Our Showcase Theme has been entirely rebuilt with a responsive framework, filterable portfolio, retina optimized design, post formats and much more! We have breathed new life in to the theme, with a fresh, modern and minimal new design. The Showcase Theme is an excellent solution for any artist — illustrators, designers, photographers, animators and more!

This is another great example of a beautiful theme update from Organic Themes! While most theme shops retire old themes, we revive them! We’re confident the latest version of the Showcase Theme will be among the best WordPress portfolio themes available.

New Features include:

• Responsive Framework
• Retina Optimization
• Filterable Portfolio
• Social Media Options
• Post Formats
• Several Shortcodes
• Slideshow Template
• WooCommerce Integration
• HTML5 and CSS3
• Much More

Is your professional web presence scattered, outdated, non-existent? Then the Profile Theme is just what you’ve been looking for! It was designed to showcase everything awesome about you. Maybe that’s a little vain, but the internet is all about bragging rights. The Profile Theme is the perfect solution for an online resume, portfolio, personal site or just for impressing your friends.

Our latest theme is a welcome addition to the collection. We like it so much, we’re even using it ourselves!

Features include:

• Responsive Framework
• Featured Slideshow
• Portfolios
• Social Media Options
• Versatile Blog Layout
• Several Shortcodes
• Retina Optimized Design
• Much More

SlideDeck 2 enables you to build stunning content sliders for your WordPress site without any coding. Add images, text and video, embed your own custom HTML, or even dynamically pull content from your favorite sources, like Instagram, YouTube or RSS feeds.

In addition, We have included the SlideDeck 2 Lite plugin within our new Profile Theme and the Magazine Theme. Try it for free with the purchase of those themes, then save 25% using this link when upgrading the plugin! We think you’ll enjoy SlideDeck.

It has been an exciting process working with the WordPress theme team to get Photographer prepared and launched on their blogging community. We can’t thank the team at Automattic enough for giving us the opportunity to provide our themes to their community. We are looking forward to releasing our next theme on wordpress.com soon!

We’re confident Photographer will be a great addition to the wordpress.com marketplace, and an excellent solution for the thousands of photographers using the community for their website and blogging needs. If you would like to use Photographer for your wordpress.com blog, you can purchase it here. Don’t forget to purchase the Custom Design upgrade if you would like to change theme colors, fonts and styles!

In addition to Photographer, we have 2 free themes available on wordpress.com — Structure and Blissful Blog.

Note: The wordpress.com version of Photographer is separate from the Photographer Theme offered on our site, and only for use on the WordPress.com blogging community. Not to be confused with the open source version of WordPress from wordpress.org. The wordpress.com version can not be used on a self-hosted WordPress site. Please purchase the Photographer Theme from our website for use on a self-hosted WordPress site.

The NonProfit Theme has been been rebuilt from the ground up. We have improved everything while still maintaining the familiar layout. It’s simply the best WordPress theme available for organizations promoting peace, awareness and good will. New theme features include the following:

• Fully Responsive Framework
• Retina Optimized Design
• Several Shortcodes
• Slideshow Page Template
• HTML5 and CSS3 Construction
• WordPress 3.5 Custom Header and Background
• WooCommerce Compatibility
• New Customization and Color Options
• Much More

Get started with the NonProfit Theme immediately using our Instant Setup service.

My wife is a professional wedding photographer. I have the advantage of asking for her advice when designing a WordPress theme for photographers. As I understand it, most professional photographers don’t want giant versions of their images floating around the internet. While full screen photography themes look great, they’re generally not practical because they require such high resolution images that can be downloaded and printed. Rather than creating a full width photography theme, we decided to create something a bit more practical and elegant.

The Photographer Theme design was simplified with the most recent update, as seen in the demo. The updated minimal design brings the focus where it should be — to the images. Changing the logo, background, colors and images to match your brand is a breeze. Although the design was simplified, the theme itself has new options and features. The Photographer Theme now includes shortcodes and several social media options. The theme is responsive and retina optimized, so your photos will look extra crisp on any device.

We hope you enjoy these updates!

The fully responsive, retina optimized Response Theme is our latest and greatest WordPress theme. View the demo on any device to see the theme in action. Scale your browser to see the responsive framework take effect.

The Response Theme marks the beginning of a new era for Organic Themes. We have taken extra time and care to create this theme from the ground up with several new features, while still maintaining our easily understood code base. This theme is a dream for designers and developers.

New features are overflowing within the Response Theme. Several shortcodes are available for easily displaying beautiful buttons, icons, tabs, headlines, toggles, modal boxes, galleries and much more within any page or post. The theme contains options for changing colors, site width, social media options and more. There are several background options for posts displayed in the featured slideshow. The Response Theme contains post formats for a variety of blog posting options. In addition, the theme is WooCommerce compatible for selling online products.

The Response Theme is an excellent solution for any storefront, business, portfolio or blog. Its extreme versatility will adapt to your brand with ease. We hope you enjoy the latest addition to our theme collection. Happy New Year from Organic Themes!

