Why Is WordPress So Sexy?

Psst… I fidgeted with the layout on Preshrunk.

Actually, all I really did was find a really sexy WordPress template and tweaked it to my liking — but I’m pretty sure I’ll keep this design up for a while. At least until everyone and their brother starts using it on their own sites.

When I showed the new layout to Matt, he remarked:

Matt: WP templates out there are so good
Matt: it seems stupid to custom design anything

And you know what? I’m inclined to agree. I only spent half an hour switching up some colors in CSS and fixing a few grammatical errors in the post data at the bottom of the page before I considered it ready. To compare, when I launched the site using Blogger, I spent a few hours tweaking someone’s port of Kubrick to get it exactly the way I wanted it.

Now I’m not trying to say that WordPress is easier to use — or even really any better — than Blogger is. Both of them have their shortcomings. But please don’t think that I’m knocking Blogger. I was a paid Blogger Pro user back in the day. And up until a several months ago, I thought I’d be using it forever. So needless to say, I have plenty of love and respect for them.

What I think I’m getting at here tho is that the WordPress community has quite a few more passionate designers than the general Blogger community does under its belt. Sure, Google can afford to hire Zeldman, Cederholm and Shea — but they don’t even use Blogger to run their own sites. Can you even name one resource for Blogger templates other than the default ones that are provided for you? I know I can’t.

The people who are releasing all of these beautiful WordPress templates on the other hand, actually manage to use the software on a pretty regular basis. They know how to hack their way around the extensive template available to get some pretty amazing results. Sure, the code may occasionally be a tad bit hellish to read thru when you need to do a quick tweak, but the designers are passionate about WordPress and really manages to show in their designs.

Think about it… When was the last time you saw a Blogger design get ported over to WordPress? Yeah, I don’t seem to remember that happening either.

Damn. I’m getting off on a rant here… Sorry about that. I could go on for a bit longer, but I’ll spare you all. Just go give the new Preshrunk a peek, okay? Cheers!


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4 responses to “Why Is WordPress So Sexy?”

  1. Lucky Avatar

    Though they were hard to find intially, there actually are quite a few Blogger template resources out there:

    http://thrbrtemplates.blogspot.com/
    http://www.blogskins.com/
    http://blogfresh.blogspot.com/
    http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/

    For some.

    I’m not a huge fan of Blogger, mind you. But there are outlets for people to take to ease the pain.

  2. Jason Cosper Avatar

    Granted, there are plenty of template resources out there for Blogger — but none of the ones you posted have anything that’s really all that amazing.

    I mean, compare any layout on any one of those sites to Kubrick, Hemingway or Kiwi and see how they stack up. I hate to break it to you, but they just don’t.

  3. zeldman Avatar

    _Sure, Google can afford to hire Zeldman, Cederholm and Shea_

    Cederholm and Shea got paid?

  4. Jason Cosper Avatar

    They didn’t get paid? Hrmph. I always assumed that everyone who helped out on the Blogger beautification project was. Hrmph. Thanks for the correction, chief.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go spazz out over the fact that Zeldman just left a comment on my stupid little weblog…