From WordPress Rockstar Adii, author of popular themes Premium News and NewsPress, comes another free WordPress theme called UnGrid. This is his second time to release a free WP theme after his WP-Polariod theme. For this particular project, he collaborated with Magnus Jepson, another talented WP theme designer.
UnGrid is officially here, and it’s the first truly grid-based theme that I have designed. The theme also marks the new journey, which I’m embarking on in releasing free themes with a few premium features. After establishing a great business model based on WordPress, the only thing I can do is to give back to the community…
Screenshot:
Basic theme features include:
- Integrated Banner-ad Management
- Featured About Section
- Modified Homepage Layout
- Widget-ready Sidebar
Plugins Needed:
My Take:
When I saw this theme, the first thing that came into my mind was Derek Punsalan’s Grid Focus theme. I’m not saying that this theme was based on it because the UnGrid is totally different not only in design but also in features. I don’t know why I automatically associate any grid based theme to Grid Focus but it’s probably because (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the first released WordPress theme that’s grid based.
Back to the topic at hand, UnGrid is a very nice minimalist theme that has a simple, yet solid design. It comes in three colors, Green which is the default theme color, Pink and my favorite color Blue. Although, it can be used for personal blogs, I believe that this theme would work nicely for an information blog or website. Adii picked very nice fonts to go with this theme. They’re clear and easy to read. However, the problem I have with it is the font color which IMO makes it hard to read the text especially on a white background. This issue can be easily corrected via the stylesheet.
If you’re worried about the required plugins, you don’t have to install them just to use this theme. The UnGrid was coded in a way that it would work without those plugins. But if you want to use the same format and content to be displayed especially in the footer section, then you definitely need them plugins.
As I normally do with all WordPress themes that I review, I checked the UnGrid on several browsers. It worked great on Firefox and Opera, but with Internet Explorer, I found out that the sidebar is not properly aligned with the left sidebar and content area. I’m not sure if Adii is aware of it but I’m sure this can be fixed easily.
Before you go and download this theme, make sure that you have some background knowledge in HTML/CSS or have someone who can help you customize or tweak this theme because due to time constraints and busy schedules, the authors have clearly stated that they will not provide any support for this theme. It’s good to see Adii release good quality WordPress for free inspite of his success with Premium themes. I give the UnGrid theme a 4 out of 5.
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February 6th, 2008 at 3:45 AM
@Adii – You’re most welcome! I understand what you’re trying to say. I’m sure most users won’t mind the minor alignment issue or keep them from using the theme. Or someone could actually find a way to fix it and share the solution to others.
Thanks for dropping by! :)
February 6th, 2008 at 3:44 AM
Thanks for the feature and the constructive crit! :) I know about the minor alignment issues in IE and although I pride myself on the quality of work, I’d rather put out a feature-rich theme that is 99% perfect, than have to spend hours fixing minor IE problems…
Adii’s last blog post..Framework Wars: Mootools vs jQuery
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 AM
@Ade – Really? Well, your current theme looks cool and fits your blog well. But that’s normal, I also get that sometimes after doing a theme reboot and I see a nice theme. But this time, I love my new theme. :D
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:34 AM
If I didn’t just do a reboot, I’d get this theme at once.
Ade’s last blog post..Toys
February 1st, 2008 at 2:25 PM
@Blogoloco – Thanks for the reminder! Yeah, I know what you mean. ;)
Hope you had a lovely weekend too mate! :D
February 1st, 2008 at 2:24 PM
not bad actually. jaypee, just to remind you :smile: . I hope you know what I mean. Have a lovely weekend mate.
Blogoloco – Win $250′s last blog post..I’m off to London to visit the Queen
February 1st, 2008 at 2:40 AM
@jhay – Well, in your case since you know how to tweak and customize a theme, you can make it “ungloomy” and adjust the banner sizes or adjust the area that holds it to accommodate a regular sized banner. Am I right? :D
February 1st, 2008 at 2:38 AM
Great to see another theme from Adii. Though it looks to ‘gloomy’ for my taste and those uncommon banner ad sizes tend to be a turn-off for some bloggers.
jhay’s last blog post..Achmed the Dead Terrorist