“Simply Ornate” Free Wordpress Theme
My newest freebie wordpress theme is ready for download. This theme was designed with the main focus being on patterns and typography. It uses patterns from my pattern site; DinPattern.com and comes in 5 flavors.
I tried to make this theme as basic as possible. It uses one plugin (which you can find in the plugin folder within the zip file) to include a flickr feed. Just drop the “flickrrss.php” file in your plugins directory and activate within the dashboard. You can set how many photos appear in the feed, I’d suggest staying with multiples of 4 to keep the design balanced.
The theme also includes a prototype-based tab effect (via stereotabs) that allows users to browse latest posts, comments and tags. The front page is set up to show excerpts of your 4 latest posts, and also includes a mini-nav in the upper right side to allow for page navigating.
The theme also uses a ton of png transparency that does work cross-browser (even in IE 6). Click the thumbnails below for screen shots.
Download:
- Simply Ornate “Twirl II” (blue)
- Simply Ornate “D.A.R.K.” (military green)
- Simply Ornate “Pinkie” (pink)
- Simply Ornate “Pixel Gray” (grayscale)
- Simply Ornate “Royal Red” (deep red)
Please leave the footer intact as is, with links to both EvanEckard.com and DinPattern.com for usage. Feel free to modify any themes as well. If you do, send me a link so I can check it out – Enjoy!

September 16th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
[...] Release Page [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[...] theme ready for download 2008 September 17th Comments Like this theme? You can grab it at EvanEckard.com or [...]
September 26th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
thank youu for share
October 1st, 2008 at 3:15 am
[...] Release post on Evan Eckard’s blog [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 6:33 am
Look nice. Thanks for sharing
October 1st, 2008 at 7:27 am
why not ı converted language?if ı want,ı have template is not fount error
October 1st, 2008 at 10:14 am
[...] Simple and minimal themes or illustrated? [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
[...] Release Page and Download or Preview the theme before downloading. No Comments [...]
October 1st, 2008 at 11:34 pm
Hey – i love the theme! its amazing!
Question though – how do i get a full post to show on the main page instead of having to click each individual post to show the picture i uploaded? Ive been trying to search for the CSS code, but i am not as knowledgeable as you are, im sure.
any help?
thanks,
Joe!
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:59 am
Very nice Template, would be great, if there is any widget-function in the sidebar & gravatar-support at the comments!
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
[...] Release post on Evan Eckard’s blog [...]
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
[...] you’d like this theme for yourself, jump over here and grab it. It comes in fancy different styles [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 2:16 am
[...] Nom: Simply Ornate [...]
October 5th, 2008 at 9:40 am
[...] evaneckard.com » “Simply Ornate” Free Wordpress Theme [...]
October 6th, 2008 at 2:49 am
[...] Simply Ornate WordPress theme by Evan Eckard was designed with focus on patterns and typography. It uses patterns from DinPattern.com and comes [...]
October 7th, 2008 at 6:53 am
[...] Release post on Evan Eckard’s blog [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Gorgeous, thanks for sharing your work! To be the picky beggar, I agree with Markus/#10 about a widget-friendly version. Regardless, many thanks for sharing.
-ma
October 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Great-looking theme, but for some reason the sidebar tabs won’t display. Any idea why?
October 9th, 2008 at 7:10 am
Nevermind – turns out it was a plugin conflict with a Lightbox plugin I was using.
I did notice a bug in your code, though, specifically pertaining to the Latest Comments in the sidebar. All comments in the list are shown as belonging to the same post, which just happens to be the bottom post shown in the Latest Posts tab. Do you have a solution for this?
October 9th, 2008 at 10:18 am
@Jim
Yeah, I got an email about the correct category not appearing in the comments. I also had an extra closing div in the footer.
The zip files for the themes above have been updated, and until I can find a category fix, I just pulled that out for now. You’ll notice no category now appears at http://honker.evaneckard.com
Also did a few minor tweaks to the CSS files – some of the comment link styles weren’t cascading down.
And regarding widgets – I need to do some more learning to figure out how to build that in. I never use them, and always forget to stitch them in when building a theme. Time for “Dynamic Sidebar 101″ for me.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
@Joe – to get a full post on the main page, you’ll have to change the php call for the excerpt to the content.
change line 24 from
“php the_excerpt”
to
“php the_content”
October 9th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Perfect. That’s effective enough.
October 12th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
[...] Download it | View Demo [...]
October 13th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
[...] Release post on Evan Eckard’s blog [...]
October 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
[...] Download it | View Demo [...]
October 18th, 2008 at 3:56 am
this is for sure lovely themes!!
October 20th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Evan. Great theme. Been following your design for a little while now, and decided to use simply ornate as my personal venture into blogging. I’ve figured out how to widgetize the sidebars:
It’s pretty easy:
In functions.php add this code:
if ( function_exists(’register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘before_widget’ => ”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
Then, in sidebar.php add this code:
Now, just have to style it all. Enjoy!
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 am
This is a great theme!
My question is this, I’m still a bit of a novice with coding (especially the PHP) and was wondering, how can I change “Recent Posts†to reflect “Popular Posts†instead? I’m not sure about it and would really appreciate any help!
Thank you!
October 29th, 2008 at 6:11 am
[...] Simply Ornate Preview – Download [...]
October 29th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Wow, is a Amazing Theme. Great.
