This post title seems a bit off, I admit. Feels incomplete. But most questions related to choosing a WordPress theme include these words,
“Which is the best WordPress theme?”
“Which WordPress theme should I use?”
“Which WordPress theme do you use?”
And so on.
The answer to the first two questions above is the expected reply, “Well… it depends”. But the answer to the third question is one that I’ll gladly delve into here. First, a little background.
WordPress theme choice has always been a case of ‘too many’ of a good thing for me.
I remember early in my business journey, using different themes for each of the first few client projects I had landed. It was soon after, that I realized I needed to streamline my workflow. I couldn’t spend all my time trying to learn the nuances of each new theme.
And so, the first step in this direction would be to choose a single theme, learn how to customize it well, and deploy it on client’s websites.
WordPress may be synonymous with free, but I also learned during this time, that some things easily proved their worth and value. And a good theme was worth its cost.
U-Design
The first theme I ever paid for was called U-design. It was a popular and solidly vetted ThemeForest product that I used to build my own personal site. I was really happy with it.
But licenses are a sticky thing in open source, and I only had one for U-Design. I needed something with variety, that I could use multiple times and on multiple client websites.
MySiteMyWay
That was when I ran into another product on ThemeForest called MySiteMyWay (MSMW) by Webtreats. For a reasonable price, I could have a collection of different-styled themes to use on as many sites as I wanted. Awesome – take my money please!
But about a year and several client sites into that happy discovery, Webtreats simply vanished overnight. I wrote about the curious ghosting of MSMW in a blog post, somewhere on a now-defunct site.
Time to go fish.
Genesis
Around the time MSMW disappeared, I had become aware about the difference in philosophy regarding how plugins and themes should be deployed on a site. ThemeForest, apparently, was oft frowned-upon by WP purists for how theme developers bundled plugins into their themes. In other words, the themes provided functionality, that made it near impossible to switch themes without breaking a website. This went against the intended relationship of WordPress themes and plugins.
Wanting to move closer to best practices, advocated by those closest to the WordPress project, I landed on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress.
This, I loved.
Immersed in the Genesis ecosystem, I learned how to take advantage of child themes, hooks, and filters. My coding learning curve also spiked as I got my hands dirty in customization. Working with Genesis, I spent very little time browsing the plugin directory. The goal in putting sites together quickly became: keep it simple, keep it clean, keep it fast.
It was no hard decision to invest in a lifetime Agency license. One that remains valid today.
Then one day, Gutenberg happened.
The StudioPress crew have always been a bit ahead of the pack, so for a time, it looked like they would be out in front with the new block-based WordPress. I exercised some faith by rebuilding my own site using the Genesis hybrid block theme and blocks plugin.
But WordPress core went all in with Gutenberg and FSE (Full Site Editing), while Genesis block development stalled. It wasn’t long before the realization sunk in that a decision was in order.
Should I stay or should I go? I popped into the StudioPress forums one last time to answer that question.
Hello Ollie
Bringing this memory trip full circle, recall the purpose of this post. Replacing Genesis. The first step in this direction would be to choose a single theme, learn how to customize it well, and deploy it on client’s websites.
After some searching, I’ve landed on the skater inspired Ollie theme.
Without writing an entire second article on why I landed on Ollie, here is a quick list on the major sell points. Fast, Clean, and FSE. And the menu. Especially the menu.
Time will tell if this was the right choice, but with two sites already wearing Ollie, things are looking exciting.
skater pic: Devin Avery on Unsplash