Smashing Special: WordPress Theme Trends For 2012: Development
This special is the first in our series of Smashing Specials — extended articles and studies dedicated to a specific topic. The special features current WordPress theme trends for 2012, covering past trends, new developments in theme design and trends in the theme development.
Development
Front-End Posting
Would you like to edit from the front end? (Image: churl )
WordPress 3.3, which launched just before Christmas, saw the introduction of a lovely new function called wp_editor. It slipped under most people’s radar, but it has given theme developers a powerful new tool. Developers can now, for example, put two rich-text editors on a single administration screen, a feat that required significant hackery in the past.
In 2012 we’ll see theme developers use wp_editor for front-end editing. Per Soderlind’s article “Front-End Editor in WordPress 3.3 Is Easy” demonstrates just how easy adding a front-end editor in WordPress is. I don’t know about you, but no matter how many times I show them, some clients still struggle with WordPress’ back end. Front-end editing is a great way to enable clients to edit their website while keeping them out of WordPress’ dashboard. Not only that, but it’s useful for anyone who wants to be able to see their website while adding content or to make a simple correction without having to go to the back end.
Not convinced about front-end editing? The most recent updates of the Front-End Editor plugin by Silviu-Cristian Burca will show you just how beautiful editing from the front end can be.
Greater Interactivity With jQuery 1.9 UI
Who doesn’t get excited about jQuery?
The release of WordPress 3.3 saw the jQuery 1.8 UI come bundled with WordPress’ core. This put a huge library of fun widgets at the disposal of every theme developer. If you aren’t playing with it yet, check out the jQuery demos to see what you can do. 2012 will hopefully see the release of jQuery 1.9 UI, giving even more power to theme developers. Just a glance at the planning wiki shows some of the treats that jQuery has in store for us. Old favorites, such as the slider and accordion, are getting an API redesign, while new features will be showing up, such as menus, pop-ups and tooltips.
Here’s what theme developer Marshall Sorensson has to say about this:
Theme designers already have the complete jQuery UI 1.8 stack available to them, although you don’t see many themes which utilize the widgets. jQuery UI 1.9 will hopefully be released in the first half of 2012, which will likely include the new menu, menu bar and tooltip widgets. Designers who tap into the power of the new widgets will certainly have an advantage over those who don’t.
Once jQuery UI 1.9 drops, we’ll no doubt start seeing savvy theme developers turbo-charge their themes with the latest jQuery widgets. This will mean an increase in drag-and-drop functionality, which will make working with WordPress themes even easier.
Child Themes in the WordPress Directory?
Is this the year it happens?
This has been on the horizon for a while, but 2012 might just be the year that we see child themes on WordPress.org. A trac ticket was opened 20 months ago, and I reported on it a whole year ago. There was another discussion about it in April, when Otto said that a patch was ready, but nothing has appeared.
The inclusion of child themes would open the WordPress directory to many designers who might be great at CSS but haven’t cut their teeth on PHP. It could mean a whole new generation of themes that use Twenty Eleven and other parent themes as their base. So, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that, yes, we will definitely have child themes on WordPress.org in 2012! And if I’m wrong? Well, I guess I’ll be wrong, and there’s not a whole lot anyone can do about it.
So Far In 2012
We’re just a month into 2012, but a number of themes have already been released.
Commercial Themes
The first offering of the year from WooThemes was the responsive e-commerce theme Shelflife.
XO is a responsive portfolio theme.
Rustik is another responsive e-commerce theme, this one rocking an ultra-minimal look.
Here is a responsive theme with massive images from Innovati.
My favorite commercial theme so far this year has got to be the responsive portfolio theme Agenci.
Free Themes
Blaskan is free, responsive, accessible and in the WordPress directory.
Doto is a free full-sized photography theme from DevPress.
Another from DevPress, this one the minimal blogging theme Good.
ZeeBizzCard is a business card theme that you can grab from the WordPress directory.
Pronto is a grid-based theme from WP Explorer.
