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.

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.

Click for live demo of BlogTuts theme

• Full integration and styling with the WP-PageNavi plugin, for pagination on the index, archive, and search templates.
• Custom built social bar, for easy submission of posts to a number of social networking sites, including Digg, Twitter, Stumble, and Delicious.
• A tabbed area in the sidebar with a list of popular posts (powered by the Popularity Contest plugin) as well as recent posts.
• Integration with Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP) for a list of related posts displayed on single post pages.
• A theme options page to input Twitter account, FeedBurner URL, and e-mail updates URL. Also used to input a list of page ID numbers for the footer navigation.
• Suckerfish dropdown menus to list subcategories on the top navigation menu.

Kyle liked the theme so much, he wanted a green version of the theme for his other blog, Slick Affiliate. You can check out the demo to the green version here.

Click to view Theme Lab

Theme Lab was an already established blog, run by myself, Leland Fiegel. I felt I needed a fresh look, so I contacted Peter Mark (now Custom Theme’s lead designer). The design turned out great and I’ve gotten many compliments on it since the design went live over a year ago. Since this is a theme for my own blog, I’ve spent a lot of time hacking it up and adding new features.

• Integration with the Popularity Contest plugin, to display a list of popular posts in the sidebar.
• Integration with the WP-DownloadManager plugin to display a list of top downloads in the sidebar.
• Custom e-mail subscription box which integrates with FeedBurner’s e-mail subscription program.
• A matching bbPress theme used on the support forums.