Empty Canvas

Note: If you just want the free WordPress theme, you might want to skip the long talk about who and how and why and just scroll to the preview and download links. But if you like a good novel, be my guest. :) Here goes:

About a year ago I released my first (turned out to be the only) free WordPress theme, called Corporate Sandbox. The theme is based on the Sanbox theme (no link, I think the website is being updated) and it’s the kind of WordPress theme that can easily be customized to match any brand or existing look and feel, making it ideal for corporate blogging.

It’s probably this minimalistic, “less is more” approach that made the theme so popular (4800 downloads and counting). In fact, I’m sure of it, as most implementations I’ve seen kept the same look and feel and only updated the theme with the proper logo / header / color scheme.

I used the theme myself on quite a few projects and for me it’s been a great way to save time and be more efficient when designing and implementing custom WordPress themes. But at some point, I realized that the whole Sandbox approach just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Of course I’m talking about “what’s under the hood”. I needed something even simpler, easier to adapt to my design needs.

Theme Frameworks

I won’t go into details about what a theme framework is and what it does, there are more capable people who have done that already. Justin Tadlock’s article is particularly interesting if you’re into the “behind the scenes” type of articles. Just check the links below.

Some WordPress theme developers will argue that theme frameworks are the thing of the future, while some will say they can get in the way. While I do acknowledge the power of a theme framework, I personally wouldn’t use one. I feel it would slow me down, rather than help me be more efficient. And I’m saying this from experience. So you could say I’m part of the second category.

Naked Themes

Not sure if this is the proper terminology, but there are also quite a few themes out there that have been stripped of almost all the styling. They are supposed to be the theme to start from when creating a new custom WordPress theme.

Some of them are pretty clean and are a step forward from the themes using hooks and and filters and other contraptions that 90% of WordPress designers probably don’t (want to) know about anyway. But now they were all too skinny for me! :)

So I had to choose between the high tech, state of the art WordPress themes that can even cook you dinner if you know how to ask nicely and the very simple themes, that would have you reinvent the wheel evey time you want to implement a new design.

Enter Empty Canvas

You know that saying: “If you want a thing done well, do it yourself!”. Well, that’s what I did. I created my very own canvas to draw on, allowing me to focus more on what counts: custom design, custom features, etc. I called it Empty Canvas, and you can now download it for free.

I always serve my articles with a pinch of humor, but don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying all these other themes I mentioned are not done well, on the contrary: they were carefully crafted, I’m sure! But I wanted to do my own thing and the amount of projects I completed in only 4 months tells me I made the right choice.

Also, don’t download this theme and expect the Mona Lisa. It’s only a simple theme, that does wonders for me. My feeling tells me you’ll find it very useful as well, but there’s a possibility that you won’t.

Preview and Download

First of all, here are some features, so you know what to expect:

  • compatible with WordPress 2.7.1 (sorry, no threaded comments though – I don’t like them too much)
  • wider than Corporate Canvas, allowing better ad integration ( the days of 800×600 are pretty much gone anyway)
  • same simple look as Corporate Canvas, but got rid of the comment bubble
  • dynamic top menu (page navigation) and widget ready sidebar
  • archive page, catering for most situations: categories, tags, search, authors, etc.
  • valid, cross browser, minimalistic code
  • following a “want more stuff? add it yourself!” philosophy ;)

Preview Theme|Download Empty Canvas (3869) - 60.55 KB

Sorry for the long article, but I’ve been meaning to write it and share this theme with you for a long time.

LATER EDIT 1: Claudia from Chica Blogger pointed out something I’ve been meaning to address myself, since I forgot to mention this yesterday: yes, there are no credits in the theme footer and I’m ok with that.

The theme is free to use for your personal and commercial projects. Most people will probably use the theme for client projects, so the link in the footer might get in the way. Plus, I’m not going crazy about SEO and links right now, I’m happy just building a loyal readership (I know… link + SEO > readers, but you get the point).

So if you do something great with the theme or simply want to write about how it helped you be more productive, I would love to hear about it, so I encourage you to link to this page. Maybe even post a link on Twitter! Or you can just tell your close friends or clients about it and not share it with “the competition”. Whatever your channels are, I’m ok with that.

I almost forgot to give you the theme’s motto: “Work smart, work less, create more!” ;)

LATER EDIT 2: If you are experiencing problems setting a static front page, you might want to redownload the ZIP file and overwrite your old sidebar.php and functions.php files.