Latest News
The new generation
Ok, I’ve started development of Ocean Mist 2.0. It’ll be a fair while before it’s released but I wanted to give you a quick rundown of what I’m planning…
- Elastic Layout
- PNG based
- Customisable colour scheme
- Better support for sites using Wordpress as a CMS
- Pre-formatted templates for portfolios, news pages, contact forms and more…
What does this mean for Authors?
As suggested by the results of my Wordpress Theme Survey, the design will retain the original theme’s simple 2 column layout. The colour scheme will be completely customisable via an easy to read ‘colour’ stylesheet, containing only the elements you’ll need to alter the colour scheme.
The HTML will be completely rewritten from scratch to allow for the new elastic layout. It will also be designed to be more compatible with a wider range of widgets and plugins ‘out-of-the-box’. The theme will be supplied with detailed documentation to help make tweaking the code easier…
Advertise on Tenbytwenty.com
If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to promote your website, you might be interested in advertising on tenbytwenty.com. A standard IAB 120 x 90 advert is available for just $64 /month.
Tenbytwenty.com has had 78,000 unique visits in its first four months… and growing every month.
Akashi - a free typeface
It’s been a while since I’ve given something away, so here you go… a nice shiney new typeface…
Akashi features 158 of the most commonly used glyphs . It’s available over at tenbytwenty.com.
Ed on Boagworld
After writing a little post for Paul’s Blog about combining the advantages of Fluid & Elastic layouts, Paul and Marcus asked me to come on the show and explain in a bit more detail how this works.
Hartland Typeface
Hartland, my latest typeface, comes in two weights, Regular & Bold, and features 158 of the most commonly used glyphs . It’s available over at tenbytwenty.com.
Languages, characters & accents
I’m working on a new typeface which will be available in four variants (light, regular, bold & italic). It should be ready some time in the next month… but more on that soon.
I’ve had a lot of requests to include a variety of foreign characters in my typefaces so thought I’d take a minute to ask:
which languages would you like to see supported?
So far I’ll be including characters for French, German, Spanish & Italian…
Edit: Turkish & Norwegian added by request.
WP Theme Survey Results
Firstly, a big thankyou to everyone who took part in my Wordpress Theme Survey, the results are in and look like they’re going to prove a really useful resource when developing new Wordpress themes in the future.
I’m afraid the results aren’t as nicely presented as the ones provided by PollDaddy, but I hope they are clear enough. Anyhow, here they are:
Section1. Please tell us a bit about the website you need a theme for
Q1. How would you describe the Wordpress site which requires a new theme?
50% A blog (using wp posts)
41% A static website with a blog/news section (using wp pages & posts)
7% A static website (using wp pages)
1% Other Option…(1 request for a blog & ecommerce solution)
Q2. Which Wordpress Plugins & Widgets do you use?
Some of the most common included:
Twitter feed, Recent Comments, Flickr, All in One SEO, nopingwait, subscribe to comments, event calendar, TinyMCE, Advanced wp-cache, wpSEO, lightbox, cformsII, WP Shopping Cart, wp_cache, wp-forecast, dean’s code highligter, feedburner feedsmith, creative commons license widget, Google Reader widget
Section2. Theme preferences
Q3. Which layout would you prefer?
56% 2 columns
24% Something a bit different, maybe a grid based layout
20% 3 columns
Q4. Is having a customisable colour scheme important to you?
80% Yes
20% No
Section3. Your web design experience
Q5. How comfortable are you with writing HTML?
39% Very, I could write it in my sleep
38% Fairly
12% A little
4% Not at all
Q6. How comfortable are you with writing CSS?
30% Very, I could write it in my sleep
39% Fairly
15% A little
15% Not at all
Jura, a serif typeface
Jura is a distinctive yet easy to read, serif typeface available from tenbytwenty.com. Based on contemporary newsprint typefaces, it’s equally suited for use in headings or body copy.
Nevis in Smashing Magazine
My first sans serif typeface Nevis - available over at tenbytwenty.com - has been listed among Smashing Magazine’s Free Fonts of the Month.
There are some other great free fonts listed too, I especially like Wendelin by ingoFonts.
Wordpress Theme Survey
In an effort to get a clearer picture of what people look for in a Wordpress theme, I’ve put together a short survey. If you use Wordpress and can spare a couple of minutes to answer a few questions, please complete my Wordpress Theme Survey.
Take the Wordpress Theme Survey
Hopefully your answers will help me create new Wordpress Themes which will cater closely to your needs…
If you have any other thoughts which you think might be helpful, feel free to comment here.