During the past month, I’ve had the opportunity to evaluate several themes before deciding on CleanSlate by Brian Casel. All three present themselves as clean corporate looking themes with an emphasis on webpage look over a blog look.

First to evaluate was “Application” by Manish Gori. Very clean, reasonably priced, however forum tech support is questionable at best. As a reply to my many questions, Manish’s single reply was use it as is or we’ll refund. So much for the first theme, I accepted his refund. Quick and without issue.

Next, I tried Linen Pro by The Theme Foundry. A bit more expensive, however one expects to pay more for American. Forum tech support is the best part of Theme Foundry. I think they have 3-4 support people who respond within 10-15 minutes of a post. Only problem is that their technology is limited. Theme has many holes and their slider many problems. As responsive as they were, the limiting factor was product quality. Especially when tech support finally asked me to redesign their software to fix the multiple issues. When I said that wasn’t the reason I bought their theme we reached an impasse. The Theme Foundry offered a refund and I accepted. Quick and without issue.

Nearly frustrated that maybe my expectation were too high for a WordPress theme, I stumbled on ThemeJam’s CleanSlate. Working with CleanSlate has been fun. For the first time, I found a theme designer who has really designed a fantastic package. He has added features no one else has even conceived of. Personally I think Brian Casel is brilliant. Additionally, I have no idea how this guy makes money. Just how many can he sell. With the quality received in CleanSlate, I think he could more than double his cost. There is only one negative comment and that is Brian seems to be the only support guy, and questions take about 24 hours for an answer. On the other hand, when Brian answers, his answers are worth the wait.

So, if you are on the fence, unsure of which theme to go for, my recommendation is CleanSlate by ThemeJam. And I will go on further to say, that the industry should watch Brian Casel. The guy is talented and more good things from Brian are bound to happen.

So excited in fact, that we decided to launch a dedicated mini-site, just for this beautifully designed WordPress product:  CleanSlateTheme.com.  There, you will find in-depth information, walkthrough video, and six (yes, 6!) unique theme demos showcasing the versatility of this amazing theme.

The new CleanSlateTheme.com

What’s new in Clean Slate 2.0?

Redesigned Clean Slate Options

The Clean Slate Options (Appearance > Clean Slate Options) has been redesigned and reorganized. These interface improvements make it more compact, easier to manage, and easier to navigate through the options.

Improved Home Page Slider

We’ve added a number of improvements to the slider, making it more flexible than ever:

• New custom post type: “Features”. This is a third option (in addition to posts and pages) for entering content in the slider. With “Features”, you can display a video, a static image with text and link it to anywhere you want!
• Slider speed controls. Now you can set the animation speed and slide duration.
• Play/Pause button. Your users now have the ability to pause the slider, perhaps to watch a video or read a single slide in more detail. You can disable the button in the theme options.

Video: Adding video to the slider

New custom post type, “Callouts”

Now you have the option to use “callouts” instead of widgets for managing static home page content (you can still use widgets if you prefer). “Callouts” give you more flexibility and better organization of content. Each callout consists of a title, text, image (optional), and button link (optional).

Video: Using the “callouts” custom post type

Social media icons

Just above the slider, we’ve added 3 new social media icon links alongside the RSS icon: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Set these page URL’s in the Clean Slate Options to enable the icons.

New font switcher

We’ve added a theme option to choose from a selection of built-in designer fonts to use for your site-wide headers.

Loads of “behind the scenes” improvements

We’ve gone through and improved much of the code throughout the theme. Made things more efficient, cleaner, and implemented cutting-edge web technologies like @font-face web fonts.

This time around, we’ve focused on delivering an outstanding Business / CMS theme that can be adaptable to just about any type of site.  Whether you’re launching a new app, promoting your new company, showcasing a portfolio, or looking for a fresh new blog theme, you can launch it with Launch!

Here are just a few of the awesome features you’ll find in this beautiful business WordPress theme:

• A featured slider with tons of options: Display posts, pages, “Features” (a new custom post type!), control the slider speed, and add call to action buttons!
• A custom post type called “Callouts” is used for additional CMS control on the home page.
• 3 flexible widgetized areas.
• Five tasty pre-designed color schemes to choose from, plus tons of ways to add your own CSS modifications!
• Linked icons for RSS, Email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, and Vimeo.
• The theme is fully localized for easy language translation!
• As always, this premium WordPress themes comes bundled with world-class support, unlimited use license, and the layered photoshop design files.  Now that’s value!

And now some videos…

This one shows off the super-flexible featured slider on the home page and all the options that come with it:

This one digs deeper into the home page, showing more creative use of custom post types in WordPress 3.0.  It’s a true CMS theme!

Check out the live demo of Launch here.

See the details page for Launch here.

Purchase for $59!

Now, when you purchase a theme from themejam.com (or our new WP Bids theme from wpbids.com), you will be automatically registered and granted access to the customer support forum.

