Jason Schuller is working on a light redesign of Press75′s website, and posted the above teasers to Dribbble. What do you think of the new light approach shown off in these images? Share your thoughts here or on Schuller’s Dribbble postings.
Press75 has been run and maintained by Jason Schuller for over 3 years now. That’s a lot of work for one person when they’re responsible for 27 themes. Jason has decided it’s time for some changes, so in 2012 Jason will be expanding Press75 from a one-person operation to a team. The team will be small but this change, he says, will allow many other things to happen.
The addition of team members is allowing them to create a new framework for all of their themes, which he says will help streamline the development and updating process for all new and old themes. The new team should also give Press75 more time to focus on expansion. They’re currently working on updating several themes to be added to the theme choices for WordPress.com users. On Demand and Debut are currently awaiting review to be released on WordPress.com.
Right now the Press75 site is also awaiting a complete refresh, which is set to happen sometime in February. If you’d prefer reading about all the changes in Jason’s own words, here’s a link to his post about it on Press75.com.
How long have you known about and used Press75 themes? Are you excited for the changes planned for 2012?
Last month we reported on Jason Schuller’s intention to modify his ThemeGarden project to make it more like his initial vision. It now looks like he is definitely taking steps to move in a new direction. In an email sent to ThemeGarden authors earlier this month Schuller said that as of October 21, or Friday, the site will be going into maintenance mode indefinitely in order for him to “work on updates” to the marketplace.
It’s not entirely clear yet what ThemeGarden’s new direction will be, but one thing is clear: Schuller is serious about remaking ThemeGarden in his new vision. If you were Jason, what would you do with ThemeGarden? If you’re an author on the marketplace, let us know what you plan to do in the interim in the comments below.
For the full message sent to ThemeGarden authors see just after the jump.
Jason Schuller has been slowly scaling back on the brands and themes available on ThemeGarden in order to take “a second stab” at what he set out to do in the beginning, he told WPCandy. If you visit ThemeGarden you’ll notice far fewer brands listed than before and the option to sort by framework has been removed.
In the near future ThemeGarden will be revised to include a new application process, commerce solution, seller admin, tools, and support forums. Schuller explained that the changes are important after ThemeGarden became something unintended when it launched:
After launching in November 2010 there was a massive flood of authors and brands who wanted access to the site which caused an influx of added themes with no regulation of any kind. Essentially the site became a huge advertisement for branded themes which detracted from what I had originally intended to do with the ThemeGarden project. ThemeGarden.com should have been (and should be) an alternative marketplace for talented WordPress theme authors who would like to distribute and maintain their themes and receive 100% of their theme sales in return (which they currently do).
Schuller wouldn’t offer up all the details just yet, but he did say that in the future ThemeGarden will be “much more exclusive” in the future with themes built on a “a solid and consistant theme framework that you will not be able to find anywhere else.”
Had you noticed the changes to ThemeGarden yet? Do you think Schuller’s making the right decisions for his marketplace?
Jason Schuller is bringing along a few Press75 shirts to WordCamp San Francisco this weekend. The question is, will I be lucky enough to receive one?
The other question is, if I don’t receive one, how many can I run away with after I tackle him to the ground?
iThemes hosted a meetup in Okalhoma City for a couple of days last week. They welcomed a number of WordPress professionals, like Ptah Dunbar, Grant Griffiths, Clay Griffiths, Jeff Milone, David Morgan, Michael Torbert, Lisa Sabin-Wilson, and Jason Schuller.
Can you guess which of the photos is my favorite?
Three years ago this month Jason Schuller launched Press75.com with just three video-centric themes. Now at 25 themes and, according to Schuller, several thousand customers later Press75 has come a long way.
As Schuller explained on his blog, Press75 grew out of his experiment with WPElements.com, where he sold his first Video Flick theme for just $5. He started up WPElements to test out his idea after walking away from his day job in January of 2008. As for the origin of the name Press75? Schuller says:
With that in mind I wanted to create a store front and a brand that was unique, which is how Press75.com was born. Why “Press75″? The answer is simple… “Press” obviously stands for WordPress and “1975″ was the year that I was born, hence “Press75″.
So how many of you have been following Press75.com and Schuller’s work since he started? Also, is his story of entrepreneurial success act as encouragement for anyone else?
The photo of the WordPress cake above belongs to Ryan Markel.
Theme.it, a blog for WordPress theme creators (and Jason Schuller’s latest project), is grinding to life with a post from theme developer Sawyer Hollenshead on lessons he learned releasing his first few WordPress themes. The activity comes just a few weeks after Schuller first announced the idea and briefly described it:
Theme.it will focus on theme design, development, editorials, theme reviews, interviews and much more. If you are a theme designer or developer looking to establish your business within the WordPress theme market, Theme.it will also provide articles by long standing WordPress theme business owners sharing key aspects of how they established and currently maintain their theme businesses.
Hollenshead doesn’t look like the only one who will be gracing Theme.it’s pages along with Schuller. The site’s footer also displays the pretty faces of:
Who doesn’t love another blog about WordPress, am I right? You can follow the progress on the Theme.it blog, as well as their Twitter account @just_theme_it. From the list above, is there someone you’re most excited to hear from on Theme.it?
Believe it or not, the WordPress community is a pretty big one. While we try our best to cover all of the WordPress news we can—and I would argue we do a pretty good job—we can’t always cover everything that happens each week. We’re only human, of course.
To remedy the news we miss, I’m happy to introduce a new recurring post on WPCandy called “Best of the Rest”. In these posts we’ll run through the news we couldn’t quite get to the week before.
Jason Schuller, of Press75 and Theme Garden, was interviewed on the recently launched Freelance Jam … Continue reading
