Top 7 must haves for an ideal Wordpress theme.

When starting gregwolejko.com I had two options to go with when choosing a template for this blog: being a pedantic web developer as I am spend few weeks designing, implementing, changing, redesigning some ideas over and over again, or find a simple lightweight theme and use it. I took door number two and here I am with Hemingway Reloaded 1.0  

Thing is I am not happy with this theme. It fills my needs, yet I find constantly working on some minor details. This brought me to a conclusion that I actually need to design Wordpress theme of my own. So, before I’ll get down to work here is my top 7 must haves for an ideal Wordpress theme:

1. Simplicity. Being a big fan of clean and simple design this one is a number one priority. Content is the king and  having all kinds of bells and whistles on your site diminish value of your posts. 
2. Clean markup. This is a big one. It stretches from producing valid markup, layout not breaking up on different browsers to ease of managing the code and adding new features. 
3. Impressive grid layout. It doesn’t take lots of stuff to make an impressive layout. Take a look at those almost zen-like simple designs to get the idea: Khoi Vin’s Subtraction  is my all time favorite with freshly discovered Jon Tan’s jontangerine being a close second.
4. Usability. This one is dead simple. Your site has to be user friendly. It has to provide good readability of your posts as well as allowing easy searching and browsing. No brainer.
5. Eye catching navigation. One of my personal requirements here. Having all-simple design is no good as it crosses fine line between simple and dull. Navigation is the key factor here. It has to stand out. Encourage user to explore your site. Create some kind of interest point to catch user’s attention.
6. Awesome footer. Remember what I wrote about clear and lightweight design? Forget it as it comes to footers. I love them big and feature-heavy. How big is too big you ask? Until your footer doesn’t need its own footer your fine by me
7. Extensibility.  Last but not least, this one goes to all you SEO experts and monetization gurus out there. For a theme to make into the big boy world, it needs the ease of adding new features. Be that ads or some kind widgets, this one is a must.

This post is inspired by my recent fiddling with my current theme. Although I have to say that this theme is far from ideal, I do have to admit that it is the best of what I could find composition and originality wise. So good job to the guys over Startup 365 who are responsible for creating this lovely simple Wordpress theme.