A Great New Thesis Skin: Thesis Play

by Matt Langford on January 29, 2010 · Comments

Post image for A Great New Thesis Skin: Thesis Play

If you haven’t learned that I’m in love with Thesis, then you don’t have a clue who I am and you’ve never visited this site. And I’m thinking that’s probably not the best way to start off this post. But my backspace key is broken. (Take that, English 101 professor! I started consecutive sentences with conjunctions. Booyah.)

For the past year or so, this blog has been run on the beautifully designed and coded Thesis Theme. I’ve customized quite a few looks on top of it over that time (including the one you’re currently viewing).

In that timeframe a new market for Thesis Skins (think of them as custom-customized layouts) has developed. I even listed a few back in the day (and even sold one for a while). There have been a few good ones, and a whole bunch of really bad ones. I’ve never been completely lured in by one. That is, until now.

Matt Hodder, one of the leading Thesis Customizer-ers, has completely changed the game with Thesis Play. And I promise, he’s not paying me to say this. (Although, Matt, I won’t stop you if you try.)

It’s one of the cleanest designs I’ve seen yet. Perfect use of whitespace, lines, and that readability/typography stuff we love so much. But it’s more than just a simple skin. (That’s 3 conjunction-started sentences if you’re tracking.) It’s 8 skins. No, seriously, it comes with 8 different color schemes. That’s like a lot.

Additionally, it has its own options panel in the Wordpress admin that makes it very simple to change color schemes, header images, footer links, etc. It’s quite sexy. You can even get the psd from him if you’d like to make more advanced changes.

Take a look at it here, and check out these quality things that you may not notice at first glance: customized search box, awesome nested comments, author-comment-picture borders, scroll-to-top buttom, and nice drop-down menus!

If you want an incredibly designed, easy-to-install, well-documented, fast-loading Thesis skin. Look no further, and Buy Thesis Play right now. Now.

  • lebisol
    I have heard this a long time ago...
    "Only fools worship tools"

    ...and no it was not the best way to start of your post...generally calling your readers clueless is not the best way to start anything,right? :) So maybe you should give a ring to your English teacher 101 after all.

    Thesis IS really nice and clean layout...but not need to wet your pants over it. It is like bloggin about water...how useful and refreshing it is ..what it does for us...blah blah.
    It simply follows the suggested html standards that many content-producing users are not aware of.
  • First, I didn't call my readers clueless... in fact, quite the opposite. I simply called people who are NOT my readers clueless as to who I am. Which, really, is basic common sense. Also, I think it is quite apparent that what I write tends to be laced in sarcasm. It's what I do.

    Secondly, saying Thesis is just something that "follows the suggested html standards" is completely incorrect, on multiple fronts. Thesis' layout is so low on its list of features, that I rarely even mention it. Very few use the default layout (it was built with user-customization in mind). But the real strength is in SEO. It really has no equal.

    As for content-producing (what is that, really) users not being aware of it, well... they aren't doing their job. I'm not saying it is necessary for them to use, but I wouldn't trust a wordpress content-producer that didn't at least know about it.
  • lebisol
    LOL ...well yes because it is common sense it can read little 'offensive'...and I have to admit I wanted to pick on you a bit just to see if you care about your comments and material.No hard feelings I hope.

    Agreed on many points :) ...but a lot of bloggers (not a fan of this word) or content-producing users (as non-defined term really) are not aware of it.
    Its SEO strength, I believe, IS rooted in its clean and valid html structure (including the old <head> action) not the look or skin over it. So I guess my appreciation is higher in html or xhtml than a 'theme' itself per say. In other words, if people would take time to master valid html their options and excitement would be that much higher. Then they can say "look what I can do with simple html effort and WP" vs. "look what I can do with theme xyx"...and there will be more room for originality.
    So...kudos to the artist's skills not necessarily the brush he/she used.
  • johnnyvagabond
    Nice! That a very good-looking skin.
  • This is gorgeous! It's perfect for non-programmers looking for a cost-effective design with a clean, professional aesthetic that they can use to get started blogging quickly. I will definitely be recommending Thesis Play!
  • I wish they had it for Drupal, I'd use it for sure!
  • Looks nice and clean-cut. I have seen it on Ashwin's blog and it looks good but I'm not sure what I will be missing by switching to this skin.
  • It's an awesome skin. I bought it immediately and it decorates my blog now :)
    Thanks for sharing
  • It is definitely awesome! I will absolutely use it for future projects...
  • aviationMY
    Hi Matt,

    for individual widget style let say i want my #random-posts widget,

    i want it to be flush with the left and both sidebar so there is no space like yours.

    the default for all widget is:

    ul.sidebar_list {padding: 0 !important;}

    but i want to be in a certain widget only like on #recent-post, #random-post and so on… so how to manipulate the code?

    thank you!
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