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Smashing Freefont and Wordpress-Theme
As our Smashing First Anniversary celebration ends, we’d like to wrap up our event with two further presents for each and every one of our readers. In August we’ve asked Jos Buivenga, a Dutch typo-designer who has created professional freefont Delicious to design a special typeface dedicated to the Smashing Magazine First Anniversary. Jos has agreed to get a “smashing” freefont done just in time.
We’ve also asked Elena Gafita from the DesignDisease team — well-known for its professional Wordpress theme Blogging Pro — to design a special Wordpress-Theme dedicated to our anniversary. Despite deadlines Elena agreed and promised to get a “smashing” Wordpress-Theme done just in time.
Both typeface and Wordpress theme were done in time. And we’re honoured to give both of them away – for you and for free. Thanks to Jos and Elena for participating!
Smashing Free Typeface:
Anivers by Jos Buivenga
Anivers page (with download) | Sample: .pdf specimen
Here are some insights from the designer himself:
“When I was asked by Smashing Magazine if I wanted to make a free font for their anniversary I was really thrilled. With a combination of some earlier sketches and some tweaking I managed to hook on to the spirit of a nice new font: Anivers. The name Anivers — as you might have guessed — is derived from the word anniversary.
I’ve developed some particular things I’d like to have in a Smashing Magazine anniversary font. For instance, I wanted it to be a robust and rigid typeface, forgiving and yet flexible and elegant… and also suitable for a broad use: from a stationery to a poster headline. From an intro in a (smashing) magazine to… well… we’ll soon know. :-)
For now it’s only regular, but anivers italic, bold, bold italic and maybe small caps will follow soon. Apart from ligatures, contextual alternatives, fractions and oldstyle/tabular numerals Anivers also has a ‘case’ feature for case-sensitive forms. Anivers also supports CE languages and Esperanto. It has over 1.600 kerning pairs.”
Smashing Free Wordpress-Theme:
Smashing Theme by DesignDisease
Test Page | Download Smashing Theme!
How to develop a stylish Wordpress-Theme from scratch? Some insights from Elena:
“Creating a Wordpress Theme isn’t easy but I can’t call it yet a NASA Job. The theme I created for Smashing Magazine was a special task for me because I read this magazine every time they have something new so I wanted to give something back.
After I found out what Smashing Magazine team expects from this theme I got started by selecting the color palette. After this point I created the layout style and placed the background straps modular along with the layout areas. This choice was motivated by the fact that Smashing Magazine is a feed, a flux of information represented by the size and colors of the straps. Colors are — of course — inspired by the Smashing Magazine logo.
Every designer who creates a free theme must know the importance of the AdSense integration in the layout; therefore I’ve divided the content area in 3 sections (columns). Each of them for a specific AdSense unit (468 x 60), (180×150), (160×600).
In my themes I always try to make a clear visual separation between the Posting area and the Widget zone (2nd and the 3rd column). In this case I achieved this effect by creating a strong visual contrast: white for the written post (to ensure the optical silence for readers) and colorful/darker areas (active vibrant content motivates users to click on those surfaces) for the numerous categories, links etc.
Another fact which I care about is the space around the main content (posting area). The flux of information must breathe, so a 20/30px white space between information units is necessary. The space left between the different areas must be used as a module, repeating the spaces in key zones of the layout.
One of the most difficult tasks in designing a theme is to find a style for it. A unique style helps a blog to stand out from simplistic and minimalistic designs. I don’t have anything against minimalist style, but as a designer I feel I can express myself in a more colorful way.
The Smashing theme has a plug-in integrated into the functions.php, so modifying this file you should have some basic knowledge about PHP. The theme is Widget Ready.
I could have done more for this theme, but I am in hurry, I am leaving to a 7 days holiday into the sunny Greece. Have fun using it and a Happy Anniversary for Smashing Magazine!”
The team here at Smashing Magazine. Mostly Sven & Vitaly.
- 368 Comments
- 1
- 2September 7th, 2007 9:30 pm
This is nice man..
Thank SM…
- 3September 7th, 2007 9:38 pm
You guys kick ass!
Keep up the “Smashing” work!
- 4September 7th, 2007 9:54 pm
Nice
- 5September 7th, 2007 10:01 pm
Both the font and the theme are fantastic – thanks for your input and thanks to Smashing Magazine for giving us this!
- 6September 7th, 2007 10:12 pm
SMASH HITS!
- 7September 7th, 2007 10:17 pm
Wow! Thank you Jos, Elena, and Smashing Magazine. You are very generous!
- 8September 7th, 2007 10:27 pm
Amazing work!! Thank you again for an incredible job.
- 9September 7th, 2007 10:31 pm
great!
