Evening all!

Sometimes I have questions regarding Wordpress premium theme companies and am suspicious about how objective reviews from folks may be when I check them out via a Google search or something similar (how's that for an opening sentence!).

I like hearing other people's opinions when struggling with making a possible purchase.

For example, I usually use the Thesis theme (http://diythemes.com/) as the foundation for designing WordPress (self-hosted) sites. Of course, as in anything, the longer I use it and continue to feel comfortable with it, any change is a little challenging.

Long story short, I'm wondering if any of you guys swear by a WP theme and use it regularly... and your reasons why. Pros, cons, etc etc.

I figured this would be a good place to ask because there's really no competition with CC for this, yes?

Would love to hear your opinions!
Thanks guys!

~Kitty

Well I haven't used WP for quite a while, but to be honest when I did I used a whole lot of different themes. I guess it depended on the needs of the client or myself depending on who the site was for hehe.

I personally would rather start with a theme that's close to what is needed rather than totally revamp one I'm used to in order to get it to what is needed. Layout is always the top requirement, from there is coloring. If I find a layout that is what is needed, and the coloring is close I work with that one. If I find a layout that works well but can't find anything close in coloring then I will edit that theme for the layout.

I guess for me it's more about what is needed than staying in a comfort zone, although comfort zones have a lot to be said for

Suffusion 4.0.0 is the theme I use for my personal site http://sirage.com I find this theme is VERY customizable and it is also Free. I could make a theme for my WordPress site.

This theme has a lot of customizations that can be done right in the options of theme without having to do a lot of coding yourself. Just give it the colors and such.

As I said this is a free theme, download it and take a look for yourself.

Most of the well known premium companies do fairly well. The issues I have had in the past are things like small bugs, etc. that you need support on, and that's what defines a good company in any business. I wish CC did WP layouts because they would sell a ton with the support they provide.

I can't imagine the amount of support they would have to supply if they did WP layouts. WP already consumes a lot of time here in the forum.

I think if I was doing the Theme for fun, I may try a bunch of dif ones. In fact, I joined Elegant Themes (http://www.elegantthemes.com/) for that reason (relatively inexpensive). They have some really cool themes but I never took the time to play too much with them.

By "comfort zone" I meant that I knew what to expect - at least as far as customization and exporting the CSS stuff to other sites without having to go through the same basic things for each site, even though overall the look would be different. (did that make sense?)

For me, using WP is the only way that I can create something that the client can update themselves.
Thanks Jo Ann!

I tried that one once - it was pretty cool! Perfect for a tattoo site (the guy wound up using something else) And you're right, was easy to customize... definitely bookmarked.

Rod, that's one thing that the Thesis theme folks do VERY very well with. Their support team matches CC when it comes to support! I have had 100% of my questions & problems solved working with it. Always!

Funny, going through this discussion and talking about Thesis, it's like, "so why am I even asking about any other?" - ha!

I guess I was still curious about the competition for Thesis, like Genesis... Headway (altho I don't think they're moving along quite as fast)... Woo Themes (?).

Now my next project is to try and learn to use the CC html editor. First thing I ever purchased and yet never really got into using it.

Thanks for the conversation you guys.

You will find knowing the HTML editor combined with a clean theme, will give you incredible control over the layout. A good path to pursue indeed!