Comments on: Premium WordPress Themes are Dead

By: Free Thesis Skin: Network News | WPblogger

Free Thesis Skin: Network News | WPblogger — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:54:02 +0000

[...] Ben Cook on October 8, 2009 When I declared that Premium Themes Are Dead, I received a LOT of feedback arguing that there will always be a market for premium themes since [...]

By: Chris Burbridge

Chris Burbridge — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:02:11 +0000

I, for one, cannot IMAGINE why a “serious” web designer or blogger would not be willing to shell out 80 bucks for a theme, *if* that payment helped get them much farther along. Frankly, if they were doing the project for paying money, and it saved them *even* a few hours of time, it’d be more than worth it.

Struggling to save every penny in expenses, while toiling away labor-wise, is, well — I guess that could be a good move for a student, or someone on a very tight budget.

Anyway, enough of the rant.

I’m excited about paid and non-paid frameworks, and can totally see the benefits of both. Either way, folks need to get paid for their work somehow!

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:45:18 +0000

Ben, I don’t agree that Thesis offers complete visual control, since it does not even come close to what Headway can do. And even Headway doesn’t offer complete visual control… yet.

I’m not “bashing” Thesis, but pointing out a place where the two differ greatly (even with the new Thesis 1.6). To be fair, Thesis has better inherent typography than Headway. If you look at some of the videos out there (like on Remarkablogger) you’ll see amazing drag-and-drop NO CSS tools in Headway. This separates Headway from ALL other themes. It’s also a clear indicator that your main observation in this post is dead on: the plain ol’ premium theme is indeed dead.

By: Ben Cook

Ben Cook — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:28:03 +0000

Michael, In my experience Thesis offers complete visual control over everything on your site, however, as you mentioned, Headway makes a LOT of things easier on a per page basis.

That being said, in my experience (and granted I’ve only designed one site with Headway) it also makes some things more difficult. Still possible, but not as easy.

In any case, I would absolutely agree with you that we are headed away from themes and towards visual editors but I think frameworks will be the foundation of that shift & will have a market for quite a while still.

By: Michael Martine

Michael Martine — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:56:36 +0000

The fact that most Thesis themes look like thesis is a reflection of the blogger or designer, not Thesis. Having said that, I think you’ll find that with Headway, it’s far easier to achieve a unique look that matches the personality and brand you want for your blog.

This is because Headway does something no other premium theme can do: offer complete visual control over everything: layout, fonts, colors, banners, and more. And when I say layout, I don’t mean for all pages, I mean for each page individually. For example, maybe you want your About page to have a different layout from your Services page.

First there were premium themes, then frameworks, but even frameworks are now passe. Visual Blog Editors are next.

By: Are Premium WordPress Themes Going Out of Style?

Are Premium WordPress Themes Going Out of Style? — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:13:33 +0000

[...] There has been some interesting discussion about WPblogger about premium WordPress themes. The author of the original post says “Premium WordPress Themes are Dead.” [...]

By: John

John — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:58:29 +0000

I don’t agree. It depends on what you want to do. If you are a designer then you can go for a framework and design your own theme. If you’re not a designer, then a framework won’t help your site look good. Does this website look good?

I am not a designer so I look at the design when I purchase a theme. If there will be skins provided for the frameworks, that means additional cost, and again they will reduce flexibility, if they will be for free, then they’ll be overused.

I see the theme market growing, frameworks have their share, predesigned themes theirs…

By: baloot

baloot — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:36:00 +0000

you were absolutely right ben cook. i agree.
i’m using thesis because of their framework. not because of their design. hee..

cheers from thesis user too.

By: BlogBuzz August 29, 2009

BlogBuzz August 29, 2009 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:04:24 +0000

[...] Premium WordPress Themes are Dead [...]

By: Ben Cook

Ben Cook — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:13:28 +0000

Steve, I think theres definitely a market for Thesis and Headway themes & it’s only going to grow.