- 10September 7th, 2007 10:39 pm
Wow! Beautiful theme! Why don’t you guys use it yourselves? A little extra flair on this site would go a long way!
- 11September 7th, 2007 10:41 pm
Thank you so much for these!I just loved the fonts,thank you guys!
Cheers
Y - 12September 7th, 2007 10:50 pm
Beautiful both of them. I will use the theme for my blog. I love it right away.
- 13September 7th, 2007 10:52 pm
Great stuff!!
- 14September 7th, 2007 10:53 pm
obrigado!
- 15September 7th, 2007 10:57 pm
Wow! Nice stuff, thanx a lot!
- 16September 7th, 2007 11:05 pm
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but how do you use these free fonts? Smashing has pointed to several free fonts, but I don’t know how to use them, for example, on my web page. Also, it seems like some of these fonts are only good for Windows. Can we have a Smashing article on how to use free fonts?
- 17September 7th, 2007 11:05 pm
The Font is great, but the template would never make it into one of your lists;) By the Way: Happy Birthday
- 18September 7th, 2007 11:07 pm
The font is gorgeous! I love smashing magazine free fonts!
- 19September 7th, 2007 11:09 pm
thanks for the supercool theme! im changing from Brajeshwar to SMASH theme NOW!
- 20September 7th, 2007 11:24 pm
What a smashing theme, the way the middle column relates visually to the content on either side of it is quite nice. Simple but very well considered. Great job.
- 21September 7th, 2007 11:32 pm
this is a great theme, thanks guys
- 22September 7th, 2007 11:49 pm
Niels Teunis got a point you should do a REMODELATION because of your first anniversary giving some use to the theme and the font… it would look just awesome!!!
- 23September 7th, 2007 11:50 pm
Thank you for the gorgeous font! I cant wait to use it!
- 24September 7th, 2007 11:50 pm
very cool. thanks.
- 25September 8th, 2007 12:22 am
Love the font. :D
- 26September 8th, 2007 12:36 am
Nice font, indeed.
- 27September 8th, 2007 12:48 am
Whoa… this is very cool. Christmas this soon?!
- 28September 8th, 2007 1:39 am
really cool stuff!!
- 29September 8th, 2007 1:56 am
This is good. I like it. Yes. Very much.
- 30September 8th, 2007 2:33 am
Thank you very much, SM is awesome ..
- 31September 8th, 2007 2:39 am
it’s very good i’m downloaded my archive
- 32September 8th, 2007 3:51 am
Those are great! I may even have a blog I’m about to launch which could be using the smashing theme (I already have it on the blogging pro theme and I think the smashing one is even nicer)!
Happy Anniversary Smashing Magazine!
- 33September 8th, 2007 4:02 am
Felicidades!!!
Que buena forma de celebrar!
- 34September 8th, 2007 4:37 am
The font is awesome, the theme more so!
- 35September 8th, 2007 6:18 am
The theme looks very good! :)
- 36September 8th, 2007 6:46 am
Thank you very much for the giveaways :)
- 37September 8th, 2007 9:35 am
WOW! you guys ´re awsome, I love the WP template and the font is lovely, thanx 4this amazing website
- 38September 8th, 2007 9:49 am
radical… :)
- 39September 8th, 2007 10:18 am
Excellent font and a beautiful theme!
- 40September 8th, 2007 2:07 pm
a web magazine from Germany offering a free font without umlauts?
Or did I miss something?
- 41September 8th, 2007 2:57 pm
Thanks a million..
- 42September 8th, 2007 3:09 pm
I love the font!! But that theme.. well.. it’s not “smashing”.. sorry..
- 43September 8th, 2007 4:28 pm
Nice font and WP Theme. Nice work guys. Keep up and happy birthday!
- 44September 8th, 2007 5:49 pm
the font is very cool
- 45September 8th, 2007 6:33 pm
Great font and the theme is simply outstanding.
- 46September 8th, 2007 6:41 pm
Very Nice theme…
My Congrats for the Smashing’s 1st Anniversary
- 47September 8th, 2007 9:44 pm
I like the font :)
- 48September 8th, 2007 10:52 pm
First off. LOVE both the smashing theme and Typeface. Great job and major thanks for each. I am however having only one small problem with the smashing theme out of the box. After activating and viewing the smashing theme on a brand new wordpress installation, each post and page only displays the first character of that post or page. For example, on the default HELLO WORLD post on a fresh Wordpress install, I only see the “W” in the actual “Welcome to Wordpress” post. I have tested this on 3 different servers with fresh Wordpress installs and get the same problem only with the Smashing Theme. Any thoughts.
- 49September 8th, 2007 11:45 pm
the theme seems to be buggy.
- 50September 9th, 2007 12:03 am
Is it my brithday? No its yours! lol
- 51September 9th, 2007 1:00 am
Congrats again and thank you!
