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Notepad Chaos: A Free Wordpress Theme

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Over the last years we’ve featured a number of designers and developers who released their work for free — among other things we presented high-quality free fonts, free Wordpress themes, free wallpapers and, of course, free icons. 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.

Notepad-release in Notepad Chaos: A Free Wordpress Theme

Today we are glad to release Notepad Chaos — a free professional Wordpress-theme. The theme has 2 columns, a quite vibrant design including “personal” design elements such as handwritten headings, stick-it-notes, clips and pins. The theme was designed by Evan Eckard especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the theme 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 our permission first.

Notepad-preview in Notepad Chaos: A Free Wordpress Theme

The theme has been updated to version 1.5. It’s now up-to-date with cleaner code and includes a lot more functionality (gravatars, dynamic sidebars, etc.). You can find the files and demo here.

Motivation behind the design

Here are some insights about the design process and development from the designer himself.

“I had recently stumbled upon many websites with gorgeous, gigantic, illustrated backgrounds and wanted to try my hand at creating a site that shared that similar element. This theme was an experiment into layering multiple images and having everything line up and flow with the site’s content.

Navigation in Notepad Chaos: A Free Wordpress Theme
Among other things, the Notepad Chaos theme has handwritten search box and navigation at the top of the layout.

It was quite a challenge to develop the design after creating it, but in the end it helped me gain more experience in CSS and what we designers can do to try and create sites with plenty of visual depth. On the technical side of things, the theme doesn’t use any plugins or extras, and focuses simply on the design.

Sidebar in Notepad Chaos: A Free Wordpress Theme
Sidebar in the Notepad Chaos is designed as a post-it-note and clipped at the top.

The themes uses a custom field called “thumbnail” where the user can add an image to their post. The instructions are within the readme file along with how to set up the menu links.”

Thank you, Evan. We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

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 may be interested in the following free Wordpress-themes as well:

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

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  1. 251
    dario
    March 6th, 2009 9:27 am

    it is really nice theme

  2. 252
    m.
    March 19th, 2009 9:31 am

    Great theme, thanks for sharing this. I’ve modified it a little to use in my blog. :)

  3. 253
    Jonathan Enns
    March 19th, 2009 11:36 am

    Beautiful! However,

    It doesn’t work when I install it! No preview, just blank gray. I have re-downloaded, reinstalled 3 times. I even downloaded some other themes and they work!

    Im on WP 2.7.

    Any ideas?

  4. 254
    Jonathan Enns
    March 19th, 2009 12:12 pm

    The issue with the theme not working was due to permissions. I chmodded the folder to 777 and all works like a charm.

  5. 255
    sinema bursa
    March 20th, 2009 3:01 am

    wery good theme. thanks wordpress.
    sinema bursa

  6. 256
    dddddddd
    March 21st, 2009 5:30 am

    NICE MAN

  7. 257
    zeav
    March 22nd, 2009 3:02 am

    NICEE !!
    thanks a lot

  8. 258
    momo
    April 8th, 2009 7:11 am

    wow

  9. 259
    Marcelo
    April 16th, 2009 4:25 pm

    Gosh! your template is really great, congratulations.

    Greetings,
    Marcelo

  10. 260
    Lilith
    April 21st, 2009 2:56 pm

    Hello can you help me?
    I had this template in my blogger and was WONDERFULL I love the template, but since 3 days ago something hapened because there is a lot of links and images from a photobucket and I had to change the blog. Know I have horrible template because when I put the template again comes this message :

    Confirme a exclusão dos itens a seguir. Toda a configuração dos itens será perdida.

    * HTML5
    * Text2
    * HTML3
    * TextList1
    * TextList2
    * HTML2
    * HTML4
    * Text3

    Is possible for you to help me?
    Thank you

  11. 261
    Yan
    April 22nd, 2009 1:26 pm

    Could someone help me ? I downloaded the package but I can’t open it, could someone send me the HTML code ?
    Thank’s !

  12. 262
    jojo
    April 23rd, 2009 8:51 am

    niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

    how can i put it in my free worspress

  13. 263
    Balu
    April 23rd, 2009 9:09 am

    Hey,

    first your Layout ist awesome. I’m using the Blogger-Version from allblogtools.com.