At the time of your purchase, you will receive an email containing your forum username and password.  You can then use this to log in, browse, and post customer support questions to the forum.  As always, your questions will be addressed usually within 1 business day (often within the hour!).

Existing Customers… nothing changes

You can continue to use the same forum account login you’ve been using.  This change only concerns new customers moving forward.

What Changed?

In the past, customers had to register for the forum themselves, then request access to the restricted theme support area.  We would then manually verify and upgrade paid customers to grant them access to the theme support area of the forums.  Needless to say, this was a tedious and often confusing process.

Now it all happens automatically.  You purchase a theme, you’re in.  All you have to do is log in and you can begin getting answers to your questions right away

Today we announce the release of a very special theme called WP Bids.  What’s so special about this one?

It’s a theme that is intended to do one thing and one thing only brilliantly:

Create (awesome) Project Proposals Using WordPress

WP Bids is a specialized WordPress theme, which can be used to create stunning web-based project proposals. It’s perfect for freelancers and agencies who present bids to prospective clients to win their business.

WP Bids is different from typical WordPress themes in that it’s intended to be used specifically for creating web-based proposals. The proposals you create can be presented to prospective clients. In other words, while other WordPress themes are typically meant for presenting content for the world to see, WP Bids is intended to be used as specialized communication tool between you and your prospective clients.

The theme is so special, we even decided to launch a dedicated website for it:  WPBids.com.

There, you can find detailed information, lists of features, and videos all showing how amazing this tool can be for your business.  But if you’re pressed for time, here’s a quick rundown of the key features of WP Bids:

• Stunningly formatted project proposals, intended to win you more projects from more clients.
• Ability to create a proposal template, drastically speeding up the process of creating new proposals.
• Optimized for Mobile devices like iPhone, iPad, and Blackberry.
• Optimized for print versions – we know your clients may want to print and review shortly before signing their check to you
• Easily list and sort your proposals
• Read about and see all features…

WP Bids live demo

WP Bids detail page on themejam.com

WPBids.com

NOTE: Purchasing WP Bids through themejam.com or wpbids.com is the exact same purchase.  Both give you the same theme packaged with the same outstanding support you receive with any ThemeJam purchase

• WordPress 3.0 Menu Management capability
• Our fully redesigned theme options page.

As of today, we’re proud to announce that all six themes in our current catalog have been updated to include these features!

We also improved the WordPress 3.0 Menus integration… Now, instead of first “enabling” this feature in the theme options, WordPress 3.0 Menus are automagically enabled.  Simply create a custom menu and it will display as the main navigation.  Haven’t created one yet?  Still running WP 2.9?  Then the navigation will automatically revert to displaying all pages with proper heirarchy.  Easy

Stay tuned for some exciting stuff coming up in the next few days/weeks/months.  ThemeJam is just getting started…

If you’ve been following us since our launch, you know that we don’t offer major sales like this very often. But hey, it’s 4th of July weekend here in the USA, so we’d like to invite everyone to come celebrate with us!  And what better way to celebrate, than…

50% OFF EVERY THEME

NOW THROUGH MONDAY JULY 5TH

That’s right.  Get any theme in our catalog for $29.50 (regularly $59)!

If you’ve had your eyes on the sleek and flexible Clean Slate theme, the crafty Industry theme, or the elegant Noble theme, now is the time to grab them!  Go! Go! Go!

No discount code necessary.  The discount will automatically apply when you add any theme to your cart.

Remember, this sale ends on Monday, at 11:59 EST so get going!

And Happy 4th of July to all!

Here’s what’s new in Industry version 1.2:

• WordPress 3.0 Menus – You now have the option to enable the (awesome) Menu Management feature.  Your welcome
• Added the option to display post excerpts or full content.
• Cleaned up various CSS styles.

Like I said, not a major round, but some nice touches none the less.  Existing customers will receive their update later today.

Industry details page

Industry live demo

By the way – this feature is also available in our free Gadget theme and will be added to the rest of our theme catalog very shortly.

Kind of like anxiously awaiting a shiny new iPad and tearing open the box to give it those first few taps, or firing up the transmission of a brand new car, breathing in that new car smell, or… you know what I mean.  WordPress 3.0 has arrived, and in case you’re not aware… It’s quite awesome.

We – being the WordPress enthusiasts that we are – have been using the 3.0 beta releases for quite some time now.  So I’m happy to report:

All ThemeJam Themes Work With WordPress 3.0

All of the theme demos have been upgraded, tested, and approved to work flawlessly with WordPress 3.0.  No theme updates necessary.  Of course, we are planning on rolling out ongoing feature enhancements over the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of feature enhancements, a few of our themes already include some WordPress 3.0 awesomeness.  Clean Slate and Gadget both include options to enable custom menu management, giving you full control over your navigation links.

What’s new in WordPress 3.0?

Check out a guest article I wrote on Mashable about a month ago:  The Five Most Important New Features in WordPress 3.0.

You can also watch this official video from today’s blog post on WordPress.org: