on it for a long period of time. The more I worked on it, the more I despised it. But, the affil. comm. was very good to let it go. So, I recommend it to anyone who wants to just copy and paste from the help files flying around the ether online. But, if anyone is willing to know the internal functionality of Wordpress, because they will be using it, then give it a skip and download K2 and work on it.(I learnt most of the things on K2 theme).
I just am against using Thesis on my blogs and my client’s blogs. I didnt mean to discourage any.
Suneel recently posted..How To: Enable Pagination in Wordpress With Number of Posts Per Page
Thank you Suneel for your comment!
The thing why I like Thesis is because i can control each part of it by coding into only 2 files which means you can do more in less time if you work with several blogs! Also I have learned some good information -to me- about Wordress, so basically I don’t need to try another Theme if I can not transfer options from it to another blog in an easy way!
I will take a look into the K2 for extra knowledge, it seems to be nice and clean, thank you for your recommendation!
The Thesis theme is amazing. Virtually limitless in possibilities and opportunities. The only problem I have with it is that I’m not a good designer, so it’s hard for me to expand from the default look.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Correctly Writing An Optimized Page Title & URL
I had that same challenge. The forum is very good, though – if you have the time.
John Haydon recently posted..How To Remove Your Header and Nav Bar On A Single Page In WordPress
Hey John, nice to see you here
You have got it right… Time!
Which I lack.
John Haydon recently posted..How To Remove Your Header and Nav Bar On A Single Page In WordPress
Karan, I am working on a new project to help out Thesis bloggers on the design, I am almost there to pronounce the project to everybody, and it’s not going to be so expensive because I really want to make difference and get a unique design for everybody who is using Thesis Theme!
So, stay tuned, I will probably announce it this month!
Awesome, looking forward to seeing it happen!
Karan Singhal recently posted..Correctly Writing An Optimized Page Title & URL
Well well,thesis is undoubtedly the best theme for any blogger and with those wonderful skins we can make sure it suites every niche out there
good share
PGE recently posted..Get rid of Desktop.ini files
We hope to see more Skins for Thesis in the future!
great ! i am convinced ,so many ppl backing up a single theme cannot be a hype its gotta be that good. im looking forward to use thesis
srikar recently posted..Best Google Chrome Extensions
It’s actually great if you give it sometime to understand it’s power!
Got two blogs running on Thesis and it is indeed an excellent framework to build upon and customize as you want.
There are great insight in these interviews from bloggers who have created great themes / designs for that framework!
Leo recently posted..Thesis: how to remove multiple categories from your homepage
Glad to hear that Leo, and thanks for stepping by!
I must say, this seems to be the longest and informative article about Thesis theme I have read but it admit that it is very convincing to me. I have been using Thesis for more than a year and happy with it.
I do agree that developers and designers should go for Thesis but bloggers who do not know about hooks and coding, I would not recommend it unless they can put more to get a nicer skin like bloggusion or SimplePress or even hiring designers to customise it for you. Other designers like WooThemes, StudioPress, PliablePress is also using theme frameworks with more ready-made child theme.
Just my idea and nor planning to switch to other framework now
Tinh recently posted..Google Adsense Revenue Share Is Officially Disclosed
Thanks Tinh, I see that you are using the bloggusion skin, looks nice, I bought it when it was released by I decided to make my own skin after that, so I didn’t use it!
Twitter: dragonblogger
May 27, 2010 at 3:29 pm
I originally wanted the Thesis theme for DragonBlogger.com and didn’t have the funding to shell out back two years ago, now two years later I have manually revamped my theme so much I almost don’t want to have to start over with Thesis. At some point I would switch to Theses if only for the ease of not having to use an SEO plug-in for an existing theme which adds more overhead as well as the custom hooks. This blog does an amazing job with the Thesis theme and is one of my favorite visually appearing blogs on the web.
Justin Germino recently posted..Farewell for NBC Heroes: No Season 5
Twitter: element321
May 27, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Justin,
I agree with you Hesham has done a great job at designing this site.
element321 recently posted..Top 21 Places To Find Royalty-Free Stock Images
Wow… wow
This is so cool Justin, it’s so exciting to get nice feedback about FamousBloggers, I am actually in love with it as well, and working all the time to enhance it more when ever I have a chance!
I am also thinking seriously about how to make it easier for other bloggers to use Thesis and make it look awesome!
Stay tuned as I am working on a nice project that will serve a lot of Thesis bloggers, this could be the time for you to shift!
Thanks again for your kind words
Twitter: dragonblogger
May 27, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I decoded your CSS to get the “images” as bullets and implemented my own version on my blog, it looks okay, but not as sharp as yours, what do you think?
http://www.dragonblogger.com/free-custom-email-signature-with-wisestamp/
Justin Germino recently posted..Farewell for NBC Heroes: No Season 5
Probably you need to replace the image with a full dragon head with out background! that could be awesome, if not then use another different image!
Twitter: dragonblogger
May 27, 2010 at 4:41 pm
Yeah, I need a new image, I was just using that as an example to test it.
Justin Germino recently posted..Farewell for NBC Heroes: No Season 5
Since i meet him, i start to design all my blogs in Thesis.
Thesis its a fantastic tool for web developers who wants to stand out of the crowd. Its true that 60% of thesis sites use the default customization, but with a lit work there are no limits to thesis customization.
You can see about my work in:
portfolio or my lastest work: laxante cultural .
Jorge Lima recently posted..Fundos e layouts grátis para o Twitter!
I see that you have an interesting portfolio Jorge, this is awesome work, I love it.. I also like your blog customization.. great work!
Thank you for your feedback and sharing your portfolio with us
Frugal and Headway is more easier to deal with than Thesis, but who knows what Thesis 2.0 will look like?
Freetao recently posted..富士康招聘网站被黑
Exactly.. I am also waiting for Thesis 2.0 hopefully it will be more easy to deal with
Hopefully it’ll be out soon – it was meant to be last September…
Though in all seriousness, it’s great that the premium WordPress theme market is so well represented by great developers and themes.
I used Thesis for a long time, then made the switch to Headway last year and have to admit, far prefer Headway.
Not to say that Thesis isn’t a great theme – I’d just say that it’s more for folks that either have time to dig under the hood, or hire developers to do it for them.
Great overview, by the way.
Danny Brown recently posted..Local Joints TV Merges Social Media and Local Community
I must admit that I feel the need to give Headway a try as I am always open into try new things!
I am sure that Headway is the best option for people who don’t have time to dig or hire developers that will cost a fortune in most cases to create an elegant and unique site! so, I completely agree with you and I am really thinking how to make things better for those who are using Thesis!
Thank you Danny for sharing your opinion with us, this is much appreciated, I have listed you on our Famous Bloggers list on Twitter so I can follow up with your tweets in the future!
Dang, now I’ll have to up the interest level of my tweets…
If you do try Headway, look forward to seeing your thoughts on it, compared to Thesis. They’re similar, and yet so different as well, it’s always cool to see what users of each theme think of the other.
Cheers!
Danny Brown recently posted..Local Joints TV Merges Social Media and Local Community
First thanks for the link! I think the market is getting quite interesting for these customizable themes. I notice that Frugal has expanded is range of pricing options while retaining its current ones. Thesis is runs adwords campaigns threating a significant price increase – but no mention of that one their front page.
It does seem to be me that Thesis is playing catch up though – Thesis claims to be a fast theme – now ? I upgraded it in the first place because it was running so slow on my not very big site.
Brian Clark has been promising that Thesis 2.0 would be out by Sept 2009 (not a typo last year ) for 1/2 of last year – does anyone believe their release schedule anymore?
Lis recently posted..My Sites Have Dropped Out of the SERPS – Does Google Hate Me?
I have just came from Thesis forum, and actually they say that the Advertisement has nothing to do with Thesis, it’s from an affiliates who want to game people to buy the theme!
Anyways, It’s officially on the diythemes that Thesis price will go higher when Thesis 2.0 is released, how much? no one knows!
I am wondering who is behind the 6 cent ad!
I’m seeing the ads all over (they are poorly optimized) and they are generally linking to diythemes.com – there may be affiliates advertising too – but the ones I’ve seen are Thesis themselves and do quote “will be $297 – early birds get in for less”
Lis recently posted..Passive Income Online – Where Has Lis Been?
I think Thesis 2.0 will tell the complete truth about this, we will know if Thesis people behind it or not!
I had to remove the price from my banner because I don’t want problems, it’s actually not official, and all what I can find at diythemes.com that the price will increase, this is mentioned on the pricing plans page at th bottom of the page #4 !
Whether someone should use Thesis depends on if they are willing to take the time to learn or pay someone to customize it. Out of the box it looks OK, but doesn’t stand out. I’ve used Thesis on a few sites where it’s nearly impossible to tell it’s Thesis [ Joel Chasnoff, Union Park Press, Swagger Paris, and Second Glass are just a few].
From a developer’s standpoint, the hooks and custom folder architecture rocks. Drop all your changes into the custom folder and come upgrade time it’s literally a 5 second operation. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for something that works out of the box but for someone willing to put in the work Thesis is a great framework.
Adam Pieniazek recently posted..Wordpress 2.9 Timezone and Scheduled Posts Missed Fixes
I agree with you Adam, I liked the customizations you have shared, thanks!
I can add also that working with Thesis is not easy in the beginning, but after working with it over and over you will have in hands some good resource as a developer and will make developing new sites more easier because you have already collected and developed the codes you need!
Thanks for your nice feedback
I heard lot about thesis.But still I am not using it in my blog.BWN thanks for the review.After reading your review I am thinking about to change my old theme.
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Your blog looks nice, but of course I won’t stop you from enhancing it’s design, good luck
Twitter: ditesco
May 26, 2010 at 8:41 am
I use Thesis and as far as SEO is concerned, it is definitely my choice. The problem with Thesis in my opinion is the ability for non tech savvy people (like me) to enhance its design. Fonts and colors are ok but there is nothing in its options regarding graphic design or anything else similar. My theme runs on minimal and I would like to have a more nice looking design but due to my limits, I can not go any further. Obviously, I know that I can pay someone to do this for me, but that can be costly and time consuming. Would it not be great if there where “ready made” skins that one can just pick and voilá
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I am thinking how to create a skin that actually works like a framework itself
then with a little effort or support you can create unlimited look and feel skins from it!
Great review Hesham, sincerely, until now I have never read something against Thesis.
Actually a lot of people against Thesis, and there is a big competition running now on the WordPress themes world!
Harrrrrumph.
You can make *any* theme look totally different if you’re willing to code and hack. Whether it’s Thesis, or a Woo theme or a freebie. I’ve done it.
But 9/10 times I’ll use something like frugal or Headway. Because why should I go to trouble of jacking code around if I can get the result I want by dragging around (Headway) or flipping switches (frugal). I’d rather use the time to write (that *is* what it’s about, isn’t it?) or design.
Speaking of design. I see only a couple of the comments make a distinction between developer and designer. Most comments use them w/o distinction. Wrong.
Developers are coders. Designers, in the traditional sense, are just that. When you look at the productions of “designers” who are really coders…nine out of ten times they’re a design train wreck. They’d flunk out of art school in the first week. Colors only a someone colorblind could live, layouts that totally misuse design principles (i.e. minimalism, whitespace, fonts). That’s not a throwaway stat…I’ve counted. One in ten *do* have an aesthetic, and deserve to be called developers *and* designers.
It’s not the tools, it’s the workperson (to coin and modify a phrase).
This is a much appreciated comment Robert!
What I think is Developers actually shouldn’t design, I have worked with more than 40 or 50 developers as I remember, I have experienced that they give different instruction and notes during the design process which mostly leads into problems on the design!
I agree with you that One in 10 Designers deserves to be called designer, and this is why I am encouraging them to educate themselves by getting out of the tight design circle they are living in by studding other important things to enhance their skills!
I see that designers are so important for humanity and they play a very sensitive role in creating civilization!
Even the Piano you play your best music on, it won’t be the same if was not designed well!
Tnks for the kind words, Hesham!
You put it well. Everyone benefits by getting outside their box. Designers should learn some coding. Coders should learn some design. All would benefit…especially the people who view their sites
.
Appreciate the piano point — is exactly why I do NOT play on a Steinway!
Tnks for the follow; reciprocated.
%%robert
Thesis can be good, but for those who really do not have the time to learn Thesis, but are competent as a designer, you can get away from Thesis and really rock out a site.
WordPress is already SEO ready out of the box… you really only have to read up after people like Joost de Valk to apply the necessary tools to your site… that are free. Of course, there are people who have the money to invest more, but as a startup, it is not wise.
A lot of people like Thesis because you do not have to install all these plugins to do its job. I get that a lot with my clients. I have even had clients who stopped using Thesis and let me straight up code them a theme that they are rocking out and they ranks are doing great. I help more people rock their sites out, than the time I get in doing so to my own site (lol.)
I do like this post and I think it states a great plus on the Thesis end. I just am not convinced for myself personally, even if I have Thesis for my clients. That development version is just insane in price considering its competition with commercially supported GPL themes and frameworks from WooThemes, Elegant Themes, StudioPress, Hybrid, and Headway.
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Thesis actually opened a new market for developers and designers, this is why everybody who use it and make money from it is not complaining at all from it’s price, like John said:
I see that most of my blogger friends already change their theme to thesis theme. I will buy thesis theme after fully experienced with wordpress.
Well Hesham I like your nice review on thesis theme and the testimonial of thesis designer.
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Thank you Chandan, I suggest you buy it now and play with it while you are experiencing WordPress, if you didn’t like it you can return it, there is 30 day money back guarantee like @kristarella said in another comment below! this to avoid the increase in price when Thesis 2.0 is out!
Glad you liked the post, and I hope it will benefit all our community
I can’t agree entirely with that. For business owners it is better to have a web presence than none at all and trying to make your own site is not necessarily killing your business future. I do believe in investing money to make money, but if someone wants to learn to design and manage their own site, then more power to them. Being willing and able to learn is something that seems to be lacking in many website owners.
I totally agree with you on this. You have to be open to learning. Even if you are not a designer or developer, you still have to put the work into your site, whether it be time or money, or even both.
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You have got a point, yes.. having no enough experience while making own site is not necessarily killing your business future, and of course I am talking here about people who have no taste and they create really bad sites! but if someone wants to learn, then this is great because actually the themes and tools exists today to help those people!
You are right, and of course my opinions and thoughts are not a law!
Thesis is theme to customize so if you do not has time for it, I suggest do not buy thesis in first place.
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Let’s say time and/or money
Hahaha … Yes, I forgot about the money. Yes, you need money to buy it.
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We use Thesis and have the developer’s license. We use it on several of our blogs. After reading the comments from the various designers I feel really good right about now on the choice we made!
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Oh my God, I have visited your site several times, and never thought it’s a Thesis, this is interesting.. great!
It takes a little fiddling to get your head around the hooks and custom folder files in Thesis, but once you grasp the general concept, customizing gets easier. Stick with Thesis, it’s going to take WordPress to a whole new level.
Exactly, I have redesigned this blog 4 times before I understand how to deal with Hooks
but when I got it I was feeling the power!
Twitter: michaelaulia
May 25, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Thesis is great but it’s really intimidating to those who don’t have knowledge of PHP or CSS. It requires you to tinker around with coding if you want to achieve a good layout or at least being a bit unique than the plain vanilla version
Apart from it, Thesis is a great framework to work with indeed.
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Some bloggers think that they don’t have to learn coding or basic HTML and CSS because they can concentrate more on their main goals and targets of being bloggers ot marketer, however I think they are wrong.. they should learn some basic coding because they will need these skills sooner or latter then they will be stucked.. but the have the unique look that everyone is seeking to get, this is more difficult and need an expert, and it’s not about Thesis only, you can apply this to any theme or framework Mike, it’s all the same.. everything need work to stand out!
This is also why I advise designers to read more on blogging tips and learn a little about marketing and SEO to add additional skill that will serve their business and clients!
Twitter: michaelaulia
May 26, 2010 at 12:15 am
Hehe true, Hesham but sometimes great bloggers are great writers but can be very non-technical. Oh well I guess we all have to learn new things if we really want to be a great blogger. If you don’t want to be one, then you shouldn’t buy Thesis , right?
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In this case you should have some budget for design or development! of course here I am talking all about bloggers who really want something special!
I use Thesis and I think I have become quite adept in customizing the framework. I loved the Theme to death until recently when I won a copy of the Frugal Theme and WOW, the customization options and the ease of customizing surpasses Thesis many times.
My blog still runs on Thesis though but I am toying with my copy of Frugal now to see what I can come up with.
Anyway, Thesis still rocks. (if they maintain the price that is)
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Costa, I think Frugal is a nice theme from what I have knew about it’s features, and maybe the results will be better using it compared with Thesis, I still wait for the new Thesis 2.0 to see if Chris Pearson put in mind some new exciting features!
I am also interested to know about your experience with Frugal
Will certainly keep people updated. In fact I have just bought a new domain just to experiment with it.
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This is great then, some other bloggers will test on the same blog they are using which is not a good idea in my opinion, good luck and I am sure you will have a lot of fun playing with the new theme and comparing it with Thesis, probably you can blog a nice vs article that really worth when you are done!
Thanks for including me in this article.
I stand by the power of Thesis. In the past 16 months or so, I’ve been able to use Thesis for every design and development job that I have accepted.
It has also taken a lot of effort to achieve the comfort level I have with Thesis, and a certain desire to learn intermediate-level coding. Once you are comfortable with Thesis, you can do almost anything with it.
But getting there isn’t easy, and to be perfectly frank it isn’t something that most people are going to want to do. That is good for me, because it means I have lots of opportunities to work with clients. But by the same token clients often come to me because they have gotten “in over their heads” with Thesis and need help.
This debate centers more around people’s expectations than what Thesis is actually capable of. Yes, you can install it and customize it to some extent with no coding, and it will work fine. It does work right out of the box.
I think some people have it in their mind that Thesis is some magic theme that will automatically make turn itself into your vision of a perfect website. It won’t, and with so many out-of-the-box Thesis installations running around these days, most won’t be satisfied with the default options.
Just look at it as part of the investment. If you think $87 is going to get you an amazing coding framework that also looks exactly the same you want and is infinitely flexible, you’re living in a dream world.
Thesis is the foundation that an experienced designer can use to focus on the look and feel of your site rather than the core functionality. You can spend $87 on Thesis and save thousands of dollars worth of development work. Look at it from that perspective, and it’s hard to argue with the value it provides.
On the other hand, if you want your site to look a certain way above all else, go buy a WooTheme — which are great for achieving a certain look and feel at a low price — and you’ll be much happier.
No theme is all things to all people. If you know what you require from a theme, it should be easy to determine if Thesis is right for you. If you don’t know what you want, figure it out before you buy anything.
John, your designs are talking about you, and I have seen it on several showcases as one of the best Thesis customization out there! I also can see from your other sites that you are an ordinary guy
Being watching themes and design market during the last a few months, I knew that there is a lot of new great themes are developed everyday for a fordable prices, my case it more about uniqueness and standing out which will not be in hand with out help of an experienced and talented designers!
I agree you with on all what you have said above, thank you for adding this extremely useful comment!
I would love to hear your answer to this question as a designer, do you agree with me that Designers should learn more about Blogging itself and other related stuff being designing blogs and dealing with bloggers as clients?
Hesham,
Glad to hear that you agree! I have worked with lots of clients on Thesis designs – must be close to 70 now – so I have pretty strong feelings about this stuff.
Of course people who aim to design blogs need to understand blogging — at least to the extent to that they need to be able to serve the goals of their clients. A web designer’s job isn’t to create something pretty, it is to find an effective solution to a communication problem.
So they need to understand blogging, at a minimum, to the point where they can fully grasp their client’s needs and come up with an effective way to fulfill those needs.
As it turns out, many of us need to solve the same problems over and over again — and that is precisely why Thesis exists: to solve the fundamental challenges associated with designing a website.
For example: do I want 2 columns or 3? How big should my text be, do I want images associated with my posts, do I want this layout or that one?
These are questions that Thesis allows you to answer on your own, at the push of a button, and I think people are starting to take that functionality for granted. Previously you would have had to learn how to do those things for yourself, or to pay someone to do that work for you. And it sure would have been much more difficult to switch back and forth.
