Exciting WordPress News

So, last week WordPress announced the creation of a new theme team. You guys by now must know how much I love playing around with the appearance of my blog…so news that there is a dedicated team for theme-creation (how come it took so long) could only have me jumping up and down in joy.

This news was immediately followed by the introduction of the new Inuit Types theme. I immediately played around a bit with it before realizing it was not for me.

I then thought a little bit about the various themes I have used and what I loved about them, and then tried to put it all together in the following wishlist…

• Love the dreaminess and the fonts of Misty Look
• Love the crispness and the look of the header text of the Pressrow theme
• Absolutely love the flexibility of the Vigilance theme – the ability to change colors, the ability to add 2 sidebars as well…this is my favorite WordPress theme by far
• Love the colors of Motion and the ability to add categories to your header. Love the rich color and texture of the theme.

So, why did I try these themes and eventually discard them if I love them so much?

Well, I left Misty Look because with Pressrow, my photos displayed to better advantage. I left Pressrow because of Vigilance’s awesome customization options.

For a long time, I was very content with Vigilance, but when WordPress introduced Motion, I just had to try it out and I was hooked. I loved the bottom sidebar widget, as well as the option to have Categories displayed on the header. It also displays photos to great advantage.

The only problem was with the text. When I wrote a post with a lot of text and no photos, I found it a bit hard to read. So, I eventually moved to Titan, which is quite similar to Motion, only with a lighter background and more clear text.

I do find it a bit dull though, and so I am really looking forward to more theme options coming from WordPress.

And if you theme team guys are reading, here is a wishlist of features I would like to see in a WordPress theme:

• A 2-column theme that allows me to display large photographs (similar to what is available with Vigilance/Pressrow/Motion)
• An ability to use the theme with a white/black background (similar to what you have with Inuit Types)
• Also provide excellent customization abilities like Vigilance
• The ability to display Categories on your header as well as to have drop-down header menus (like Motion). I don’t want to give Titan as the example here, because 2 rows of Categories on a Titan header displays really awfully.
• And whatever other awesomeness you would like to add 🙂

So are you WordPress users as excited by the possibility of new themes?

Over the weekend, I also noticed that there is a new Surprise Me option that I immediately signed up for. I then went to my blog wondering about the surprise, but so far nothing yet…did anybody else try this out? did something happen?

Addendum: I finally saw the surprise when I published this post. Meh! my suggestion is don’t bother with it…