- 52September 9th, 2007 1:42 am
Спасибо! thank you from Russia! Good job!
- 53September 9th, 2007 8:00 am
this is why i love smashing magazine. absolutely smashing!
- 54September 9th, 2007 9:03 am
Very nice font i like it .
- 55September 9th, 2007 4:56 pm
I can’t wait to see what these guys will prepare us for christmas :-)
- 56September 9th, 2007 6:06 pm
Great stuff!!! Big thanks :-)
- 58September 9th, 2007 9:47 pm
Hi… great contents as always. Here @ SM you mantain nearly the best quality freefont list. Keep up!
PS: keep an eye to: http://www.stefano-picco.de/blog/ for free-fonts huntings ;-)
- 59September 10th, 2007 4:56 am
@Vitaly Friedman & Sven Lennartz
Greetings to Ahrensburg in Germany!
Ahrensburg is not in Germany?huhuhu… I misunderstand a lot …
- 60September 10th, 2007 9:04 am
The theme is great but the font is super Great! :)
- 61September 10th, 2007 11:39 am
The font is elegant and the theme is superb! great color scheme!
- 62September 10th, 2007 12:38 pm
Thanks a bunch ^_^.
- 63September 10th, 2007 3:37 pm
Thanks a lot. I have a question – do you distribute sources (eg psd) of theme?
- 64September 10th, 2007 8:24 pm
That proves that Smashing Magazine rocks. Its the best free wordpress theme on internet.
- 65September 10th, 2007 10:15 pm
Smashing Magazine is one of the best designer resources I’ve seen so far. And it proves again with those amazing giveaways – the font is very nice and Wordpress theme? Pure sweetness.
- 66September 11th, 2007 4:40 am
sorry don’t like it. too many colors.
- 67September 11th, 2007 1:30 pm
Love the font and all the birthday celebrations!
exljbris has a number of absolutely stunning free fonts – I really recommend the fontin family :D - 68September 11th, 2007 2:07 pm
we have to make celebration once a month!
- 69September 11th, 2007 3:38 pm
That proves that Smashing Magazine rocks. Its the best free wordpress theme on internet.
- 70September 11th, 2007 3:47 pm
I’m a designer, and I must say, I’m very tempted to use the Smashing Theme on my blog. Or at least use some of the elements. Of course the Smashing credit would remain though… Not sure if I want to make the switch yet. It’s so tempting!
- 71September 11th, 2007 10:50 pm
I love it! but i just blog in blogger :(
- 72September 12th, 2007 6:18 am
Thank you for the Gorgeous Theme and Fonts!!!
The best e most important reference site. - 73September 12th, 2007 6:19 am
Thank you for the Gorgeous Theme and Fonts!!!
The best and most important reference site. - 74September 12th, 2007 3:40 pm
Hey, i just loved this theme. But the downside is, I am using Blogger and not WP. Can you please release a blogger version of the same theme?
- 75September 15th, 2007 3:45 am
I concur, nice WP theme… thanks Elena!
- 76September 16th, 2007 3:58 pm
Thanks for the lovely theme, guys. Nice work!
I will definitely use the “smashing” theme for one of our next non-commercial projects.
Cheers
Milenski - 77September 19th, 2007 12:56 am
great themes, thanks. I will use it.
- 78September 23rd, 2007 8:43 pm
Am I the only one having a problem with the Smashing theme, it seems, for whatever reason, that only the first letter of each post is being displayed, even though with other themes it works perfectly, I can’t seem to get my head around why this is happening, any ideas?
Thanks alot, it is a fantastic theme, I wouldn’t have bothered coming here to try and find out what’s wrong with it if I wasn’t desperate to use such a beauty :D
- 79October 1st, 2007 7:43 pm
How did you create the colors behind Categories, Archives and Links. I like your theme and I am using it in my blog. However I am not able to get those colors/background behind categories, archives and links
- 80October 8th, 2007 12:29 am
Very nice theme.
thanks for the supercool theme! - 81October 24th, 2007 11:44 am
Beautiful theme. I’d really love to use it on my site.
- 82November 15th, 2007 5:58 am
very cool man. jos you rock.
thanks - 83December 10th, 2007 4:02 pm
Your site is great. I am a history buff and always love reading from various perspectives.
- 84December 28th, 2007 4:46 pm
Very good job! excelent! thankyou fot the contribution :)
Regards,
- 85January 3rd, 2008 1:50 am
感谢你分享,新年快乐。
THANSK FOR SHARE.HAPPY NEW YEAR. - 86January 6th, 2008 9:58 pm
Nice, Thanks.
