“I need help finding a good theme!”
No question will make me want to run screaming more than that. Not even the dreaded “Should I use Multisite?” question is as bad as that one, because picking a theme is hard!
I mentioned to my coworker that it’s like trying to find a needle in a pile of tainted needles and the reason is really simple. Themes are ‘easy’ to code and hard to find the right one.
A theme is personal
What you think looks good is different from what I think looks good. I love larger fonts for readability, but at the same time I don’t like too much whitespace. I don’t want an overabundance of clutter, but a single column isn’t always what I think looks ‘good.’ I’m fond of a sidebar. I also like certain color schemes, like aqua and blues and greens, but not others like yellows. That means I’ll want a theme that either matches my colors or lets me change them easily.
I need to know what you like before I can help you out.
A theme meets your needs
What you need out of a theme is different from what I need. You may need things for custom post types built in. I don’t. I may want a grid layout for content. You don’t. What you need is very specific to your vision of your site, and picking out a ‘good’ theme to match that isn’t easy. But you have to know what you need before you start to pick out a theme. Asking me ‘what’s a good theme for my comedian website?’ is not a simple answer. What do you want to do with it? Do you want to sell things, show your gigs, blog, have a survey?
I need to know what you need before I can help you find something.
A theme will cost you money or time (or both)
What you can do and what I can do are different. I hate coding themes. I am happy to pay the right people to do it for me. That said, I’m happy making a child theme or forking a theme, or using a plugin to extend it. I’m willing to spend money and time to make a theme suit me, because I look at them and get ‘most of the way there’ with pretty much all themes. No theme has ever been 100% perfect for me ever, but I think that’s okay. A theme that is the right shape will be enough, provided I can extend it (or pay someone to do it). I may need support, and I need to make sure I get that, so if I pay for a theme, I want to know how far down the rabbit hole they’ll go with me.
I need to know your budget before I can point you to the right place.
A theme represents you
Who you are and who I am are different. This is the most wibbly-wobbley part. Your theme shows off ‘you.’ If you, like me, have issues visualizing that, it’s hard to find the right theme except to say “You’ll know it when you see it.” But understanding yourself, your likes and dislikes and the aspects of you that you want the theme to show off will help you pick the right theme. You may not know it all to begin with, but start making notes. When you see something you love, think about why you love it. When you hate something, do the same. Make a list of what you love and hate, what features make you wince and which ones you crave. Understanding why you make those visceral reactions to a theme helps you understand you.
You need to know who you are before you ask anyone to help you find a theme.
Why do you love (or hate) suggesting themes?
Do you feel like I do? Let’s hear why!
Comments
One response to “Themes Suck”
I have something related to this. Not knowing who you are, why you like what you like and don’t like what you don’t like makes it harder for me to help you find a theme that you can use without making a ton of customizations you don’t have the budget to pay for. Also, having no idea what you want your website to look like in the slightest also hurts my soul, because then I have to make a choice, which you then may not like, at which point you will then think my skills suck, which I’m also not fond of.