I am very pleased to announce the Revolution WordPress theme, formerly known as Project X. As of right now, it is not available for purchase or download - I wanted to give my site visitors a chance to provide feedback on the Revolution theme demo site, before I made it public. Please provide feedback by leaving a comment to the post!
When I first started designing custom WordPress themes, I realized just how powerful the platform was. I knew that if coded right, it could be used in a way that many other blogging platforms couldn’t be used. So I spent some time trying different things, many of which are a part of the Revolution theme.
Revolution can literally save you thousands of dollars, and is a very inexpensive way to have your website or blog “look” custom, but not necessarily “cost” custom.
One of the most common requests I received while discussing custom WordPress themes with clients was the suggestion to design their site so that it didn’t look like a blog. More and more people are leaning towards WordPress as a content management system, so I decided to develop a theme that would serve as that.
Below you will find a list of many areas in which the Revolution theme can be a great solution:
- Online Newspapers
- Online Magazines
- Church Websites
- Real Estate Agents
- Corporate Blogs
- Personal Blogs
- Photo Blogs
- Celebrity Blogs
- Affiliate Marketing
- WordPress MU Users
62 Comments
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Brian,
You have a winner here! It’s really nice and the layout is very easy to read and follow. I am impressed, and the name is cool!
Good job Brian, I am looking forward to implementing this theme into my new site.
The wait was worth it.
Best
Eugene
Excellent theme, indeed WordPress is becoming a CMS
I’m interested in using WordPress as a CMS and this is certainly inspiring. Impressive use of page templates. I know it’s a premium template but is there any chance of seeing a sort of design brief that explains some of your thought process without “giving it away”?
Beautiful. I want one!
My only suggestion.
On the Test Post Page — can you offer a three column page with the columns (starting from left to right) being able to accommodate in this order = Google Ads 468 width, 160 width, 336 width.
So the post page would be divided, from left to right, widest column, narrow column, wider column.
Other than that — AWESOME! and again, I want one.
@ Ian - not quite sure what you mean by design brief. The intent was to offer multiple page layouts so that someone could use this as a way to show content with variety.
@ Dalene - Great suggestion - let me take a look at the width of the theme, and what’s the best way to accommodate 3 columns. Perhaps I can offer a 2-column single page, as well as a 3-column single page. Then write up a tutorial on how to switch them.
It’s really pretty, I love it, but I still have a question: what’s in the Developer Pack and it’s missing from the other one? I mean: someone buys DevPack with 200$ so he could resell it [in a matter of speaking] with another layout, and still has to pay 50$ for each sell, but what does he really gets more and it’s not in the Personal Pack?
I hope I was clear enough
@ Alex - Basically both packs are the same as far as files go. It’s more a matter of being compensated for the use. If someone wants to use it on one blog, it costs them $59. If they plan to use it as a basis for themes that they might sell to clients, then it costs them $199 for the right to use it multiple times, and $50 for each time they use it. Considering most custom themes run anywhere from $500-$3000, the Developer package is more than worth it in my opinion.
One thing to point out is that the theme in itself cannot be resold.
OK, thanks, now I got it. I was asking for only one small reason: I was thinking is kinda complicated to pay $199 at once and for each time it is used, the programmer to add another $50 into your account.
Anyway: beside PayPal, do you use any other payment mode? As in credit cards? I ask this because I have a pal (actually, a client I might say :P) who tried to buy something using PayPal on eBay.com, but the payment was canceled [by PayPal] and he didn’t get his money back not even now. It happened about a month ago. And the funny thing is that PayPal announced its presence in Romania - basically, we were announced that we could create accounts and buy thru them, which didn’t happen.
One more thing about the theme: is there any in-WP-admin customize page or all customization is made thru a FTP client? I mean something K2-like customize page appearing under the Presentation menu. Because if you do, it would be great for your possible buyers to see that, might boost their impulse to buy it :))
I’ve only briefly looked at it, Brian, but it looks absolutely fantastic. I’ve got a project I’ve been wrestling with for a while, going back and forth whether to do a hardcode html package or to go with a CMS. This may indeed fit the bill as the platform.
It’s very clean, looks nothing like a blog and is really sharp. (Can I add a few more head swelling kudos?)
You may have just revolutionized the WP theme (pardon the pun).
Very nice, Brian. Very nice.
@ Alex - there is a way to pay via Paypal with a credit card - if you were interested in using this theme many times, and didn’t want to have to pay $50 for every use, I’d be more than happy to work out an arrangement where you had the right to use it as many times as you wish, for X amount. If that’s the case, drop me an email. As for in-WP-admin custimized pages, no there are not any. All of the changes would need to reside within the actual theme files themselves. The tutorials section of the site will give you all of the information you need to make customizations.