    But I have the same problem as Lilith, with the photobucket-images instead of the original images.
    Can you help?

  14. 264
    Lilith
    April 23rd, 2009 11:55 am

    YAN: I can send you by mail if you want, send me your mail

  15. 265
    Katie
    May 1st, 2009 12:55 am

    Hi, just wanted to say thank you to all the people who left comments as to how to fix the Archives link so it would link to the archives page. I’ve been wondering how to do that, and now I have a fully functioning (albeit a little ugly!) archives page. :)

  16. 266
    will
    May 3rd, 2009 7:44 am

    nice theme.

  17. 267
    evan eckard
    May 3rd, 2009 3:11 pm

    Hey All – I’m working on the next version of this theme for Wordpress. There’s been a huge demand for an update, so I’m going to go ahead and make time to revamp some parts. Look for dynamic sidebars, advertising space, better page navigation, and any other bells & whistles I can come up with.

    I’ll be forwarding the new files over to Smashing when ready. Thank you all so much for the theme popularity, and please feel free to comment with any additions/requests at my site evaneckard.com.

    Thanks all!

  18. 268
    taylor
    May 3rd, 2009 7:40 pm

    can this theme be made into a plugin for “elgg”? i really like it!

  19. 269
    Chris
    May 4th, 2009 12:38 pm

    I would like to know if this theme is “widget ready”. I am new to configuring wordpress templates. I wanted to add some RSS feeds on the right and I am not sure how to do that without going to the “widgets” section and adding the feature there. I believe this template does not have right sidebar to add/modify/move widgets on the right??? Correct me if I am wrong.

    - Humble Inquiry

  20. 270
    Mugs
    May 5th, 2009 10:23 pm

    brilliant

  21. 271
    ielienka
    May 7th, 2009 6:49 am

    brilliant, i love it … but my problem is that i’m under DRUPAL : any plan to port it to drupal 6 or 5 ? Does any one know any similar Drupal theme ? I’d really love to have it but i’m not good enough at theming to startch from scratch.
    Please let me know.

  22. 272
    Mona
    May 8th, 2009 2:09 am

    The theme was a little difficult to customize, but we found our way around it.

    We changed the background colors a bit as well, to make it more neutral. You can check out the customized version here: http://blog.silkfair.com

    Thanks

    • 273
      ruben
      November 26th, 2009 1:43 pm

      Hi can you tell me how you changed the background color on the notepad chaos theme? Please give me steps if possible

      Thanks

  23. 274
    rein
    May 16th, 2009 10:09 am

    Hi All, how to upload this theme into word press? thanks =)

  24. 275
    wecostumizedweb
    May 18th, 2009 8:53 am

    Very Nice thanks :)

  25. 276
    Indr@
    May 19th, 2009 9:10 pm

    wow cool I use it for my blog

  26. 277
    AddaxSoft
    May 21st, 2009 1:20 am

    the awesome-est ever !

  27. 278
    Marilynne
    May 22nd, 2009 7:02 pm

    I adore this theme. Thanks.

  28. 279
    Chris Topher
    May 27th, 2009 10:33 am

    I think these guys called it their own. Interesting…..
    http://whitelabelgraphics.com/etsy-item-of-the-day/

    BTW, i really love this theme!!

  29. 280
    zenci
    June 3rd, 2009 5:14 am

    süper bir template çoook güzel tşk….

  30. 281
    Tony
    June 7th, 2009 2:10 pm

    When inserting a picture, it doesn’t recognize left, center or right align with word wrap. Anyone know how to fix this?

  31. 282
    taufikmh
    June 7th, 2009 10:43 pm

    tx very much

  32. 283
    Joe
    June 9th, 2009 1:17 pm

    Hey! Great Theme! but anyone have any fix for “IE7″ alignment problem?

  33. 284
    Test
    June 12th, 2009 3:53 am

    DGFDGFD

  34. 285
    Leena
    June 12th, 2009 3:54 am

    Awesome theme… good job

  35. 286
    JC
    June 17th, 2009 11:34 pm

    Looks really cool. Excellentt job!