As you can see, some of the things we’ve predicted are already catching on. All of the commercial themes listed above and one of the free themes are responsive. It’s great to see this becoming a standard, and with commercial theme developers driving it. Despite Ian Stewart’s dour predictions in 2008 about the end of the premium theme market, commercial themes (and plugin developers) are where the real innovation has been. Sadly, as much as we would like to spend our time doing what we love for free, eventually we have to pay the bills. But being able to do what we love and get paid for it is great. With a burgeoning commercial theme market, hundreds of WordPress theme developers are producing gorgeous themes using next-generation technology, and 2012 will be a great year for WordPress themes.
Conclusion
WordPress has evolved fast ever since it was a twinkle in the eye of Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg. It has gone from blogging platform to CMS. Theme design has come a long way with it. We’ve gone through blog themes, magazine themes, news themes, portfolio themes and frameworks. The proliferation of magazine and news themes in recent years always felt like designers were testing the waters to see what WordPress could do. Now that we know what WordPress is capable of, it’s less about showing off every piece of functionality and more about finding the right functionality for the need, out of the box.
We’ve hit responsive HTML5 themes this year. WordPress feels all grown up now, a capable platform on which designers can really flex their muscles. That is an exciting place to be. It would be great if, by the end of 2012, many of the trends we’ve looked at go from novelties to standards. Very likely, the designers and developers who don’t get on board will quickly fall behind.
What do you think? Where do you think WordPress theme design and development are headed in 2012? Have we got it totally wrong? Do you think we’ll see a resurgence of on-load music and animated GIFs? Let us know in the comments!
Further Reading
- “Responsive Data Table Roundup,” Chris Coyier, CSS-Tricks
- “HTML5 Semantics,” Bruce Lawson
- “Theme Options: Friend or Foe?,” Matty Cohen, the WooThemes Blog
- “Responsive Web Design for WordPress Theme Designers,” Oliver Dale, WPLift
Tools
- Modernizr
A JavaScript library for serving up responsive WordPress websites. - Modernizr plugin
A plugin that adds the Modernizr JavaScript library to your WordPress installation. - Selectivizr
Emulate CSS3 pseudo-classes and attribute selectors in Internet Explorer 6 to 8 - Bones
An HTML5 starter theme for WordPress - Roots
An HTML5 starter theme for WordPress.
Smashing Special: A Three-Part Series
This series consists of three parts:
- Part 1: Past Predictions
- Part 2: WordPress Design Trends for 2012
- Part 3: WordPress Development Trends for 2012
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Siobhan McKeown is a big fan of words, and of WordPress, which works out pretty well since she runs Words for WP, the only copywriting service dedicated to WordPress service providers. She is editor-in-chief at WP Realm, a community blog dedicated to WordPress. You can find her on her personal blog, twitter and occasionally hanging out on G+.
Related Articles
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1
Great article, I enjoyed reading it as my days are soooo filled with WordPress that I would love to have a look into the crystal ball. As there aren’t available right now over at Amazon I have to stick with this article ;-)
The trend for premium themes and plugins will continue and I hope to be able to keep up with the new developments re HTML5, CSS3, responiveness and new JQuery versions as I couldn’t wrap my head around all of those yet.
Comment about why people buy premium themes: Think about how many hours a theme designer puts into a theme. If you ask a small business owner to pay that you will never ever get any design webdesign jobs. We (as professional providers of websites) need premium themes to offer a good level of customization without having to programm all of the details ourselves. I know that many people just buy and use the premium themes out there but I for myself have not found a single theme where I did not touch either HTML, CSS or PHP code.
So for me premium themes are a shortcut to get to a base from where my customers can ask for modifications without paying the full price of a custom website. This is the single most important reason why WordPress has got its foot into the small business door: Great price yet customizable to each and every detail. -
2
Do you think WordPress will improve its functionality for e-commerce stores? Currently it’s difficult to build or customize the existing e-commerce themes for anything but a very basic store and have them perform well and look good. I would love to see improvement in that area because if WP can get it right it would be a great alternative to Magento.