@ Chris - the #1 reason I created this theme was to address all of those who wanted to use WordPress and not have their site look like a blog. I am very happy to hear you don’t think it looks like a blog! In other words, mission accomplished. In all honesty, and I’m not saying this to sell it, I don’t think that there should be any instances now where hardcoded html should be used. The hope is to offer a few more page layouts (i.e. with suggestions like Dalene’s) so that pretty much any layout can be accommodated.
Brian, fantastic idea.
Quick suggestion: add different layouts and customization so that readers that will pay will be able to make it look unique without needing to have design expertise.
@ Daniel - the various page layouts will help accommodate that. Also, the extras page will offer different background images, as well as potentially different stylsheets based on “concepts” so that if you wanted a grungy look, the stylesheet would change the appearance to that.
Outstanding! I think this is going to be a very popular theme. And I think that you nailed the pricing perfectly. Bravo!
@ Aaron - thanks to people like yourself leaving feedback, I was able to come up with pricing I felt comfortable with. Thanks!
How do I buy it?
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/purchase does not have a purchase link or PayPal button.
Thanks,
Dan
@ Dan - it’s not quite ready yet - I wanted to have people give feedback on it first, so that I didn’t miss anything. I would say it will be available by late this week, or early next week. Sometimes having other eyes view it can help - my friend Randa already made a suggestion that made things look much better regarding a sidebar styling element. Just want to make sure that I offer the best possible theme!
Brian: Bingo! A clean design with the flexibility of a multi-layered news site. Exactly what I’ve sought for some time. Will support be included in the cost, as I’m sure to have many ‘Brian, how do I do this’-type of questions.
But my only question now is: where do I sign up?
Ed
Hi Brian
This looks superb. You will soon have my cash. Just a quick question please. On the demo site, the three columns on the home page appear to be and link to pages. Is it possible to have specific categories of posts appearing in those three columns instead, with say a specific number of items selected by the site admin, and showing only their titles and, optionally, an excerpt?
By the way, you must have been reading my mind, as this theme is more or less EXACTLY what I was hoping you’d build. Superb work. I look forward to hearing from you.
Richard
@ Ed - see the comment I made before yours - not quite ready for purchase. Waiting on feedback, will make one more round of edits and then announce when it is ready!! Thanks as always for your feedback!
@ Richard - thanks… yes, as of right now, the 3 columns are coded for text with a link - but that can very easily be changed, because the news page is coded to pull categories. Basically inside that page template you can specify which category to pull, and how many posts. The images are hardcoded on both.
Very nice design. Similar to the format that I plan to take my next personal theme.
I really like the custom page templates and the use of columns thoughout the site.
Well done!
Well it was certainly worth the wait!
@ Will - Thanks, the custom page layouts will hopefully be one of the selling features with the theme! People like variety, and I plan to give it to them!
@ Lyndon - Wow, what a great compliment. More than anything, I look forward to seeing how people use it!
Excellent work Brian. Very professional!
I’m going to be passing this along to a few of my clients and will probably be buying that developer license before too long.
It’s a whole lot more fun to skin something than to build a framework from scratch :).
Will you be planning to release more in the near future?
Keep up the excellent work!
-Jonathan
@ Jonathan - because of the positive feedback I have received so far, yes, I plan to create another theme similar to Revolution (meaning geared for the CMS crowd but will look different). I do want to make sure I can focus on Revolution first, create some helpful tutorials and extras, before I move onto another one. Thanks!
[...] Gardner Posted By: Moses Published in Themes 15Aug You really ought to have a look at the Revolution WordPress theme by Brian Gardner, this theme is really well suited for a corporate blog or a magazine type of [...]
Brian,
A feature request…
Can you have nested comments list JS-Kit?
http://js-kit.com/comments/
(I’m not affiliated with the company that produces JS-Kit.)
Thanks,
Dan
@ Dan - I will look into how to do that without the use of a plugin or widget. I am trying to make this theme out of the box, so if it’s possible, I’ll do it, Thanks for the suggestion!
Brian,
I think you just blew every other WP theme out of the water. Now I’ll never be happy with other themes again.
Brian,
I am very new to WP. Only a few days, in fact. I need to build a site for a new consulting firm but I have no experience doing this so I’ve been hunting for a layman-friendly solution. I’ve spent several months learning about Drupal, EE, RapidWeaver, and now WP, which seems to be the right fit.
Just yesterday I downloaded your free themes, which are among the most beautiful I’ve found, and started tinkering with Silhouette. Then this morning I discovered Revolution. It looks absolutely perfect for me. Before I buy, I want to check a couple of things:
– Is the demo representative of the standard features (page layouts, fonts, etc.) such take I could just add text and photos and be on my way? In other words, will it be relatively friendly for a non-techie guy like me?
