I’m officially announcing Wu Wei, a free, open-source, GPL-licensed WordPress theme I designed over the course of a few months.
I really enjoy web design. The only problem is that I when I’m satisfied with a layout like this, I don’t feel the need to change it (aside from small tweaks), which means I don’t get a chance to come up with something new.
So I decided to create a WordPress theme for the public. That way I can continue to flex my design muscles, and other people can have the benefit of using it.
Wu Wei has been a labour of love. This is the theme I always wanted to create — bold fonts, a clean look, with lots of contrast. The devil is in the details, like the way everything aligns neatly to the grid.
With almost 2000 downloads so far, there’s been some nice buzz:
- tweeted by Smashing Magazine (with over 40,000 followers, which gave me a month’s worth of traffic in a single day) and consequently re-tweeted by dozens of people
- bookmarked on delicious
- digged
- mentioned on wpazo*, WereWP, and L2 Express
Someone also sent me this e-mail:
Hey Jeff, I love the theme. I was casually browsing around for something very clean and modern looking — I saw the name “Wu Wei” and I downloaded it immediately. It turned out to be perfect!
As a practicing young taoist I figured the name was perfect.
Take it easy,
Justin
I love seeing how different people are using the theme, whether they’re bloggers, comedians, photographers, reviewers, or design companies. You can check out the demo page here.
This theme is only the first of a trilogy of WordPress themes I have planned, based on Taoist ideas. Wu Wei is dedicated to my Tai Chi teacher, Michael Babin. And since the concept of wu wei or “effortless action” is important in internal martial arts like Tai Chi Chuan as well, I thought it was only fitting that he should have the honour of the first dedication.
I’m not sure that I deserve to have this dedicated to me; especially as I haven’t got a clue what “open-source, GPL-licensed WordPress theme” means. But then again, when honoring aging techno-dinosaurs, it is better to stick to jars of honey or bottles of wine… those I understand!
But thank you for thinking of me and there will be an extra gentle punch to the nose for you at the next class.
“Open-source, GPL-licensed WordPress theme” means that he released it completely for free for anyone to use or modify as they see fit, provided they make the modifications available for others as well if they choose to distribute their derivative work.
Unfortunately, I don’t understand jars of honey or bottles of wine. The only way I know how to express appreciation is through geekiness!
It’s really nice!
Me and a couple of colleagues are going to be pitching an internal blog for our group in the near future and I’ve taken on doing the design. Which is ridiculous because I know nearly nothing about how to do that but out of the bunch, I’m apparently the expert since I blog.
I’d be tempted just to use this! Although it’s supposed to visually represent us so I really should be using our official colours. If I had a wordpress blog for personal use though, I would totally use it!
Feel free to use it. If you want something customized for different colours and multiple authors though, I’m currently accepting new work. :)
I’m pretty sure I’ll be calling you as soon as I figure out where we are hosting this thing (intranet or not etc) SO OVER MY HEAD!
Although I may be able to hire for this. Not sure, how much do you charge?
Check your e-mail.
Very nice Jeff, also appropriately named.
The theme I made for my blog is called “Tao.” I need to recode a lot of it and hopefully to distribute it one day too.
I’m sure a lot of photographers would find your theme is perfect. I don’t think I’d be able to name any of my themes Tao, somehow I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do the title justice. :)
I love the Wu Wei theme! Although when I found your site here at http://equivocality.com, I like this theme a little bit better, with the header graphic and thin post borders. Looks great. Anyway, you can see it in action at http://www.ethancrawford.com — thanks!
Heya
Hi Jeff,
great theme. My blog was in serious need of a fresh design and when I came across your theme I switched immediately and did only some very minor changes. Love it.
This theme is just beautiful. However, I’m having some issues with it. The Menu page won’t appear amongst the Appearance page, so I don’t know how to edit the menu :P Can anyone help me out?
Hey, Jeff!
I just set up Wu Wei as my theme this afternoon. Super stoked about the change! But still getting used to some things. Like the menus. In the demo, how did you add a menu that dropped you down to the bottom of the page? I had to incorporate instructions into my header telling people to look down, essentially, lol. Also, I see you have a little grey blurb further describing your menu tabs above the title of the menu (does that makes sense?) How did you achieve that?
Also, I can’t get my background images to appear on the page. It says it’s uploaded, but then never appears. Are there some size specifications that I have to stick to or something? I would just edit it via CSS but I can’t seem to find a place to plug in a background image url.
Not quite sure if I’m done organizing and rearranging some things, but overall I’m so pleased with the theme! So simple and lovely.
Thanks for your theme and your help!
Holley
Girlish Whimsy
Excellent theme, I am using it on my blog. Thanks!
[…] mess with it after you build it?)http://vimeo.com/17756149Anca points out that there is actually a WordPress theme called Wu Wei, after the Taoist term meaning “acting without acting.” Which is not precisely the Woo […]
Where can I download the theme ?
hey i absolutely love the theme, but i know nothing about html and have been trying to put up 1 single landscape photo on the landing page, with no dates, posts, anything…just 1 photo, centered and landscape, please help me do this. I am so in love with this theme and would be so happy to figure out how to fix my problem…thanks in advance :)