Like Ice Breaker, it was designed by The Hive Designs (one of our designers), as you can probably tell by reading the text on the image above. I coded the theme with the four different color scheme stylesheets that can be easily switched through the built-in theme options page.

Other features include a widget-ready sidebar and 404 page and also integration with the WP-PageNavi (for pagination) and WP125 (for 125×125 ad management) plugins. A full list of features can be seen on the Blogwave theme page.

So check out the live demo (it should be blue by default). I submit it to the WordPress.org theme directory which should hopefully be approved soon, but until then you can download it here. Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Hope you like the theme. Have any feedback, comments, or questions? Let me know in the comments below!

Click here to view live demo of Hurricane theme

Kevin Muldoon of Blogging Tips contacted us looking for us to develop a theme to be released by them for free. He was looking for a dark and grungy style that would appeal to a large audience.

• A theme options page to input Google Analytics code, along FeedBurner and Twitter information for the respective links on the sidebar as well as the e-mail subscription form.
• Five widgetized areas, including one in the sidebar, three for the footer columns, and one on the 404 template.
• Support and styles for WordPress threaded comments using a custom callback.
• An archives page template to list monthly archives and categories.

Kevin was great to work with and very quick to respond with feedback. As per their announcement post, you can get the Hurricane WordPress theme for free over at BloggingTips.com, after signing up to their newsletter.

Click here to view OTRJournal live demo

OTRjournal is a trucking blog, previously hosted on the Blogspot platform. The author came to us looking for a brand new design for the blog, incorporating a desert motif and of course a truck image in the header, all while using a self-hosted WordPress system.

• A widgetized sidebar area below the “About” box to rearrange category, blogroll, and other list-style widgets.
• A full width page template for an optional page template that removes the sidebar and makes the content span the full width of the design.

We’re very happy with the way the theme turned out, and wish the author the best of luck with his brand new self-hosted WordPress blog. This custom WordPress theme was designed by Chris Rowe.

Click here to view demo of Trailer Pulse theme

Trailer Pulse is a movie trailer site, powered by WordPress. Rhys Davies came to us looking for a new custom theme for the site with a black/red color scheme with a “movie theatre” like feel to it. In addition to that, there needed to be a video player displayed on single post pages to play the trailer videos.

• WordPress threaded comments with Gravatars for single post pages, designed to go three levels deep.
• A custom write panel to input the thumbnail URL, video URL, video preview image, and run time in minutes.
• Integration with WP-PageNavi to handle pagination on the index, archive, and search pages.
• Integration with WP-PostRatings to have a 5-star ratings system on single post (movie trailer) pages.
• Integration with an Aweber e-mail newsletter and Facebook connect in the sidebar.

Rhys was great to work, and we wish him the best of luck on his new movie trailer website. This is also our first custom theme here designed by Chris Rowe.

Click here to visit WP Chat

WP Chat is a little side project of mine where people could talk about WordPress and other related topics. I wanted a relatively simple layout to house an embedded chatroom on the homepage, and also have room for a few static pages and a blog.

• A homepage template used to display WordPress-powered content above the embedded chatroom code.
• A static page template used on all other static pages, including the about and contact pages.
• A list of recent blog posts displayed on all pages, so navigating the latest news is pretty easy sitewide.
• Integrated threaded comment styles from CommentBits which blend in quite nicely with the rest of the design.

Jeff Chandler of WPTavern.com, a blog which covers WordPress-related topics, went so far as to say the theme “consists of a simple design which almost takes minimalism to a new level but I like it” (via this post).

Hopefully others like this clean minimal style used for this WordPress CMS theme.

• To allow users to input their email address and subscribe to our FeedBurner feed
• To promote our Twitter account with the little Twitter bird icon link
• To not have an unresolved page, or worse, an ugly ad-plastered domain parking page

We decided that all you people out there with unused domains might be interested in a domain parking theme like this, so we created a generic version of the theme for free download called Ice Breaker.

Click here for a live demo of the Ice Breaker theme

Instructions

Follow the steps below to have your WordPress-powered domain parking page online in no time.

• Get the theme – Download the theme here, and install it.
• Choose a color scheme – Pick either blue (default), red, green, or gray via the theme options page accessible through Appearance → Themes.
• Sign up to FeedBurner – My tutorial has some good instructions on how to burn your feed with FeedBurner. Make sure to activate email subscriptions as well.
• Arrange the widgets – Only text widgets, the custom subscription box widget, and the custom social icons widget are available. All others have been disabled.
• Edit the logo – Open up the logo.psd file in Photoshop and select the layer of the corresponding color you chose above. Edit the text and save as a transparent PNG.

There are more in-depth tutorials located on the Ice Breaker theme page.

Conclusion

The idea behind this theme is very inspired by Ian Stewart’s LaunchPad theme, which is another free “domain parking” theme. I’d like to thank him for paving the way for what I believe is the first theme of its kind.

We hope this theme will provide an attractive and usable parking page to use as an alternative to tired “under construction” pages and default parking pages served by your domain registrar.

Maybe while you’re in the planning stages of your blog, you could consider us for our custom theme design services.

Please let us know what you think of this theme in the comments, we’d love to hear your feedback! If you have any ideas for new color schemes, features, or suggestions, do let us know.

Click here to view live demo of the ASP.NET Hosting Theme

ASPNETHosting.co.uk was looking for a fresh look to their Windows hosting website, and WordPress was chosen as the preferred platform.

They were looking for a professional looking site with a homepage, a comparisons page, and a generic page template for other pages. No blog area was necessary as this was meant to be more of a CMS theme to manage the different pages of the site.

• A homepage template featuring a login form, featured hosting plans, account specs, and pricing details.
• A comparisons template with a table to compare the various hosting plans side-by-side (viewable on the Plans link on the demo).
• A generic page template for use on all other pages throughout the site.

Hopefully a theme like this proves that WordPress can be used for much more than just blogs, but any kind of site. This really is the perfect example of a WordPress CMS theme.

The client was very pleased with this custom WordPress design and we hope he puts it to good use! Please note the theme is not currently live on the site.

Click here for a live demo of the Bren Ohara theme

• A widget-ready sidebar to easily move sidebar items from within the WordPress administration area.
• Integration with the WP-PageNavi plugin for stylish pagination on index, archive, and search pages.
• A theme options page to control the text in the “Resources” box, as well as the three boxes in the footer.

Bren was very happy with the theme, and we hope to work with him again in the future for more custom themes. Please note the theme is not currently live on his blog.

So what does this mean exactly? Well, you can check out our services to figure out the type of unique blog design you’re looking for and order on our contact page when you’re ready.

So what took so long? Well, since we’re new, we didn’t really have anything much to put in our portfolio. To remedy this, we contacted a few well-known bloggers privately with a special offer to see if they would be interested in a pre-launch custom theme.

Kyle Eslick, owner of a number of blogs, quickly jumped on our offer wanting a redesign of his BlogTuts blog. You can check out the theme we developed for him here. We think it turned out pretty nice.

If you’ve been using an old stale WordPress theme for a while, and think it’s time for a change, don’t sit on the fence, contact us today!

Follow us @Custom_Theme to check out the latest custom themes we’ve developed for clients and other WordPress-related news.

Yes, there’s an underscore between the words “Custom Theme” in our Twitter account. Feel free to bother us with questions by replying to us, we’ll try to get back to you soon.