Happy New Year.!!! - 87January 11th, 2008 5:40 am
Great work… “smashing”
HAPPY NEW YEAR too.. - 88January 13th, 2008 3:34 pm
You should know, the theme makes use of spam injection! I don’t recommend it to other users of WordPress until you want to be deleted from major search-engines. My blog is now hacked. Thanks folks.
- 89January 15th, 2008 10:01 am
THANSK FOR SHARE
- 90January 15th, 2008 10:08 am
Beautiful theme. I’d really love to use it on my site.
- 91January 17th, 2008 10:26 am
I also have the problem of the “first character”/”first letter” in this theme; but i solved it.
The solution is very simple:This is the original code of “menu.php”
" href="/">Home
]+)>%U','', $pages);
$pages = str_replace('','', $pages);
echo $pages; ?>if you remplase “menu.php” for this code:
" href="/">Home
]+)>%U','', $pages);
$pages = str_replace('','', $pages);
echo $pages;
unset($pages); ?>the bug is solved.
Maybe is a Wordpress or even PHP bug… im new in PHP, but this works for me… ;-)
- 92January 27th, 2008 12:39 am
Simply great!…U guys rock really…Professionalism!!
- 93January 27th, 2008 10:04 am
thanks for designing this theme and shearing it with us
thanks
:D
- 94January 27th, 2008 6:14 pm
there are umlauts alright, as well as the ß
- 95January 28th, 2008 2:56 am
Excellent job………
- 96January 29th, 2008 10:23 pm
Perfect its great sharing! thanx for sharing
- 97January 29th, 2008 10:34 pm
Well its nice sharing thanx for sharing!
- 98February 6th, 2008 3:10 am
It’s very good article. Great site with very good look and perfect information.
- 99February 9th, 2008 10:48 am
I love this theme…thanks so much for making it available…
- 100February 13th, 2008 12:29 pm
forma imalat uretici
- 101March 7th, 2008 5:57 am
Very nice theme, now I have dilema ;-)
- 102March 9th, 2008 2:30 pm
I love the stripes!
- 103March 15th, 2008 1:49 am
Very nice theme
- 104April 7th, 2008 7:27 am
very lucky bumped to this site
- 105May 4th, 2008 10:57 pm
First of all thank you very much for making this theme open source. I am using it on my blog right now, and I’ve been making a few colour tweaks here and there. Thanks!!!
- 106May 6th, 2008 5:42 pm
hi nice theme but,
when using wordpress 2.5 pagenavi for tags page is not working :( - 107May 22nd, 2008 9:29 pm
I’ve got a problem with adsense showing up in the theme.
It shows up on the main index just as I’d like it, too. It displays fine. I want it to appear the same way on the single post pages, but I’m only seeing one of the three adspots showing up. Any clues as to whats happening?
- 108May 24th, 2008 3:54 am
Best theme i found here. keep on gud work mate.
- 109May 25th, 2008 10:46 pm
very nice! year,,,,
- 110June 11th, 2008 7:44 pm
aloo netter smuanya………
ak lg cari font “myriadpro-bold” n “helvetica” … ada yg bisa bantu ga yah…
kalo bisa ak jg numpang nyedot thx yahh…..regards
sonny
- 111July 29th, 2008 2:30 pm
Free or commercial, how to master typography is a topic for a bible, you can’t possible cover that in an article. Go get a book and start learning instead.
- 112August 2nd, 2008 9:24 pm
the theme is very beautiful,i like it!
- 113December 7th, 2008 12:21 pm
thats great for wordpress user for me as well :-)
Suraish Patel
- 114January 7th, 2009 8:25 pm
Hi smashing magazine , I wonder how you edit your theme? I want to do that’s what you do in the right of the pages , Like this picture SPONSORS and the links in down of the pictures , How you do that? And how can I add Header to the theme??? Please tell me by emailing me in Ezz313@gmail.com
Best luck - 115March 4th, 2009 10:53 am
I’m writing from Turkey. I like your writings.
- 116June 8th, 2009 9:28 am
please, i have a problem to activate the smashing them; (fatal errors in functions.php line 114).
What i have to modify in functions.php?
and i didn’t understand “theme is Widget Ready”?!
thank you in advance! - 117June 27th, 2009 2:09 am
please, i have a problem to activate the smashing them; (fatal errors in functions.php line 114).
What i have to modify in functions.php?
and i didn’t understand “theme is Widget Ready”?!
thank you in advance! - 118July 21st, 2009 3:26 am
Thank you sharing! I was looking for a clean yet not boring theme. I’m using this theme now at my running blog. It looks lovely!
- 119August 18th, 2009 1:11 am
please, i have a problem to activate the smashing them; (fatal errors in functions.php line 114).
What i have to modify in functions.php?
and i didn’t understand “theme is Widget Ready”?!
thank you in advance!
- 00
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