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Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

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If you have been following Smashing Magazine for a while you know that we love to release high-quality freebies. Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free. You can find many of them in our section Freebies.

Every release helps to make the Web a nicer place which is why we support designers and challenge them to release something for free in order to be featured on Smashing Magazine. And the results are quite often pretty impressive.

Fervens-released in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Today we are glad to release a fervens — a free professional Wordpress-theme. The theme has 3 columns of fixed width, comes in 3 flavours and is supposed to be a starting point for your projects. The theme was designed by Elena Gafita especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Main features of the theme

  • 3 columns of fixed width
  • widget-ready — two sidebars (both sidebars are supporting widgets, but I recommend to use the smaler one.
  • the theme is using 3 plugins; 2 of them are integrated into functions.php, so there is no need to install them. These plugins are Gravatar, Recent Comments and FlickrRSS. You can use the last one to present your Flickr images in a Flickr Photostream (see the demo).

Motivation behind the design

We have provided Elena with the freedom to explore her creativity and asked her to create a fresh Wordpress-theme which could be used and extended for a variety of different projects. Here is how Elena explains what prompted her to design the theme the way it is released now.

Fervens is the name for the new theme I made for my friends from Smashing Magazine. But what is Fervens and what does it mean? As you might know, I give Latin names to all my themes simply because I believe they are more practical, more brandable and they just feel right to me.

Fervens-pr in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Fervens is supposed to stand for freshness. Summer is my favorite time of year as it always amazes us with a rainbow of sensation and colors, making this time of year the best of all. The green of the plants and trees, the blue of the water… It’s just amazing and beautiful. And this was the reason why one of the sidebars was chosen to be designed with different variations of green.

Sidebar in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme
The sidebar of the theme was chosen to be designed with different variations of green.

With this new theme I have tried to get something out of that “summer freshness” and deliver it to the Web in a form of a Wordpress-theme which is easy to use and to extend. Because I couldn’t agree with Vitaly regarding the column positions we decided to make 3 versions of it:

  • Fervens A (Sidebar 1, Central Column, Sidebar 2),
  • Fervens B (Sidebar 1, Sidebar 2, Central Column) and
  • Fervens C (Central Column, Sidebar 2, Sidebar 1).

I hope you enjoy this theme as much as I enjoyed making it. Thanks Vitaly for the opportunity!

The Fervens Theme is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. This means that you may use it for your personal and commercial projects and you may also make any changes — just don’t remove the credits from footer. ;-)”

I-love-sm in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Elena has also designed a small button for Smashing Magazine and all Smashing readers out there. Thank you, Elena. We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

Download the themes for free!

You can use the theme for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. However, it’s forbidden to sell or redistribute the theme without both designer’s and Smashing Magazine’s permission — please link to this article if you would like to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish, but if you are planning to release your modification, please ask for a permission first.

Fervens-a in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Fervens-b in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Fervens-c in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme

Last but not least…

We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we might feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a high-quality free font, a Wordpress-theme, some wallpapers or an icon-set please contact us — we would like to support you (both financially and with the broad coverage on Smashing Magazine).

You can also subscribe to our RSS-feed Rss in Fervens: A Free Wordpress Theme, we are going to release more free Wordpress-themes in the future.

The team here at Smashing Magazine. Mostly Sven & Vitaly.

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  1. 1
    Paul
    August 5th, 2008 1:28 am

    Very nice. Thanks a lot for this one.

  2. 2
    Nico
    August 5th, 2008 1:42 am

    Nice!

    However, it phones home without noticing the user (see trackTheme in functions.php), which is not such a good idea in my opinion… especially when the files (ie.css) are read-only, the theme sends a mail on every page request…

  3. 3
    Eli
    August 5th, 2008 1:44 am

    Absolutely beautiful! Just like every other theme Design Disease has done so far. I’ll have to find a use for this beautiful theme.

  4. 4
    Ben jacob
    August 5th, 2008 2:00 am

    Wow nice theme, simple yet beautiful

  5. 5
    Daniel
    August 5th, 2008 2:00 am

    Really nice design! Thanks!

    You can really see the similarities with the current Design Disease homepage, which they have just redesigned.

  6. 6
    Dresah
    August 5th, 2008 2:08 am

    Excellent work. Congratulations!

  7. 7
    Kevin
    August 5th, 2008 2:12 am

    It’s like I’m looking at another same DesignDesease design. It’s all so similar…

  8. 8
    Dave Miers
    August 5th, 2008 2:30 am

    beautiful!

  9. 9
    Abdel Faiz
    August 5th, 2008 3:43 am

    massive thanks !!

  10. 10
    Illusiv
    August 5th, 2008 3:49 am

    Nice color scheme!

  11. 11
    Johan
    August 5th, 2008 4:15 am

    Beautiful design. I’m using it on my blog now. Although I can’t seem to be able to change the default About section on the main page. Where is that located?