– Is there any possibility that I could hire you to design a logo for my company that compliments the theme?
Many thanks and congratulations on a remarkable design.
Joe
Hi Brian - I think I’ve another way of sorting out the categories of posts in the three front page columns issue. I could just insert some php RSS parsing code into the template. I guess the disadvantage of that is that the posts wouldn’t appear immediately; you’d have to wait for the feed to be pinged by the parsing service. What you suggest sounds better. Will you include that functionality, or would I need to ask you to assist? Happy to do the latter if that’s the case. Thanks.
@ Amanda - I sent you an email, and hope we can use Revolution for theme I promised you. I’m hoping so, because I think we can come up with a knock out site for you! (hope you can trust me on that!)
@ Joe - Yes, the way that the demo site looks, is with the theme applied out of the box. Meaning the demo site doesn’t have any color/font/other changes made to it. As for hiring me to do a logo, it depends on what you need. I’m certainly able to come up with something for you. Drop me a line on my contact form, and we can take it from there!
@ Richard - Copy and pasting the code from the news page is a piece of cake, and I will do it for you (at no charge) should you purchase the theme. Not a problem at all, and I highly suggest not going the RSS route.
Given the layout of this theme, it would seem that one could design a master web site to be the portal for a number of other complementary web site blogs that were set up in subdomain directories within the master web site.
With that said could you then set up a single installation of WordPress with three databases (assuming three blogs) to have multiple blog sites within that single portal? Then a template like the News Page could show recent postings from all three blogs at a single source.
I’m assuming this type of configuration can be done, but how difficult is it to set up? I would prefer to keep all administration to a single web site, if possible.
@ Brian - It’s a matter of what you think you can do with the theme - I really try to stay away from installing WP and databases multiple times - just more installs to update, keep admin info for, etc. I think that you could probably accomplish what you want to with a single WP install and one database.
Interested to read about Brian’s multiple installation issue and Brian Gardner’s response. Not entirely clear what the first Brian wants to do, but it seems the idea is to have (say) 3 discrete blogs managed by different people, whose content would stream into the portal utilizing BG’s new theme. I think this is entirely doable but not with one WP install.
One way to do it is to take the feeds from the 3 separate blogs (each of which need their own install, or could be set up on WordPress.com or any other blog host), and convert the feed items into discrete posts on the portal WordPress blog running BG’s theme. This is absolutely doable with the FeedWordPress plugin (with which you can preallocate incoming feed items to specific categories on the portal blog). Seems you could then use the kind of set-up I’ve discussed above with BG (with different categories of posts from the portal coming into the 3 different columns).
Isn’t WordPress brilliant.
Richard
@ Brian - it can be setup, but why bother with 3 different blogs, even as subdomains? Why not use the theme, setup 3 different categories maybe, and then pull each category like the news page is currently doing?
WOW! Nice… is it possible to integrate vBulletin into this theme and use the same log-in info? Also, could something be built into the theme to show the most recent posts from a VB thread?
@ Bill - as far as I know there’s really not an easy way to do that with vBulletin. What I did on my site is create a separate forum using phpBB, and just customized the header/footer so that it flowed from my site. At that point, there might be a way to pull the most recent forum posts, either with a plugin or rss (if vBulltein provides feeds, that I don’t know)
Brian (G) - I thought of that too, but got the feeling the other Brian was after 3 separately managed blogs. If the 3 or more contributors in question were happy to be posting to the same single site, then what you propose is far easier.
By the way, one more question please. You mention in the FAQs that the theme can be modified but the credits located in the footer of the theme are to remain intact. Given that this is a premium theme, shouldn’t users be able to remove the footer info if they wish? Personally, I’d have no problem with leaving the Brian Gardner link, but wouldn’t mind removing the others. What do you reckon?
Oh, one more thing. If we purchase the single use version, and then later wish to get the developer pack, can we simply pay you the difference, rather than the full developer price? Cheers.
@ Richard - The comments regarding the credits being left, is primarily for the personal use package. It’s always nice (even if paying for a theme) for the credits to remain on a personal blog. But if you felt the need to remove them, no problem. As far as initially buying the personal package, and then upgrading, yes, I’ll just charge the difference. Not a problem there as well. I’m a flexible guy!
Regarding the original question about tying three blogs into a single site. I guess it would be similar to what Brian Gardner does with his main site where he has posts from there as well as posts from his personal Daily Java site. Daily Java is a subdomain of BrianGardner.com, but has its own theme and posts (So it doesn’t seem to be a separate web site). What I was thinking of was similar to this but possibly with an additional one or two subdomains which have their own posts but can be also tied into the primary site.