Thank you so much John!
Generally speaking, designing was always a complicated and not an easy job as it seems to be, it’s even more complicated today than ever, they are great people who help in almost all fields, and we really need them to be more educated and more knowledgeable, and this is what makes a difference between a designer and another!
Thank you for the great respond, you are the man
“No HTML or coding skills necessary”
Frankly, I could never get behind a company that would BLATANTLY lie and trick it’s customers.
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As I said, Thesis theme works out of the box for who accept it the way it is, and it doesn’t work out of the box if you don’t like how it looks
They didn’t lie by the meaning Dennis, they are maybe smart… the real problem is with people who buy it then complain even after seeing the video that shows every part of Thesis!
What you call that?
What?
They state, “No HTML or coding skills necessary”, which is UNTRUE – you even said above it is great for designers with coding experience…how is that not lying?
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Yes, it’s good for designers with coding experience, those who can make it look exactly the way they want (or their clients wants)!
Also yes.. it works out of the box with any code, if you want to try it.. they buy it, setup it and it will work and do the job with out any coding
Necessary for what exactly? There are a great many things that Thesis can do without coding that most themes have never done. There are more themes coming out now that do more from the dashboard, but they didn’t exist before. Evidently people have forgotten what it was like to edit themes before: you had to deal with HTML and PHP to add or remove anything from your template, and edit CSS to change the look of anything on the page.
Twitter: element321
May 25, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Great post Hesham,
I am trying to find out as much info about Thesis as I can. I have been thinking about switching over to Thesis since you introduced it to me a few months back. But after reading Nicholas’ post and reading all the comments about Thesis, all of my concerns started to grow. Before I make the switch I will have to give a lot more thought before switching over.
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What I think is almost 70% of comment on Nick’s post is from people who are not experienced with Thesis and didn’t know what thesis really is before reading his post, so.. I don’t think you consider hearing from bloggers, non developers and non designers perspective only to decided whether to go for Thesis or not, even Nick states that “Thesis may be the right framework for some people” and this is the only part I agree with him as Thesis is a good framework for developers/designers and bloggers who actually can dig into the code by their own! although playing with Thesis on a friend’s site is not enough to know everything about it!
Today I was trying to help people understand what they are buying before getting it then complain, we have heard from experts what they had to say about Thesis, people who really can make Thesis look beautiful as you can see from the simple showcase and the links below it!
The main problem is people think that Thesis Theme is expensive, I will say that Design is expensive.. I mean how you will be able to get a unique design by paying the standard option which cost $87? you will never have a unique awesome design for your blog under $1500 !! so think about it this way because this is the real life!
Also you can go for any other cheaper themes and you will face the problem that a lot of blogs will still look the same like yours, you will never find the real uniqueness you are seeking!
Anyways, you don’t have to buy something that you are not convinced of, also you don’t have to buy because I am or anybody else is using it, this is something that you should do only if you feel to do it and need it!
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element321 — 30 day money back guarantee! When you’re ready you should give it a go, if you truly don’t like it, return it.
Yes.. yes… thank you for remind me with that
i am a huge fan of Thesis theme but my current blog is very difficult to customize with thesis but i will still give it a try on my clients blog.
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mmmm… I don’t think it’s impossible .. maybe it need a little bit of work to get a skin for Thesis looks like your blog
anyways … if you are comfort with your theme then stick with it!
Twitter: bizchickblogs
May 25, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Fantastic post about Thesis. I couldn’t agree more. I love using it, but I am really familiar with Wordpress code and understand php and know how to tweak themes.
For everyone else, even with Thesis Open Hook, it can be a huge headache. Thesis is a theme for designers and developers. I don’t think people who don’t know how to customize Wordpress themes should consider it. Instead, they should either hire a developer or buy a Thesis skin that looks like what they want.
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Yes.. Even using Thesis Open Hook plugin is still kind of complicated for some people, tweak and customize their blogs!