  12. 12
    Tom
    August 5th, 2008 4:24 am

    Lovely work, well done.
    I like the possibility to choose between 3 layout versions.

  13. 13
    Andrea_R
    August 5th, 2008 4:27 am

    Beautiful theme. :)

    The only thing I woudl like to see with variations like this, is have it all bundled with an options page for the theme, so there’s only one to download, not three.

    And yes, it can be done fairly easily.

  14. 14
    kiwiki
    August 5th, 2008 4:28 am

    What do you mean by the theme phones home?
    Are they using this to track people who is using their theme?
    Is it fair to remove this function?
    It would be great if you explain this a little more.

    Thanks

  15. 15
    ThemeLib.com
    August 5th, 2008 4:30 am

    Great! I love this theme :)

  16. 16
    crazyleaf
    August 5th, 2008 4:40 am

    That is a really beautiful theme.

  17. 17
    elena
    August 5th, 2008 4:47 am

    @kiwiki
    That is not true. The theme send just on single email once is installed. After that no email and “no phone home”.

  18. 18
    Fouad Masoud
    August 5th, 2008 4:55 am

    now this one is good.
    thumbs up.

  19. 19
    kiwiki
    August 5th, 2008 4:59 am

    @elena
    Thanks for the clarification.

  20. 20
    Evan
    August 5th, 2008 5:20 am

    Wow, excellent theme – is there any way to make the entire sidebar the color scheme of the search section?

  21. 21
    manu
    August 5th, 2008 6:53 am

    Hi my favorite is fervens-c, but I really love the redesign of Design Disease, is haunting me, i wish someday to make one alike, thanks Elena & Smashing Magazine!

  22. 22
    wellblog
    August 5th, 2008 6:55 am

    Great theme! Thanks! I was looking long time for a clear theme…the post was to late:) now I have taken the blogging-pro theme – take a look: wellblog

  23. 23
    Alex
    August 5th, 2008 7:01 am

    Look like VIMEO !

  24. 24
    Reiji
    August 5th, 2008 7:11 am

    I just installed it, but had to change that green…now its blue/grayish…Take a look…looks beautiful.

  25. 25
    Angel
    August 5th, 2008 7:19 am

    The about section is hardcoded into sidebar-2.php for some reason.

  26. 26
    Julien
    August 5th, 2008 8:35 am

    Excellent theme.
    I wish the sidebar could easily be moved by the user, or could disappear when on a page… As the main column is not large enough for “big” articles, and makes it hard to read.

    Cheers,
    Julien

  27. 27
    ferre cinq
    August 5th, 2008 9:00 am

    great favicon!

  28. 28
    Biscuitrat
    August 5th, 2008 9:05 am

    Actually, fervens, ferventis means something more along the lines of seething, burning, and ardent. Like the word “fervently.” The Latin word you’re looking for is probably closer to viridis, which means a green freshness.

    Sorry, that’s the Latin half of my brain acting up. Lovely theme (as usual). Keep it up :D

  29. 29
    Ultimate Blogging Experiment
    August 5th, 2008 9:31 am

    I will be using this for my new blog. Thanks a bunch for showing us! This is one of the best free WordPress themes I have seen in a very long time! I absolutely love this web site and I’m sure going to come back daily. Thanks again.

  30. 30
    Lahure dai
    August 5th, 2008 10:18 am

    this theme looks quite cool. thankx.

  31. 31
    elena
    August 5th, 2008 10:20 am

    @Biscuitrat
    fervens : glowing, hot, heated /(character) heated, fiery. You are right. Next theme will have that name “viridis”. :D

  32. 32
    nana777ing
    August 5th, 2008 10:41 am

    i’m using his theme, gossipcity, for a year and I love it. I will try this one. Thanks.

  33. 33
    Kurt
    August 5th, 2008 10:49 am

    Nice theme. I’ve been using Smashing Theme for my blog ever since it came out, but I must admit that its starting to get on my nerves… the colors… so many colors… all I see is a horrible rainbow!! I like Fervens-A and will give it a shot, customize it and hopefully not completely blow up my Wordpress install… that would upset the total of two people who read my blog.

  34. 34
    Mike
    August 5th, 2008 1:12 pm

    FYI, this theme goes into a fatal error when combined with the Gravatar plug-in. Just delete the wp-gravatar folder from your directory to fix the error.

  35. 35
    Tiago Sá
    August 5th, 2008 2:48 pm

    I don’t get it. His themes are pretty much all the same, and this one’s not really that cool…

    Anyway, I did my very own interpretation of illacrimo: http://nocontinues.net/

    A bit more colorful, and I think it looks very cool.

  36. 36
    Muhammad Hakim
    August 5th, 2008 8:21 pm

    a very nice theme!

    that’s why i love smasingmagazine, great contents!!!

  37. 37
    Mark Ford
    August 5th, 2008 10:09 pm

    I’m obviously missing something, how do I activate the Flickr RSS?