  36. 287
    Marielle Garcia
    June 25th, 2009 4:08 am

    Hi. Could you do a widgetized version of this??

  37. 288
    cerise
    June 27th, 2009 9:42 am

    merci

  38. 289
    Daria
    July 8th, 2009 3:21 pm

    First off, I love this theme! I have tried to download it and upload it onto my blog, but for some reason it isn’t showing up in my available WP Themes… I am wondering if there are any ‘hints’ that I am missing, or if the theme only works with certain versions of WordPress.

    Any and all help is appreciated!

  39. 290
    TheShip
    July 9th, 2009 8:30 pm

    Hi,
    I have my movies blog already several months with this template, the only version I am aware of and I have gone through all this thread and still could not get an answer on:
    1. How do I make this version theme, that I like a lot, more flexible so I can use widgets, plugins, etc,…
    2. I have red that the new version is coming up and supporting this elementary stuff, Does anybody knows if is has already been released? where? = Location? I really dont want to change this template but it I need also functionality.

    Thanks everyone for answering. :)

  40. 291
    adi
    July 14th, 2009 1:05 am

    this is brilliant! really adorable

  41. 292
    tane883
    July 16th, 2009 5:44 pm

    well guys i really like this theme but im a widget dude in WP, and this one fail in that… i find this for fox the widget thing…. the dude of the webside made it… he write the code to everybody else.. but for me is not working, maybe im doing something wrong but he made it for real, anyways.. i share the widget fix….

    http://www.khattam.info/2009/05/18/add-widgets-to-notepad-chaos-wordpress-theme/

    i will be working on it… any progress i let u know guys… thnx for all the comments, help my reaserch in this pain in the ass…

  42. 293
    tane883
    July 16th, 2009 6:41 pm

    OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG I DID IT I DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID ITI DID IT :) :) :) :D :D :D GUYS I MADE IT YEAAAHHHH!!!!!! ok i didn’t do it with the last link i gave…. but with something really EASY so EASY the logic bit me :)… ok this is what i did… i have a lot of themes of Wordpress and i was playing with the codes of FUNCTION.PHP and the SIDEBAR.PHP for this theme. i was really disappointed because it wasn’t working the widget fix.. then i just drag and drop to the theme folder the file function.php and the sidebar.php FROM ANOTHER THEME.. then i refreshed the blog and there it was,,, the widgets :)

    u can see my blog with the widgets. http://precious-ink.net/

    if you need more help just email me ;) tane883@gmail.com

    hugs n kisses from puerto rico :) remember Apple Rules!!!! XD

  43. 294
    bob
    July 22nd, 2009 1:48 pm

    Hi
    I just found this theme posted on another website and i was curious because it contains a functions.php file that is encrypted – i downloaded the theme from here and it has no functions.php file in the zip.
    So what are this site doing? Try it yourselves;
    http://wordpressthemesbase.com/detail/484.html

  44. 295
    Cahya
    July 24th, 2009 4:54 pm

    Nice theme, I’ve try it, I just wish it could enable the gravatar icon view on the commenting section… :D

  45. 296
    Nira Alves
    July 27th, 2009 5:05 pm

    Hey!
    Hi!
    The work is incredible, wonderful, thanks for sharing with us this theme!
    I just change some minor things to adjust to that I need in my blog, but your theme is perfect! Beautiful! Beautiful!

  46. 297
    Guruhpd777@gmail.com
    July 29th, 2009 11:16 pm

    MAK NYUS TANTE….
    Thanks for all……

  47. 298
    SAINT
    August 2nd, 2009 7:31 am

    love it.. applied to my new webbie..modified it abit… but i’m having problems on the background color.. and also.. the alignment of the footer… arggh….
    looks ok on windows.. but if u open my webbie with MAC.. OMG.. u could see the color difference… it’s soo obvious…..

    will try again… will try again…

  48. 299
    Evan
    August 5th, 2009 12:30 pm

    Notepad Chaos has been updated. Feel free to download here: http://www.notepadchaos.com/?p=5

  49. 300
    Cheryl
    August 12th, 2009 4:34 pm

    Complete novice here…new to wordpress and adore this theme!!! Great for my classes…please tell me how to upload…not really clear on the instructions provided.