As a designer, I’m biased. However, during the first milliseconds of viewing a site, if the logo, fonts, colors or imagery make my eyes bleed — I won’t proceed to the content. For myself and other professionals, design equals credibility.

While an Organic Theme will provide a huge head start towards creating a beautiful site, there are still potential poor design choices that can be made on the path to completion. Here are a few tips for staying on the path to creating a beautiful WordPress site.

1. Great Images

Images will make or break the appearance of your site. Poor image choice is the most common mistake I encounter in new websites. If you plan to use images, don’t cheap out — it will reflect poorly on your brand.

Good images are going to cost you a few bucks. Great images are going to cost you more than a few bucks. If you don’t have the budget for quality photography, there are a few options for finding good free imagery.

Paid Photo Resources

• istockphoto.com — Good, affordable images. They also offer one free image per week.
• shutterstock.com — Similar to iStock in terms of pricing and quality.
• veer.com — Similar to iStock in terms of pricing, maybe slightly higher quality. They also have great artwork and fonts available.
• gettyimages.com — Cream of the crop editorial images. They are fantastic. They are not cheap.

Free Photo Resources

• Use Instagram — A great way to get your own good looking images for free.
• Flickr Creative Commons — You can find great images here. The usage conditions vary, but you generally need to give credit to the photographer.
• stock.xchng — An excellent free resource. You may have to do some digging on the site for quality images.
• Wikipedia Commons — You’re free to use any images or media on Wikipedia.
• Ask permission — It doesn’t hurt to ask your favorite photographers. You’ll have more luck with this if you provide credit and have site traffic.

2. Font Choices

Once upon a time, in my youth, I thought Papyrus was a great font. Then I became a designer, and realized it’s not. Making great font choices is very important to the design, professionalism and above all else, the legibility of your site. If you want people to read your content — make it easy for them.

When in doubt, use Helvetica, Arial or Georgia. They are widely recognized as legible fonts online — and they should work across all browsers without any coding trickery. If you’re not a professional designer, and a font looks “boring“, that’s probably the easiest way to recognize it as being a good font.

Seen a great font, but don’t know what it is? Try WhatTheFont from MyFonts.

Using fonts on the web isn’t like choosing a font in Microsoft Word. By default, there are only a handful of core fonts that can be viewed universally on the web. This problem has haunted web typography for years. Very difficult workarounds evolved using images, Flash or Cufon. It wasn’t until relatively recently that great solutions began to emerge.

Web Font Solutions

• Google Fonts — Free and good, most of them anyway.
• Typekit — Basically a premium version of Google Fonts, offering high quality fonts on your site for a price.
• Fontdeck — Similar to Typekit, but with different pricing options.
• @font-face — My personal favorite method, but it requires a little more effort and font ownership.

Font Sources

• myfonts.com — If you’re looking for a specific font, you can probably find it here.
• exljbris Font Foundry — They have a collection of free quality fonts.
• veer.com — Veer offers some great fonts for design.
• dafont.com — A huge collection of free fonts. Use carefully, because most of them are pretty horrid.

WordPress Font Plugins

• WP Google Fonts — Easily add Google Fonts to your WordPress site.
  
• Typekit Fonts for WordPress — Keep in mind, you will be required to register for Typekit.
• Fontmeister — A promising font plugin for managing web fonts from multiple sources.

3. Colors

Unless you are well versed in color theory, getting too creative with the color scheme on your site may be a disaster. It might look like a chimpanzee finger painting.

If color isn’t your cup of tea, a great rule of thumb is to use 2 neutral, contrasting colors (preferably shades of black and white) with the sparse use of 1 highlight color throughout your site.

If you’re feeling more ambitious, try implementing a palette from ColourLovers. Remember to make wise color choices that match your brand.

We create our themes to provide basic color changing options for the links, buttons, highlights and background. We have tried to keep the options minimal to reduce the risk of a color disaster.

4. Your Logo

Not so long ago, I was a logo designer. A logo is more than just an icon at the top of your site — it’s the face of your company. There is a reason why companies like Citibank pay millions of dollars for a logo re-branding from Pentagram. Those companies understand the value of a logo, and the importance of their brand.

You don’t need a million dollars for a great logo, but you do need more than $20. I’d estimate a starting rate for a great logo concept at around $300, depending on the designer. The price will likely increase considerably based on the number of concepts and revisions desired.

Logopond is a great resource for finding excellent and affordable logo designers.

If you can’t afford a logo designer, there’s always Helvetica. Use a great typeface, purchase an icon from iStockPhoto for $20, or even use your signature if it’s a personal site or brand. Keep it as simple as possible if you absolutely have to create your own logo without experience.

Just please don’t ask your secretary or nephew to design a logo if you value the appearance of your site. It won’t be pretty.

5. Avoid Clutter

More is not always more. When a site contains too much clutter — the focus of the content is lost.