    Great theme by the way.

  38. 38
    Mark Ford
    August 6th, 2008 1:21 am

    I’ve looked in functions.php and there’s no mention of flickr, so I’m assuming that’s why the flickr plugin isn’t working? How do I fix it?

    Help please!

  39. 39
    sayohmygod
    August 6th, 2008 2:24 am

    Tiago Sá (August 5th, 2008, 2:48 pm)

    better the original.

  40. 40
    Cecep
    August 6th, 2008 3:23 am

    simple, elegant theme :)

  41. 41
    Mark Ford
    August 6th, 2008 4:44 am

    Never mind, I figured it out. If anyone else is wondering how to get the flickr feed to work, you need to install the plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/flickr-rss/

  42. 42
    JadiysonTaki
    August 6th, 2008 5:33 am

    Great ! wonderful wordpress theme !

  43. 43
    psycholq
    August 6th, 2008 6:44 am

    Very nice theme but it doesn’t work on my wordpress (2.6). When I try to activate f-b or f-c wordpress shows only white screen.

  44. 44
    elena
    August 6th, 2008 7:09 am

    @psycholq
    The theme is tested in wordpress 2.6 and it works. I don’t know what to say regarding your problem.

  45. 45
    Gabe Diaz
    August 6th, 2008 10:13 am

    Very nice theme, thanks for sharing!!

  46. 46
    odguela
    August 6th, 2008 4:55 pm

    Is there any possibility that a blogger version will be released? Teehee.

  47. 47
    Rakesh.S
    August 6th, 2008 8:08 pm

    I always look around to see nice wordpress theme. and this one is great. Nice, simple and elegant in style.. Thanks for sharing :-D

  48. 48
    annots
    August 6th, 2008 8:29 pm

    what a nice theme, thanks!

  49. 49
    aravind
    August 6th, 2008 10:03 pm

    designdisease and smashing magazine are known as trendsetters.. but the theme is NOT at all look impressive

  50. 50
    transparent_opacity
    August 9th, 2008 3:06 pm

    @psycholq

    Agreed, same here, view source and I just get:
    “”

    I tried disabling at cache and also check for the closing HTML tag. No dice.

  51. 51
    skapiso
    August 11th, 2008 6:00 am

    I found a bug on IE6 and i don’t manage to fix it.
    When you post a comment, each comment has it padding left decreasing and after 7/8 comments, they are on the left border. Has someone seen it?

  52. 52
    m.o.m.
    August 11th, 2008 1:45 pm

    Very nice and harmonic!

  53. 53
    tintin
    August 12th, 2008 1:26 am

    i try this themes but it’s not supported with bryan threated comment

    somebody got a clue ..?? :(

  54. 54
    Raj
    August 15th, 2008 5:46 pm

    very nice theme. Thanx a lot for releasing free.

  55. 55
    Marcis Gasuns
    August 19th, 2008 7:34 pm

    Similar to goblograting.com

  56. 56
    Sharjeel Ahmed Qureshi
    August 22nd, 2008 10:29 am

    Fantastic! Thanks a lot :)

  57. 57
    hangman
    September 23rd, 2008 5:51 am

    very nice theme, doesn’t work in IE6 though :(

  58. 58
    Martin
    October 6th, 2008 2:02 pm

    I’m having some problems with it suddenly being reverted to the Wordpress Classic theme. Works at first and then gives up at times when I hit refresh.

  59. 59
    hombertho
    November 2nd, 2008 12:38 am

    Great Theme and work. Thumbs Up :-)

  60. 60
    AdamK
    November 14th, 2008 7:54 am

    #60, Martin : are you hitting refresh while the stylesheet hasn’t finished uploading? That can do it…

  61. 61
    Andi
    December 12th, 2008 5:53 am

    Hi! Great work! Is the template compatible with wordpress 2.7? Best, Andi

  62. 62
    dalidas
    January 2nd, 2009 10:46 am

    I’m writing from Turkey. I like your Thema. It’s very nice that you ive writing the subjects about seo.

  63. 63
    Bingo
    January 8th, 2009 8:46 am

    Wicked. Thanks a lot!

  64. 64
    Fish
    February 9th, 2009 4:39 pm

    Does this theme work with the latest WP2.7?

    Thx

    Fish

  65. 65
    hulaha
    February 20th, 2009 1:53 am

    please, does anybody know how to fix that padding bug in IE6??

  66. 66
    stylish
    June 9th, 2009 10:43 am

    about section give me an error, i can change the text that say “This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. “. but, it’s nice template

  67. 67
    Ryan
    August 11th, 2009 2:43 am

    Hey

    This theme is being used here http://www.mykidsdeservebetter.com with some small modications over the lat few month.

    Trying to make it liquid layout right now but the way it has been developed triggers some issues with the layout. I almost perfect it but then there is always something just not right about it. Maybe lack of experiance but a good theme for the right use.

    Ryan

  1. 00

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