May 5, 2009
I have lived in a premium theme world for some time now. The theme I use is premium, the themes I read about are premium, the buzz is all about premium. So can we just drop the ‘premium’ and assume that all themes are appropriately optioned up?
There are two ways of looking at this question:
- Most decent themes have some premium features (the option for adding code into the footer for example); or
- Most decent themes don’t have it, premium are still a cut above.
In either case using the ‘premium’ to refer to enhanced feature sets and quality code is letting other theme authors off the hook. In the first instance we need to be highlighting the bad themes, not the good. There need to be themes, and decorations. It either meets a certain level, or it doesn’t.
In the second instance we need premium themes to be the baseline, to make it clear that the expectation is there. No longer will we decide whether to look for premium themes or themes, we want all themes to be on a level. If you can’t theme to that level then that offer a child theme skin of someone else’s base theme. If you can’t do that? Then stop.
The most popular 5 themes right now on WordPress.org are:
- iNove Downloaded 9,245 times
- Pixeled Downloaded 7,773 times
- Atahualpa Downloaded 7,092 times
- Fusion Downloaded 5,833 times
- Gear Downloaded 5,522 times
All of these themes make some attempt to offer extra options to manage the theme from the back end with a greater or lesser success:
iNove
- Use Google Custom Search Engine
- Pages or Categories on the menu
- Boxes to insert HTML in strategic places (presumably intended for adverts)
- Show or don’t show author, categories, and tags on posts
- Feed URL and e-mail subscription URL
Pixeled
- Customisable welcome panel
- Feedburner override
Atahualpa
- Way way way too many to list, here are a few though:
- SEO options
- Body text and link styling
- Fluid or fixed width, with variable width columns
- favicon control
- Header styling and logo control
- header image styling with transparent overlays and rotating headers
- feedburner overide with a choice of icons and subscriptions options
- menu bar styling and content control
- category menu styling and content control
- and that just scratches the surface
Fusion
- Custom logo option
- Options to disabled a number of aspects, e.g. the default home page link and search box
- choose which side the sidebar goes on
- Fixed or fluid width
- Disabled jquery enhancements
- Add custom CSS without editing the css file.
Gear
- Standard or wide layout
- 14 built in background options
- 3 built in header images
- Exclude pages from the menu (using their ID)
- Built in optional logos for the header and banner
- Show or don’t show the welcome banner
- Banner text HTML box
- 7 Banner backgrounds
- Relabel or hide the Home link in the menu
I certainly wouldn’t classify most of these themes as premium, however, it is clear that the community is moving in that direction so some action is needed to spur things along. Making the distinction between premium themes and the degrees of theme beneath them really only lets the less than premium themes get a free ride. For the good of the community I think it is time to stop using the ‘premium’, and start using ‘Themes’ to mean well designed, well created, well thought-out themes produced by competent coders and designers. Everything else should be a skin, decoration, or wallpaper.
Update:It occurred to me after hitting publish that a grading system on WordPress.org would be really useful so we could tell the difference in intent.
Post Image The Easy Peasy Way
26 comments
page 1065
Quick N Dirty Admin Login Screen
no comment
page 128
Wordpress Chat
one comment
page 1308
Html 5 Gallery
6 comments
page 1305
Html 5 Gallery
6 comments
page 1305
Silence Is Golden
3 comments
page 213
Questions About Habari For Wordpress Users
6 comments
page 424
Theming Habari Vs Wordpress
13 comments
page 440
My Experience Of Flexx
4 comments
page 1026
Plugin Update Fun With Photo Data 2
one comment
page 815
Post Image The Easy Peasy Way
26 comments
page 1065
Categories Vs Tags Either Neither Or Both
12 comments
page 7
Gaining Benefits From Plugins
8 comments
page 1167
Beware Wp Cache
8 comments
page 1310
Six Million Ways To Die Choose One
14 comments
page 1128
Post Image The Easy Peasy Way
26 comments
page 1065
Wordpress Chat
one comment
page 1308
Post Image The Easy Peasy Way
26 comments
page 1065
Wordpress Chat
one comment
page 1308
Beware Wp Cache
8 comments
page 1310
Wp Polls Reviewed
one comment
page 58
Fun With Photo Data
12 comments
page 330
Fun With Sidebar Tabs Styling
2 comments
page 336
Poll Daddy Reviewed
2 comments
page 42
Html 5 Gallery
6 comments
page 1305
Wp Polls Reviewed
one comment
page 58
Using Your Own Url Shortener
4 comments
page 1190
Html 5 Gallery
6 comments
page 1305
Html 5 Gallery
6 comments
page 1305
updated 1 seconds ago
[...] week I argued that we need to get rid of the whole concept of ‘premium’ themes because that creates a two tier system which makes it OK to release poor themes because “they [...]
[...] days, it’s getting harder to define what exactly a premium theme is. Andrew Rickmann over at Fun With WordPress tries to give us a better understanding of what premium means now a days as well as providing a [...]
As always there were non-premium themes, always will be too. Of course, at a point most of the designers/developers can reach the level of developing great, multi-purpose, configurable themes, but novice, beginner developers can’t share premium themes at first. There is need for an evolution :) Everybody have to go through a period of learning the basics.
Ps. installing subscribe to comments plugin won’t be a mistake :)
The term “premium themes” is not exclusive to WordPress. I purchase a number of premium Blackberry themes for my Blackberry Storm. There are premium Joomla themes I believe, as well as other software.
The term premium is used to imply that it is “better”, but in fact means there is a cost associated with it. Like Leland mentions you have all sorts of terms like freemium now, so the only true way to separate them are free and purchased. Then there are GPL paid and non-GPL paid, etc. :)
It truly never ends unfortunately. Great post!
[...] our friend Andrew of WP-Fun.co.uk wrote an interesting post titled A New Name for Premium Themes:
I tend to think that as well Leland and I would like to stop. I really think there is a difference between premium and commercial, although the commercial authors clearly have a much greater incentive to get things right and that tends to make them more premium.
When I think “premium” themes, I automatically think “themes that cost money,” not necessarily quality themes or feature-filled themes. Some have even started labeling their paid themes as “commercial” or “pay-for-use.” I’m not even going to get started on the whole new “free premium” or “freemium” phenomenon. Although I think the term is way overused, I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.
hmm. thanks! nice that someone’s keeping tabs on the dloads.