Probably easy for an advanced WordPress expert but I wasn’t sure how the setup was done.
@ Brian - The list that is generated of my Daily Java site is simply a piece of code that I am using from Feedburner - it’s an option called Buzz Boost, and I posted about that here. You’d have to have a Feedburner account (or another way to pull rss feeds) and simply implement the code wherever you wanted to pull them.
Brian: Three suggestions: (1) How about adding a “BLOG” page to the theme? (2) Add a bit more color to accent all the white and (3) Include additional color schemes.
GREAT theme. I’m looking forward to buying & using it!!
Brian, I’ve think you’ve just set a new standard and direction for WP, moving into Joomla territory. With a splash of color this could look the mutts nuts.
Any plans for drop-down menus?
@ Steve - As far as the blog page goes, that is characterized by the single page and also by the archive.php file, which looks like this in action. The design is supposed to be somewhat plain, so that people can easily add/change color to their liking - if you put color images on the site, I guarantee automatically it would look more colorful. As for color schemes, that might ultimately be something I offer on the “extras” tab - basically different stylesheets
@ Clarky - Thanks, it is my hope that we can all help take WordPress to a much higher level, and break hardcore into the CMS world. As for drop down menus, at the moment (believe it or not) I don’t know how to do them. I know there is suckerfish java out there, just haven’t gotten a round tuit.
Looks good Brian. I’ll be downloading as soon as you are finished.
I’m not a coding or programming guy at all, so this should be really interesting.
Cheers!
David
Dave: We’re in the same boat — the one without a paddle.
But seriously, I think Brian’s premium theme looks perfect for content folks, like myself, with boat-loads of ideas and little technical know-how.
Brian: two more questions: 1, why the aversion to widgets and drop-in customizations and 2, where did you get those gorgeous b/w images?
Ed
Ed, I’m not saying that the theme isn’t widget ready, rather I wanted a theme that could be used out of the box. I didn’t want to have to rely on widgets/plugins being compatible for the theme in its virgin sense to work. People can use widgets/plugins to their heart’s content, but I didn’t want to have to be responsible for supplying support on 3rd party applications. As for the images, I have an account setup with iStockphoto.
Brian, excellent theme. It is useful for online magazine type of sites. The thing is i am also developing a theme for a magazine, i used get_posts function instead of WP_query, with get_posts i am only able to pull posts from a single category, after seeing your tutorial i changed it to WP_query and its working fine.
Thanks for the tutorial also, its really appreciated.
[...] week he announced the release of Revolution WordPress theme. This theme is geared for people who would like to use WordPress as a CMS (Content Management [...]
Brian > A superb theme and congrats. I intend to purchase it but have a few questions:
1. In terms of SEO friendliness, can plug-ins like all-in-one-seo can still be used? Will it have issues with duplicate content?
2. If I buy the personal version, do I have to retain the copyright?
Cheers,
Dipankar
[...] Revolution WP Theme: Brian Gardner, the designer of DBT, just released a new theme called Revolution. It is a paid theme, but it sure delivers a completely new experience to WP users, transforming blogs into magazines. [...]
Really cool theme. This could be very useful for small businesses that don’t want to invest a lot in building their own website. I will be really interested to see how different plugins will work with the theme. any popular ones you think won’t work as of now?
Brian, that’s a great idea, and a lovely theme. I think you may inspire a trend with it.
BTW, this blog is beautifully designed. Love all that white space, and it feels as though everything is where it’s supposed to be.
All good and looks just awesome.
If I’d change one thing it’d be the mouseover effect on the menu items. I think if you contrast it a bit more and you highlight the entire item block instead of just the text it’d look even more engaging.
I agree with Al on that one. Perhaps changing the colour of the background on mouseover. However, that’s very easy to change once you have the theme.
I must admit that I have never seen a theme that I thought is worth paying for (and there are some good themes around); however, this new one is worth the money.
[...] Revolution WP Theme: Brian Gardner, the designer of DBT, just released a new theme called Revolution. It is a paid theme, but it sure delivers a completely new experience to WP users, transforming blogs into magazines. [...]
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[...] aanspreekt. Clean, strak en goed doordacht. Laat het ‘toeval’ nu zijn dat Brian een nieuw thema had gemaakt waar complexere sites (lees: cms stijl) meer mogelijkheden hebben. Ik was er direct [...]
[...] am very happy to announce that I have finally made my way back to the theme that got this all started. I am nearly finished with updating the original Revolution theme, and [...]
[...] hard for me to believe this, but today I am celebrating the Revolution’s first birthday. Yes, one year ago to this date, a I released the very first Revolution theme. Call me a proud papa, but I thought it [...]