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3
I think it’s true that a lot of people want one theme that they can build lots of different websites out of. But many people who run their business websites on WordPress are looking for a theme that is 100% suitable for that business – restaurant, doctor, real estate, travel, or whatever. There’s a real opportunity for people to specialize and take control of a niche. I think that’s where new start-ups should be looking. It’s difficult to compete with large established theme shops such as Woo & Elegant Themes, but if you specialize in producing themes for an industry then you’re not competing anymore, you’re doing your own thing.
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4
Great article ! I agree to most points you wrote. 2012 will be the year of more simplicity and user-friendly front-end websites so that designers can really focus on their design, without giving the opportunity to users to screw that up. Developers will also focus on very functional out-the-box themes so that admin options don’t get cluttered.
For niches, I don’t know, some people like the opportunity with just one theme to be able to build website of any kind. So I think CMS theme will continue to rise but target specific themes will also grow.
Let’s make some kick-ass theme for 2012 !
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5
I recommend to use roots for cms I never liked how default twentyeleven theme header has some unnecessary tags
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6
Totally agree with the zen approach.
As more and more theme and plugin developers try to force their ‘stuff’ into the clients dashboard the place is more and more getting crowded.Front end is one area where I have total control but over the years I have spent so much time decluttering the admin area that I eventually built these 2 plugins to make mine and my clients’ lives easier:
The Bar Steward:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/the-bar-steward/Point and Stare CMS Functions:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/point-and-stare-cms-functions/ -
7
I would like to see the admin UI become more responsive but have my fingers crossed for no more admin GUI redesign. Every time it happens my clients are like “Ahhhh! What’s happened?”
-
8
I totally agree with you at 50%, Andreas. In the sense that I, too, and several designers I know, we use premium themes time to time to speed up the whole coding phase and keep it cheaper for the customer. But in an age where we basically build up a website almost entirely upon open source parts, which we can get at no cost (and this would open a totally new discussion), and that are likely far better than what we, individually, would ever end up realizing, you could cut down the coding cost of a website entirely.
What will always make the difference will be how precisely designers will are able to respond to the needs of their customers.
There is no short cut for that.
-
9
I think commerce is a struggle for anyone who’s not prepared to write a lot of code or spend a lot of time. I’m just ending a several-year experiment with Adobe Business Catalyst and looking to WP to fill the gap, but fortunately most of my needs are about charging for services and subscriptions.
I’ll give a qualified nod to Woo Commerce so far. It’s free and doesn’t break my themes’ CSS, and once I make a few one-time investments (total <$100US) I won't have to send users to PayPal to check out from the one cart I've got running at the moment.
The other cart I've succeeded in setting up is Cart 66, but it's gotten expensive. An ex-client is using the one license I paid for two years ago, and given what's happened to their pricing, he can have it. For that kind of money, it would almost be worth it to stay with BC!
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Guillaume
February 9th, 2012 7:44 amGreat article ! I agree to most points you wrote. 2012 will be the year of more simplicity and user-friendly front-end websites so that designers can really focus on their design, without giving the opportunity to users to screw that up. Developers will also focus on very functional out-the-box themes so that admin options don’t get cluttered.
For niches, I don’t know, some people like the opportunity with just one theme to be able to build website of any kind. So I think CMS theme will continue to rise but target specific themes will also grow.
Let’s make some kick-ass theme for 2012 !
Siobhan
February 9th, 2012 8:22 amI think it’s true that a lot of people want one theme that they can build lots of different websites out of. But many people who run their business websites on WordPress are looking for a theme that is 100% suitable for that business – restaurant, doctor, real estate, travel, or whatever. There’s a real opportunity for people to specialize and take control of a niche. I think that’s where new start-ups should be looking. It’s difficult to compete with large established theme shops such as Woo & Elegant Themes, but if you specialize in producing themes for an industry then you’re not competing anymore, you’re doing your own thing.