I even think that we shouldn’t use the Open Hook, I am working on removing it completely from my blogs as I think I don’t need it any more, I prefer to limit number of plugins I am running if I can add the needed code manually to the custom_functions.php
I agree with Tia, bloggers should hire someone specialist or at least buy a skin that they can teak it in order to have a unique design for there blogs, this is what I wanted to do since I started FamousBloggers, but the designer I have contacted was busy working on a project, then I decided to do it by my own.. after all I am a web designer!
Twitter: bizchickblogs
May 25, 2010 at 3:01 pm
LOL well I hear ya. But even web designers need a little break. I chose Canvas by WooThemes for my OWN site LOL and I use Thesis on my other sites and also some clients. Is that not hysterical? It’s because I’m too busy to be messing around with my own site so I chose something I could put up and be done with in 20 minutes.
lol that true Tia, I personally use ElegantThemes and I have a good relation with Nick, he is one of our main sponsors and I enjoy it on 3 of my other blogs but with no uniqueness but I recommend it for those who don’t know anything about nothing or they need to relax their minds and start faster and cheaper
Twitter: MurrayLunn
May 25, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Hey Hesham,
Great review of Thesis, you put quite a lot of effort into it.
I think Thesis is better thought as a framework than a theme. The backend and features built in really make it a solid foundation for any WP developer. Like the showcase showed, you can design some very nice themes around the framework.
I do agree with Mark McCorkell that it’s a bit of overkill for small blogs but it’s certainly worth keeping in mind as your blog grows.
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Thanks Murlu,
And yes.. that’s true.. small blogs will not be able to handle Thesis and it’s requirements to create a good looking site, unless they do it themselves and had to learn a lot of stuff which takes time, but I actually have seen some simple and awesome blogs!
Thank you buddy for stepping by
Twitter: heydevesh
May 25, 2010 at 11:54 am
Hey Hesham,
I am hearing a lot about thesis, i think it is of the best WP framework
. It seems there are many bloggers who had redesign the thesis theme like you .. and Alex Fraiser.
!!
I think Alex fraiser is one of the best rockin thesis designer
Btw. What you think about frugal and headway? Some great bloggers are using headway and frugal. !!
!
Thanks for sharing this awesome review and it’s great to hear that you are a full time blogger. Great work buddy.
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Frugal and Headway is more easier to deal with than Thesis, but who knows what Thesis 2.0 will look like?
I didn’t use any of them and I don’t mind to give them a try in future if I have time, but as I said there no theme on the planet will allow to create a completely unique design for your blog with out a little bit of coding skills!
As you had said, I too doesn’t like the way Thesis was out of the box, it’s just too plain. I feel Thesis from my honest-to-God opinion is a very good way to earn profit for the developer.
Look, there are not many blogger who knows how to redesign Thesis and so when they brought Thesis they have no choice but to get the developer to redesign their theme for a price.
The developer gets paid for the Theme Plus the redesign work. It’s a great sales funnel.
But anyway, Thesis to me is a good theme as it is very light in terms of loading on the web.
I have try to use but I feel is not worth to pay to redesign as I have paid for the theme.
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That was a marketing trick to sell Thesis which I suppose it’s not the best choice for bloggers who bought individual licenses because it’s more a framework than a complete theme, but it’s a great choice for developers and web designers who know how to customize it!
Guess ur right, Thesis are just great choice for developers and web designer, but still I guess there are lots of individual blogger like me had brought it…
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This is a very comprehensive review of Thesis from people who have some extensive experience using the theme. It goes to show with the right skills, you can take something that most people consider “bland” out of the box and turn it into something amazing and unrecognizable from the starting product.
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Thank you Kristi, I appreciate your help on finalizing this article!
Have you notice that @CommentLuv is working on Thesis 1.7 ?
Thanks to Andy he have solved this problem on the first call when I contacted him, it’s now included in his latest version that he delivered just today!
I never had a problem with Thesis and CommentLuv – I noticed people have been talking about that, but mine has been working smoothly. I know I updated Thesis, but maybe I didn’t update to the latest version of CommentLuv.
Kristi Hines recently posted..Make Money Blogging
mmmm this is good for you
But the thing is Thesis comments.php file has been changed, the comments.php file is calling another comments.php file and this was braking my CommentLuv CSS, I wonder how yours was still working after the upgrade!
well.. what I can say… it’s another medical of Kikolani
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