Mellowed WordPress Theme

Posted by Armen
On October 22, 2007
Filed under Design
37 Comments

Mellowed WordPress Theme

mellowed3

I’ve a really bad habit of designing around black, white, and grey, with just a hint of straightforward reds or blues. If it’s done well it’s nice, but, it’s not everyones taste. So, I decided my next theme would use a colour palatte competely foreign to me. The result? A clean, pastel coloured theme, using a muted brown and soft blues, which I’ve called, Mellowed.

Currently, it’s just in the form of a 3 column design, but, if there is a demand, I’ll put together a 2 column version.

But that’s not all…

I didn’t just stop there. I thought, what is it bloggers want right now? Well, I might be wrong, but there seems to be a desire to have DOMtabs. These have been made popular, primarily through ProBlogger, where it’s used to list the ‘Best of ProBlogger’ in a space saving way.

Now, originally I was going to place this above the first post (as you can see in the image), but I didn’t like the fact it was pushing the content down, almost below the fold. So, I decided to place it below the first post. I also placed the necessary Javascript is in it’s own folder, and I made editing the DOMtab content easier, by placing it in its own file.

If you’ve any tips, suggestions, or problems, I’d be glad to know of them. Just leave them in the comments below.

Mellowed - Demo | Download

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37 comments...What do you think?

Posted by Nath @ Reformed Geek 22nd October, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Looks nice Armen, and it’s great to see you stepping out of your comfort so with your designs.
Posted by Armen 22nd October, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Nath Thanks. Habits are hard to shift sometimes, but I like the end result. Expect more colour schemes in my future designs.
Posted by David Airey 22nd October, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I like it, Armen, nice job. Anything that reminds me of the Vertigo theme I used to use is always a favourite with me.

As the for the DOMtabs (what does that stand for?), how about showing them below the sidebars, or above one of them? I think they might get a little lost between blog posts, but that’s coming from someone very familiar with standard blog layouts, so it could work great for some people.
Posted by Armen 22nd October, 2007 at 10:31 pm
David - Thanks for the feedback. I can’t imagine it’ll ever be as popular as Vertigo, but it’s a popular layout these days.

I’ll be using DOMtabs in future designs, and I have a layout in mind which will be similar to your suggestion to place it in the sidebar.

DOM stands for Document Object Model (technical jargon).
Posted by Ryan Stamper 23rd October, 2007 at 1:42 am
Hi! The theme looks great! Good work! Keep it up!
Posted by David Airey 23rd October, 2007 at 5:26 pm
You’re very welcome, Armen. Good luck with it.
Posted by sofish 25th October, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Yes, I like it, for the color, for the clear look…
Posted by Armen 25th October, 2007 at 3:52 pm
sofish Thanks. I tried to make the colour scheme a little different
Posted by Elizabeth Jackson 29th October, 2007 at 10:59 pm
I LOVE the soothing look of this theme, great job. I agree with david on above the sidebars for menu. But that is my left brain coming out. Also I get a lot of requests for 3-column split lately. I prefer them to the right like you have it, but could be cool to see it available in a split as well. I think if a lot of people see this it should be a very popular theme, good job!
Posted by Armen 30th October, 2007 at 10:06 am
Elizabeth - It’s very easy to split the sidebars. That’s maybe an idea for a post.

Hopefully it does become popular, but, it’s sometimes difficult to really know what people want in a theme.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, I see you’re just starting out, and already you’ve found some of the more popular design related blogs. I hope the blog goes well for you.
Posted by Justin Tadlock 5th November, 2007 at 11:24 pm
This is type of designing I want to get back into - simplistic, yet beautiful. I especially like the colors.

That’s also an interesting use of the DOMtab. I hadn’t even thought of using it like that.
Posted by Armen 6th November, 2007 at 11:15 am
Justin - Thanks. It’s amazing how easy it is to get ‘comfortable’ with a few colour palettes, and then never try anything different. I was glad to try something new with this.

I got the idea from Small Potato actually. It’s maybe not the best place for them, but, I saw he had it there on his current design, and thought I’d put them there, just to see.
Posted by Aaron 20th November, 2007 at 1:48 pm
This theme is excellent, thank you very much for the time you put into it. I do have one problem though. Every page I place any sort of trigger text/code, it shows up in the page instead of inserting the Adsense or contact form the trigger text should provide.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks again and keep up the great work.

Aaron
Posted by Luca 23rd November, 2007 at 3:55 am
I have some problem with the RECENT COMMENT Widget…

You can see on my site…

Any ideas on how to fix it?
Posted by Erin 26th November, 2007 at 10:11 am
I absolutely love this theme, but I keep getting a fatal error in the sidebar section.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_theme_switcher() in /home/****/public_html/sharingmytwocents/test/wp-content/themes/mellowed3col/l_sidebar.php on line 8

Help please?
Posted by Erin 26th November, 2007 at 10:22 am
um. nevermind about my last request. I just realized that was something you had on your demo (a theme switcher). So I just deleted it
Posted by Armen 26th November, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Aaron - Are you still experiencing that problem? I’m not sure I follow what you mean anyway. Is it that the code is appearing rather as code, rather than how the script should run?

Luca - If you’re using a Recent Comments plugin which permits you to change what is shown (Comment Author, Post Title, etc), you need to make what you show all one link.

In other words, there should be only one ‘a href=…. and it surrounds whatever it is you decide to display, remembering to close it at the end.

I hope this makes sense to you. Use the contact form if you need more help with this.

Erin - Where did you download the theme from? The code for the theme switcher shouldn’t be in the theme, it’s only for my demo page.
Posted by pao 5th December, 2007 at 8:59 am
i haven’t seen a wordpress theme this clean easy on the eyes. thanks so much. nice job.
Posted by Roman 11th December, 2007 at 12:27 am
Hi!
I would also like to thank you for the theme! I just started with 2 of my first blogs ever (www.mmmoney.net and .org) and am using your Mellowed theme.
It looks beautiful and is really easy to understand. Thank you so much!
Posted by kaosklub 27th February, 2008 at 10:18 am
Excellent theme! It’s amazing how can a good design be done using a simplistic idea.

A question: why can’t I put a tag cloud on my theme? Actually I have it now, you can look at it, but I’q like it to be just a group of words instead of a list.

Thank you for the great job!