Victor
February 9th, 2012 9:33 amI recommend to use roots for cms I never liked how default twentyeleven theme header has some unnecessary tags
Serena
February 9th, 2012 10:28 amDo you think WordPress will improve its functionality for e-commerce stores? Currently it’s difficult to build or customize the existing e-commerce themes for anything but a very basic store and have them perform well and look good. I would love to see improvement in that area because if WP can get it right it would be a great alternative to Magento.
Siobhan
February 9th, 2012 11:23 amI really don’t know about that. I can’t see WordPress itself incorporating any eCommerce functionality into core, in fact I think I’d hate it if they did. So you’re left relying on the WordPress eCommerce plugins that are available. Personally, I’ve not needed to use one so can’t give an informed opinion on it. This post on Mashable might be useful, the comments are particularly worth checking out: http://mashable.com/2011/06/16/wordpress-ecommerce-plugins/ (no doubt there’s other links that will be useful).
I think though, that when it comes to eCommerce it’s a matter of trial and error, seeing which plugin works for you. At the minute there doesn’t seem to be a front-runner or must-use eCommerce plugin
Mary Baum
February 19th, 2012 10:56 amI think commerce is a struggle for anyone who’s not prepared to write a lot of code or spend a lot of time. I’m just ending a several-year experiment with Adobe Business Catalyst and looking to WP to fill the gap, but fortunately most of my needs are about charging for services and subscriptions.
I’ll give a qualified nod to Woo Commerce so far. It’s free and doesn’t break my themes’ CSS, and once I make a few one-time investments (total <$100US) I won't have to send users to PayPal to check out from the one cart I've got running at the moment.
The other cart I've succeeded in setting up is Cart 66, but it's gotten expensive. An ex-client is using the one license I paid for two years ago, and given what's happened to their pricing, he can have it. For that kind of money, it would almost be worth it to stay with BC!
Andreas Ostheimer
February 9th, 2012 2:47 pmGreat article, I enjoyed reading it as my days are soooo filled with WordPress that I would love to have a look into the crystal ball. As there aren’t available right now over at Amazon I have to stick with this article ;-)
The trend for premium themes and plugins will continue and I hope to be able to keep up with the new developments re HTML5, CSS3, responiveness and new JQuery versions as I couldn’t wrap my head around all of those yet.
Comment about why people buy premium themes: Think about how many hours a theme designer puts into a theme. If you ask a small business owner to pay that you will never ever get any design webdesign jobs. We (as professional providers of websites) need premium themes to offer a good level of customization without having to programm all of the details ourselves. I know that many people just buy and use the premium themes out there but I for myself have not found a single theme where I did not touch either HTML, CSS or PHP code.
So for me premium themes are a shortcut to get to a base from where my customers can ask for modifications without paying the full price of a custom website. This is the single most important reason why WordPress has got its foot into the small business door: Great price yet customizable to each and every detail.
Carlo Rizzante
February 14th, 2012 5:11 amI totally agree with you at 50%, Andreas. In the sense that I, too, and several designers I know, we use premium themes time to time to speed up the whole coding phase and keep it cheaper for the customer. But in an age where we basically build up a website almost entirely upon open source parts, which we can get at no cost (and this would open a totally new discussion), and that are likely far better than what we, individually, would ever end up realizing, you could cut down the coding cost of a website entirely.
What will always make the difference will be how precisely designers will are able to respond to the needs of their customers.
There is no short cut for that.
Randy
February 10th, 2012 6:05 amI would say 2012 will be a huge push for raising the bar on web standards.
- HTML5
- CSS3
- Responsive
I highly doubt that we’ll see any new functionality that will have an impact like the custom post types did 2010, but I would love to be wrong on that! Theme markets will continue to drill down on niche while building up their frameworks.
We will probably see the admin go through more changes as it become more mobile friendly. Hopefully taxonomy and term editing pages will turn more toward the post type screen layout! (that would be cool)
Great Article! I love seeing old prediction :p
Mine really aren’t predictions, they more like natural evolution..