By clutter, I’m referring to:

• Excessive Advertising
• Pop-Up Newsletter Forms
• Absurd Amounts of Social Media Buttons
• Unexpected Animations
• Auto-playing Music or Video
• Any Other Annoying Distractions

While advertising might be a necessity for creating a profitable site, filling it with Google AdSense on every post and sidebar is not going to result in more money. Place ads wisely, and only if your site is generating enough traffic to warrant the use of advertisements. If you’re just getting started, the focus should be on the content. There’s no such thing as an overnight success, even on the web.

A beautiful site is peaceful, not a bombardment of all senses.

Remember, anything that distracts the viewer from the content is bad. If you don’t need it, don’t use it.

Following these tips will result in a stronger brand and more interest in your site. The appearance of a professional brand is essential to any business, and we want your business to look great.

As a result, we have been working tirelessly over the past several months to improve — well, everything.

We couldn’t be more excited to share the results with you! Organic Themes now features a new responsive and retina optimized design, payment and product fulfillment solution, support system, affiliate program and more!

Making so many changes at once is a delicate process. We have tried to make the transition smooth for new and old customers alike. To avoid any confusion, we would like to inform you of the changes in detail:

New Payment and Product Fulfillment

Themes can now be purchased securely on our site using PayPal and all major credit cards — without any annoying pop-ups. Upon completing a purchase, you will be registered for an Organic Themes account, giving you access to the theme files, new updates, design files, demo content and our new support system.

This new solution has been made possible by the fantastic Easy Digital Downloads plugin. We highly recommend this plugin for any of customers interested in selling digital goods — whether it’s stock photos, eBooks or software.

What if I’ve already purchased an Organic Theme?

Any customer that has previously purchased a theme and registered for support can login to their new Organic Themes account using their old support forum credentials. Granting access to your previously purchased theme files and the new support system. If you are having trouble accessing your account, please contact us directly.

Zendesk For Support

After much research, we have chosen Zendesk as our new support solution. Here’s why:

• 3 Support Channels — View the forums, knowledgebase or submit tickets.
• Cross-Searchablity (if that’s a word) — Return results from all 3 channels.
• Integration — Zendesk integrates seamlessly with almost everything.
• Notifications — When you ask a question, we’ll be informed immediately.
• Reliability — Their business isn’t going anywhere, and it’s getting better.
• Mobility — We’re on the move a lot, and Zendesk is cool with that.
• Scalability — We can scale Zendesk across multiple brands as we grow.
• It’s Purdy — Being easy on the eyes never hurts.

Upon purchasing a theme, you will automatically be registered for Zendesk support with your new account. There is no need to fumble with transaction ID’s or multiple registrations. Easy peasy.

As new questions are submitted and answered, the forums and knowledge base will grow to offer invaluable resources for managing and customizing your Organic Theme. We believe this solution will be vastly more efficient and helpful than our previous support forums.

In addition, we have provided updates to many of our FAQ’s, tutorials and theme documentation.

What about the old support forums?

They’re still around, we just moved them here. We closed registration and posting, but opened the forums up for public view to be used as a tome of knowledge. While many of the posts may be outdated and refer to old theme versions, we realize the forums still offer loads of valuable information — and now it’s freely accessible.

Updated Affiliate Program

We value our honest affiliates and their promotion of Organic Themes. As a result, we have created a new in-house affiliate program that will help us track referrals and our affiliates more efficiently.

Our valuable existing affiliates have been notified of the new registration process. If for some reason you didn’t get the memo, contact us with your previous affiliate credentials.

The affiliate percentage remains the same — 30% of a sale referral is money in your pocket.

While we are picky about accepting new affiliates, applications can be submitted here.

The New Look

Our brand has been refreshed and the site given a beautifully minimal and responsive new design that works perfectly on your iPad or iPhone.

We restructured the site navigation and flow to highlight the essential information out front, but don’t worry, the other resources are still available and have been updated to reflect the changes throughout the site.

Major Theme Updates

We have released 3 major theme updates that we have been too busy to publicly announce. Our Portfolio, Tumble and Photographer Themes have all undergone significant improvements. Updated features include a refreshed design, responsive framework, retina display optimization and much more.

In The Pipeline

We have an awesome new theme in the works. We’ll share teasers via Twitter as the new theme nears completion. We are working on more major theme updates — our Tech and NonProfit Themes are the next to receive makeovers. We are also making several updates to our hosting company, Kahuna Host. In addition, we’re working with the good folks at Automattic to port some of our themes to the wordpress.com marketplace.

Give Us Feedback

Your opinion matters. After all, these changes were made for you. Let us know what you think of the new site by leaving a comment below. Help us work out any minor kinks along the way as we perfect this new solution over the following weeks.

Mahalo from Organic Themes!

The Tumble Theme has undergone a major improvement. Check out the updated demo.

The theme has been rebuilt from the ground up with a refreshed design and new functionality including:

• Responsive Framework
• Retina Optimized Icons and Images
• WordPress 3.4+ Custom Header and Background
• WooCommerce Integration
• Increased Customization Options
• Slideshow Page Template
• Ajax Single Page Post Loading
• Full Screen Background Image
• Much More!

Customization is now easier than ever — as seen with these 2 sites using the new Tumble Theme, Cookie Taster and Barrld.

We hope you enjoy the updates!