Ridiculously Mind-Numbing WordPress Self-Challenge
- Filed under: Wpdesigner.com
Back story: Today, I was searching for WordPress theme competitions and challenges to participate in, but no luck. It seems like the WordPress community is tired of it and not a lot of designers do participate when there is a challenge or competition. So, I decided to run one for myself.
The challenge is to create and publish one free WordPress theme each day for thirty 32 consecutive days. I got this idea from Phu Ly (a developer living in London). He did it for six straight days. Freaking amazing, I know! So what makes me think that I can match that and then survive for another 24 26 days? I HAVE NO IDEA! Some people are impulse shoppers. I’m an impulse goal setter. Let’s move on to…
The rules: (If you spot any room for errors or areas that I could possibly exploit to get lazy on the quality of my themes, better correct me now before I dig myself a hole.)
- Starts on
January 15, 2007January 17, 2007 - One theme per day
- “Quality not quanity” (ironically :))
- No recycling other designers’ WordPress themes
- No skinning of open source XHTML and CSS templates into themes
- Ends on
February 13, 2007February 17, 2007
Limitations:
- I’m not a PHP programmer.
- And, I don’t know enough about creating fluid/liquid layouts.
Ideas and Inspirations: (How I will come up with 30 themes.)
- Original concepts
- Blog design versions of popular gadgets, games, etc.
- Redesign of famous sites and blogs
If you have any idea, suggestion, and/or tip on how to improve the guidelines of this challenge, please, do post/comment. Wish me luck!
Looks like “WP Diva” already beat me to the punch. She published 31 themes in 31 days. Aww man…
*Contemplating on whether I should try to top her…
Sure you should try that.
Also make sure you let people like lorelle.wordpress.com, bloggingpro.com, weblogtoolscollection.com etc be aware of what you are going to do. They will get you more exposure.
I can help you here and there in testing the themes out.
Keep it up !
Sadish
Thanks for encouraging me, but I don’t feel right asking them to do that. I don’t know them personally.
And…this isn’t a publicity stunt.
Even though another individual has done 31 themes in 31 days, that doesn’t mean you can’t either. I say go ahead and go for it… It’s not necessarily about being about to pull out that many themes, in the alloted time, but about the quality, originality and functionality of it.
I hope you go through it, because I’m definitely looking forward to it. =)
All the best. Will watch out for you.
Alpesh
[…] A WordPress fan and web designer, who calls himself “Small Potato”, is taking a Ridiculously Mind-Numbing WordPress Self-Challenge to create 30 different WordPress Themes in 30 days. He promises that these Themes will be done based upon “quality not quantity” and that they will not be recycled from other designs. […]
[…] 30 WP Themes in 30 Days “Small potato” wants to develop 30 new Wordpress themes in 30 days and calls it the “Ridiculously Mind-Numbing WordPress Self-Challenge”. It probably would be, considering the rules that he has set for himself and his limitations that he admits to on the post. Something like this has been attempted before by Phu with a lot of success. However, in looking through the existing themes that he has developed and offered for free download to Wordpress users, I think he can do it with a little encouragement from all of us. Even if he is not completely successful, he will learn a lot and will provide a lot for the Wordpress community (and receive a lot of attention) Thanks to Lorelle for finding the post, who is now also blogging for the Blog Herald. (No Ratings Yet) Loading … […]
Great initiative! I found you through webtoolscollection. Good luck with the themes, this will bring you great things I’m sure.
Hi Small Potatoes,
Heard about your potential challenge through Weblog Tools Collection. Although I’ve already done a challenge similar to this, don’t let it stop you! If you feel up to it, then by all means…
The only thing I’ll say is be careful because it can become very tiring. It’s best to have a general working template and that means you’ll only need to work on individual designs (as opposed to design and full coding). Drink plenty of caffeine.
Good luck whatever you decide,
Diva
Best of luck, mate!
3 cheers to the man who can dare to take on a challenge like that. I hope all your themes are as successful as you’d like them to be
Go go go!
Good luck, live long and prosper.
Best of luck on this challenge
It’s inspiring for all the bloggers out there who hack their own ways around themes.
[…] I figured a new version of the framework behind my blog deserved a new theme as well. I borrowed this one from Small Potato who is challenging himself to create 30 themes in 30 days. Again, the ease with which you can update the site is brilliant. Not that it’s all plug and play. I ran into some issues with the way that the sidebars are handled and had to spend some time editing templates and .css to get AdWords, Digg!, and other features incorporated into the new theme. Actually, if you look closely, you’ll notice that I’m not done at the time I post this. […]
[…] WordPress Themes » Archive » Ridiculously Mind-Numbing WordPress Self-Challenge (tags: Wordpress Themes) […]
Wow…I sure wish I could do things like this. I’ve been reading and reading but don’t feel qualified to BUILD templates. OK, so some ideas while you build:
Have a template that allows you to add your picture.
One that has a subscribe box, so you can stay in touch with your Fans
People having fun as a Header graphic
Know that I’ll be cheering you on and will check back
Thanks Cheryl,
After this challenge, I’ll try to write some easy to follow WordPress theme tutorials and one demonstration so you can follow along every step of the way.
[…] I challenged myself to create one WordPress theme per day for 30 days. Since then, I’ve received some much needed encouragement to help me stick to it and finish through. Even Lorelle (on blogherald.com) and Mark (on weblogtoolscollection.com) have mentioned Small Potato and WPDesigner, but now I’m actually going for longer than 31 days because WP Diva has already accomplished the 31 days feat. (By the way, the WP Diva herself was commenting on my blog earlier this week, which was another highlight for this Small Potato.) […]
[…] So I was poking around on digg the other day and came across this story. Evidently there’s a dude out there who has challenged himself to design a new WordPress Theme every day for 30 days (now 31 to make sure he breaks the record). Ok, I’ve had a go at desiging WordPress themes before and it would take me 30 days to make JUST ONE theme (and I’m reasonably well versed in XHTML/CSS and PHP). […]
[…] Small Potato在æŸå¤©æœç´¢wordpress模版设计的时候，ä¸å¹¸çš„å‘çŽ°ï¼Œæ²¡æœ‰ä»€ä¹ˆæœ‰æŒ‘æˆ˜çš„æ¯”èµ›å€¼å¾—ä»–åŠ å…¥ã€‚äºŽæ˜¯ä»–å†³å®šæŒ‘æˆ˜ä¸‹è‡ªå·±ï¼Œå®šä¸‹äº†è¿™æ ·ä¸€ä¸ªè®¡åˆ’ï¼š […]
Wow. I didn’t know this was how Exhausted came about.
You du make nice themes, you have a sense of colours and simplicity that I haven’t found in many other themes. I’ll follow the themes you develop, but I doubt if I’ll change from Exhausted any time soon.
Good luck to you!
[…] of the Google News layout. For now, I’ll have to settle with this very basic theme. After my self-challenge, I’ll spend some more time on it. What I really wanted to include was elastic width and […]
[…] published one WordPress theme per day for 32 consecutive days to complete my ridiculously mind-numbing WordPress self-challenge. The last record, held by WP Diva in August 2006, was 31. Check out my […]
any updates on this?
I completed the challenge.
Congratulation!!!
You have tried your best!
That’s enough, you are young and energetic, but you have the most gift I’ve appreciated:——–persistence!
^O^
Congrats on your accomplishment! I think you need to change from Small Potato to Large Potato…or even better…Action-Oriented Potato.
Most people would never have the discipline to do what you’ve done…so BIG hug and pat on the back!
Thanks Cheryl
Muy interesante.
Muchas gracias por la información, la tendre en cuenta.
Saludos desde España.