Siobhan
February 12th, 2012 3:56 amI would like to see the admin UI become more responsive but have my fingers crossed for no more admin GUI redesign. Every time it happens my clients are like “Ahhhh! What’s happened?”
Trent Lapinski
February 10th, 2012 12:20 pmI run a WordPress Theme Shop and we just released iFeature 4 (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ifeature), a responsive drag & drop HTML5/CSS3 WordPress theme.
Glad to see we’re heading in the right direction.
Lee Rickler
February 10th, 2012 3:39 pmTotally agree with the zen approach.
As more and more theme and plugin developers try to force their ‘stuff’ into the clients dashboard the place is more and more getting crowded.
Front end is one area where I have total control but over the years I have spent so much time decluttering the admin area that I eventually built these 2 plugins to make mine and my clients’ lives easier:
The Bar Steward:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/the-bar-steward/
Point and Stare CMS Functions:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/point-and-stare-cms-functions/
Carlo Rizzante
February 14th, 2012 5:13 amThanks for sharing, Lee.
Mario Peshev
February 10th, 2012 11:50 pmI’d vote for framework improvements, better support and rendering for mobile devices (responsive) and more user-friendly versions of the themes. Another thing we might see are web services that provide easier ‘step by step’ installation of WordPress, top used plugins and a theme (like in a wizard) and themes could be easily maintained and altered by non-expert users. So we might see more regular users getting into WordPress without technical skills.
Siobhan
February 12th, 2012 3:58 amTheme Force offers this sort of step-by-step web app experience. A user just signs up, walks through the steps and they have a website. It’s a great approach to use for bringing WordPress to people with no technical skills at all.
Niall
February 20th, 2012 2:08 amThanks for the article Siobhan! Really useful inspiration as I’ve decided to stop downloading WP themes and make my own.
Jonathan Franzone
March 2nd, 2012 9:20 amOnLoad music and animated gifs? … Uh, yes please! lol It really is encouraging to see how far WordPress has come and to see the possibilities expanding this year. Great article!
Jbdurand
April 6th, 2012 1:25 amOne important thing is missing in WordPress : privacy management.
We are discovering how important it is to be able to manage posts for specific audiences.
If I have a family WordPress site I just want to allow specific people to be able to read some posts, ideally specific Facebook friends or groups or Google circles.
Facebook and Google+ are not the best place to publish personal or family or company posts. They are good to manage our contacts list not messages and pots that are really confidential because they are reading and exploiting everything published there.
The best place to publish posts for a private audience is a wordpress site that can invite people from the social platforms.
If you have some information about how wordpress will handle privacy in the future I am very interested.
Ronny / rktic
July 20th, 2012 1:05 amThought i’d pick this one up again now that 2012 is half done.
I’m still monitoring the theme marketplaces for raising my card and getting one that fits my needs (blog and portfolio wise) – no luck so far. To be honest, i’m notoriously bored – 90% of the themes available look and feel the same. Yes, you can categorize them in retro design, minimalistic stuff and whatnot but the structure of most is identical.
I stake the claim that you don’t need a slider for your personal blog. I’d love to see more themes that feature big and bold flexible images in the blogview and ditch the stupid sidebar. Every now and then i come across a theme i dig a lot but it’s still impossible to learn if there’s a way to switch off the sidebar and go the full-width route all long.
It seems that theme developers are keen on creating impressive landing pages with big imagery, bold buttons, huge fonts and totally loose it i.e. on category, tag etc views. Most themes even lack a well made archive. Or don’t come with an option for fullwidth posts as standard.
A little hint for the theme developers:
If you design a theme for a specific task think about its demands. It’s often nice that you can have all kinds of layouts for creating an individual blog layout using a page template but be aware that readers will use category & tag links to navigate around which will look entirely different if you didn’t think about offering the same level of customization for those.
And please state those options loud and clearly somewhere in your theme marketing blurb. Those tiny bits are usually more important than a stack of icons to choose from.