    Thanks!

  50. 301
    richardst
    August 15th, 2009 11:54 pm

    I translated it to spanish. I changed the background, colors and more changes.
    I use it for a blog of Fans of Fausto Miño.
    Fausto Miño is a great singer, he’s from Ecuador.
    Thanks for the theme, I like it.
    http://www.fansfm.co.cc

    • 302
      ruben
      November 28th, 2009 11:40 pm

      How did you change the background and the tabs to spanish?

  51. 303
    Emily
    September 13th, 2009 7:37 pm

    Hi, I’m new to Wordpress, so I apologize if this is a dumb question, but…does this theme that supports sidebar widgets?
    Thanks!Emily

  52. 304
    Veronica
    October 23rd, 2009 10:23 pm

    It doesn’t look like it supports widgets :(

  53. 305
    ranma
    October 24th, 2009 5:31 pm

    303 comments and nobody seems to notice, that the style.css contains an error everywhere where serif fonts are used. there’s no “s” in the “serif” definition :) great theme anyway!

  54. 306
    Alyssa
    October 28th, 2009 7:53 pm

    LOVE this theme. Love it!

    But I’m having problems with the latest 1.5 version that I’ve downloaded. My Archives page now contains my About Me information.

    It is widget-aware now but they are not formatted to match the rest of the graphics of the theme so they look out of place.

    Also, the tab at the bottom titled What Is This Place also pulls my About Me info as well. How do I edit that info???
    Thanks for any help you can offer!

    Alyssa

  55. 307
    diseño web chile
    November 21st, 2009 8:02 pm

    I have seen diseño web chile a blog that used a nice theme, but this themes are beautiful, nice, nice

  56. 308
    Murali
    November 23rd, 2009 6:15 pm

    I have downloaded the theme and trying to activate. I am getting gray blank page and after that, if I activate the theme then white blank page is coming. I am using WP 2.6.3. Any Idea

  57. 309
    Murali
    November 23rd, 2009 7:51 pm

    Theme “notepad-chaos-version-2-0″ not working with WP 2.6.3. Any one faced same problem. Please guide me if any fix is there.

  58. 310
    ruben
    November 28th, 2009 11:36 pm

    Love this theme but need one thing and have no idea on how to do it. I want to change the page background to a different color I tried using plugin in WP but it does not change the entire background. Im new to this so please if someone know how to change the background color please give me a step by step.

    Thanks You
    Ruben

  59. 311
    Philippines Freelance Designer
    November 30th, 2009 7:38 am

    Wow this template is great. Maybe i will used this in my one of my blog. As a Philippines Freelance Designer, i really appreciate the artistic design of this wordpress themplate.

    Thanks for sharing it for free…

  60. 312
    Noora
    November 30th, 2009 12:56 pm

    love love love this theme!!!

    but am new to WP ( using .com) and have no idea how to get this as the theme on my blog…can anyone help??? please!

  61. 313
    sarah
    December 5th, 2009 8:12 am

    so cute theme…can i get one??

  62. 314
    Jérémy Wanderscheid
    December 6th, 2009 2:34 am

    Hello,

    I’m currently working on a french translation of this great theme, I will probably add some functions like dynamic sidebar.

    My problem is the graphic files used for sidebar title, if I want to translated them I need to have the source files of these images to do a good and beautiful job. If someone can provide me these files I think my translated theme will be better.

    Thanks in advance

  63. 315
    Wendy Beresford
    January 4th, 2010 8:22 pm

    Great theme. only problem is when viewing with Internet Explorer 6. The yellow post-it for Recent Posts is broken. The top part of the Post-it displays correctly (with Recent Posts text), then there is a large gap, the length of Pages and Categories in column 2, before the bottom part of Recent Posts displays (containing links to posts) this looks bad.
    See it here: http://www.wendyberesford.co.uk
    Can anyone help please?

  64. 316
    lixiphp
    January 14th, 2010 1:10 am

    great!cool!

  65. 317
    burak
    January 15th, 2010 4:13 am

    hi all i use this theme for my site ( http://www.nelazimdi.net ) but i have a problem. i want to change themes language with poedit but i can.t find .po file. can you help me pls. thanx ala


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