Now, we can i the sidebar widgetize .
Sorry my englisch is not so good.
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Wow! This is a great theme….thanks!
November 26th, 2008 at 11:42 am
[...] dem Theme “Simply Ornate” haben es mir Tapetenmuster irgendwie wieder richtig [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 2:19 am
You are amazing!Thank you for your all themes.Thanks,thanks and thanks again…
December 5th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Evan, I love this theme so much and I’m currently in the process of modifying it for my art blog. Thankyou so much for the time and effort you’ve put into making it~!
December 10th, 2008 at 2:57 am
[...] Demo Download [...]
December 13th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Comment 27:
Then, in sidebar.php add this code:???
Which code?
Please
thanks
December 15th, 2008 at 7:48 am
[...] Simply Ornate [...]
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
is there any change to move ”Continue Reading”
if it is possible how can i?
December 26th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Hi Evan,
this is a great Theme. I have this on my Site. Now I have a problem.
Can you make this perfekt Theme “Widget Ready” ?
Please.
Merry X-Mas and a happy new Jahr
P.S. Sorry, my english is not so good.
December 28th, 2008 at 6:15 am
[...] kann einen komplett neuen Anfang machen und da es sich bei meinem neuen Theme um ein nicht Widget Ready- Theme handlet, fehlen natürlich auch einige Informationen wie die [...]
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 am
[...] demo indir [...]
January 10th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Is there a way to display a photo with the post in the main column on the home page?
January 13th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
[...] 5. Simply Ornate [...]
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
beautiful…
doesent work on IE7 though
February 5th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
[...] Descargar ~ Demo [...]
February 21st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
[...] 44. Simply Ornate Official Link: Click Here [...]
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:16 am
[...] Ornate | Author: evan      Download [...]
February 23rd, 2009 at 4:46 am
[...] темы: ЗдеÑÑŒ Смотреть в дейÑтвии: ЗдеÑÑŒ Скачать: [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Evan,
Can you be more specific about putting the whole post on the main page please. I tried waht you said here:
change line 24 from
“php the_excerptâ€
to
“php the_contentâ€
But it didn’t work for me. Which files do I change this on?
Any other info I need?
Thanks man.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:53 am
[...] nun im absoluten “Grung“-Design. Zurück zu den Wurzeln kann man auch sagen. Das “Simply Ornate” von Evan Eckard hat es mir einfach angetan. Ich weiß. Ich habe es schon einmal benutzt. Na [...]
March 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
[...] | Download Not [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 2:43 am
[...] Ornate Features Live Demo [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
[...] Téléchargement (Plusieurs couleurs et arrière plan disponible sur le site de l’auteur). [...]
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 am
Да да да,у Ð²Ð°Ñ Ð² коментариÑÑ… одни похвалы Ñто подозрительно.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:13 am
hi evan, can you make your theme “Notepad Chaos” compatible with wordpress 2.7?
It seems “notepad chaos” widgets and other functions are not working with Wordpress 2.7
thanks in advance
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:12 am
Dude, Simply Ornate rocks. Don’t be discouraged by the lack of downloads
I’m gonna use it as my new blog template. Peace.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:54 am
Hi, Evan!
Is Simply Ornate compatible with the last wordpress version (2.7) ?
April 25th, 2009 at 12:16 am
[...] View or Download [...]
April 25th, 2009 at 12:53 am
[...] View or Download [...]
May 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
С превеликим удовольÑтвием читаю ваш блог. Продолжайте пиÑать обÑзательно. Ðндрей, ХакаÑиÑ.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
hey man this is awesome but its not installed correctly, its saying its not widget aware????
August 15th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Yeah, that theme hasn’t been updated to use dynamic sidebars yet.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Hi Evan! Great Theme! I am so happy that you shared your talent with people like me don’t have.
but i still having the issue showing the right tabs on top of the page. I’d like to link the tabs to my categories individually.
other than that! your theme rock!
thanks!
August 27th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Those tabs are pages that your blog uses. You’d have to edit the template code to change that to categories.
August 27th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I see. fair enough. thank you!
August 27th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Hi, Evan, one more question here : )
I just downloaded “WP Page Numbers” plugin, somehow it seems not working for this theme, do you have any suggestions for that? thank you, much appreciated.
September 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
[...] Features Live Demo Download [...]
September 5th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Same with Yvonna, I’m trying to use a page navi plugin but it won’t work. Which sucks because my visitors aren’t able to see my previous entries, and neither am I. They can only see the four most recent entries. Help?
September 5th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
[...] Features Live Demo Download [...]
September 15th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
[...] View or Download [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 5:59 am
Greetings, this post is not for Simply Ornate, it’s for Cellar Heat Dark. I would like the latest, featured post on the home page to have a longer character length before truncation. How can I do this in the CSS?
Thanks, /b.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
okay, I’ve narrowed it down to the the_excerpt function. I want to remove this and have the main post just a the_comment kind.
November 5th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
[...] Features Live Demo Download [...]
November 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Cool, love blue color. I really like this theme.
December 13th, 2009 at 2:03 am
[...] 13th, 2009 · No Comments evaneckard.com » “Simply Ornate” Free Wordpress Theme My newest freebie wordpress theme is ready for download. This theme was designed with the main [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
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January 7th, 2010 at 7:52 am
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February 7th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
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