Thesis represents the next generation of WordPress themes

Chris Pearson from DIY Themes and Pearsonified has spent the last couple of months on designing and developing “a frame work that had it all”. “Frame work” refers to a WordPress Theme. “All” refers to “killer typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and tons of flexibility”. So, let’s discuss the result. I gave away quite a bit with the bombastic headline, so be prepared.

Serious SEO and usability for beginners

Although the XHTML is unvalid, most of the code looks clean and effective. Moreover, the typographic details are superb. Pearson has put great effort in helping his users styling their blog posts – from h3 tags to drop caps. Pearson built in several features that he describes in his “SEO for Everybody” series. Examples are image optimization for Google Images Search, a XHTML sitemap, and dynamic, descriptive title tags for each page the blog. He claims that when bloggers use his theme, their SEO strategy will only consist of “just add links”.

Oh, and did I mention the rather impressive admin panel?

Uniformity

Pearson’s loyal followers are also raving about the theme, and there are many of them. Each of Pearson’s blog posts attract a truck load of commenters – all thankful for his work. Yet I hope his group of followers doesn’t keep growing at such a speed, as the blogosphere would become pretty homogeneous.

Ok, I owe your explanation here. The problem with Thesis is that it seems hard to give the theme its own face. Maybe it’s because of the serious code work Pearson has done. I’m not sure. But when I look at the blogs from the Thesis showcase, they all appear to be the same to me. Even if they use a completely different style:

So please dear readers, do not switch to the thesis theme en masse. Give some other themes a try as well. How about the latest from Smashing Magazine? (speaking of diversity)