We created a simple, usable theme to complement the cover design of the new edition of our WordPress book.

Designing for WordPress is one of our favorite things – and writing about it is a close second. We were lucky enough to do both for this project, creating a companion theme to the book as part of the process of walking users through the creation of a simple theme from scratch.

Simple is the key word here; we’ve got a few bells and whistles, but for the most part this theme is a simple showcase of the power of WordPress.

Here are some of the features of this custom theme:

As part of a tutorial on integrating custom fonts, we changed the titles on our theme to use Google Fonts.

Author pages help visitors get a better idea of who writes the articles as well as providing an overview of that author's published work.

• Text-based header, which pulls in both the site title and the tagline from the WordPress admin
• Author pages, which display each author’s profile information as well as a Gravatar and links to their published articles on the site
• An author overview section at the bottom of each post
• A simple portfolio section, which uses custom post types to display a thumbnail image, URL, description and relevant tags for each portfolio item
• Google Ads integration in the sidebar

And maybe the coolest part? You can download the whole theme. For free.

Buy the book at Peachpit Press, and download the sample theme on our companion site. And don’t forget to let us know what you think!

We’re really excited to announce the launch of the new blog for The Clink Room – and not just because we had a hand in making it! The Clink Room guys do fantastic design work – they’re the people who do the official logos for Major League and Minor League Baseball teams – & we’ve had a blast doing this project. We got to flex our layout muscles getting the site to look just right, and we even got to create our first mobile site! Seriously, it’s very cool and all of you with iPhones or Android handsets should check it out, stat.

We’ll be launching the revamped Shopify store for these guys very soon, too – keep your eye out for the announcement.

The book hits stores on November 23, and over the course of the next couple of weeks we’ll be giving away copies to celebrate.

For now, you can sign up for our email newsletter over on our Facebook page; one lucky winner will be chosen at the end of the day tomorrow (November 20). And while you’re there, become a fan of couldbe studios!

More to come…keep your eye on this space.

Most importantly we’re turning our focus more intently than ever on making couldbe studios into the best web design studio it can be, starting by giving thanks to all our fabulous clients. If you haven’t checked out our portfolio in a while, click on over and take a look at some of the terrific small businesses we’ve had the pleasure of working with.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, feel free to add us! We’ll be posting updates in both places regularly, and who knows, we might just unveil a special offer or two.

The good folks at jadedPixel (the team that brought us Shopify) published an interview with Matt today! He talks about our business, our clients, and why we recommend Shopify so damn much. Check it out, and join me in a rousing chorus of “woo hoo.”