If it's about blogging and blogging tools we'll talk about it! But watch out we may yack a bit about programming too!
This week’s designer is Julian Klewes, better known in the WordPress community as jez. He is a college student who has a natural flair with colors. Jez has recently started a new project. With school in recess he finds himself free to pursue an almost insane self challenge.His plan simple; produce one high quality, free WordPress theme every day for the month of July. If jez is able to complete his self challenge, it will be (to my knowledge) a feat unmatched by any other serious theme designer.
Each of his themes this month is inspired by a simple but elegant photo. As an example, his first design for the month was inspired by this photo of a dragee:
The resulting theme, simple and unique soft blue color pallet steps outside the box.
Here’s a peak at some of his other themes:
Interview:
Mr.BlogIt: Could you tell us a little about yourself?
jez: My name is C. Julian ‘jez’ Klewes, I am a 21 years old student from Germany. I live nearby Duesseldorf, which is located 40 miles from the Netherlands. I study a management and business studies oriented subject at an university in the Netherlands. It is called International Business and Management Studies and lasts four years.
Recently I finished semester two and already received my pre-degree. Before going to university I did my a-levels at a secondary school in Germany.While at school I devoted myself to playing basketball several times a week, my girlfriend, hooking up with friends and of course programming and designing things.
I did different kinds of work on the web: some freelance design, some programming, but also consulting (maybe giving training courses is a better explanation) and researching. Most of the work-samples available on my portfolio are related to this span of time. School in Germany equals lots of free time you know…
Before finishing my a-levels I started DJing at home, then later on at a local club, which after half a year terminated the “club series”. I am a passionate vinyl-collector and occasionally I release short one hour mixes on my website. While most of the transitions are okay, it turns out that every mix includes at least one hard screw-up; but that’s where the amateur ends and the professional dj starts I guess.
About colours – I like the light colours, especially white, gray, shades of white and black, but also the contrast of neon green, and the warm colour red. It is always a challenge designing themes, that are not “for oneself”, because you have to loose your own colour-bias.
I don’t primarily design in order to make a living, but I am student who does all kinds of ‘usual’ side-jobs. Whenever I get a request to design something I am happy to help out for a few bucks.
My favourite food, not as if anyone cared, is a mixture of Italian food and American fast food. Basically everything that is considered unhealthy and tastes delicious. It is always a pity when my brother, a trained gourmet chief, is around because I don’t like to eat half what he cooks.
Mr.BlogIt: Tell us what it was like to do your first WordPress theme?
jez: My first released theme? Whew, that was a lot of work actually, because you have to make sure they are at least to some extent valid in CSS and html/xhtml.
Else the theme will look screwed up on others websites. I developed my first personal WordPress theme around 2003 I believe, when I started my site www.h4x3d.com as a personal blog.
Back then I had to read lots of literature, many articles on the internet, to understand the anatomy of themes. Especially the_loop annoyed me, because I did not figure out how it worked.
Mr.BlogIt: Do you primarily develop your own designs or port others to WordPress?
jez: I strictly develop my own designs, though porting client websites from static html to WordPress is fun, too.
Mr.BlogIt: What software do you use to develop your WordPress themes?
jez: I do my coding work in notepad, because I do not know any other editors and their benefits. For the graphics I use gimp and Photoshop. I cannot effort anything else currently.
Mr.BlogIt: How much time do you take with each theme?
jez: Usually I am sloppy when I have no pressure and it takes weeks, sometimes months to finalize an idea, but with the current theme a day challenge… well I have one day minus time that I spent with my girlfriend, doing work around the house and for my clients. It is really a challenge to see how efficient you can be on a single day. This is only possible at the moment, as I have finished university for the summer.
Mr.BlogIt: What is your favorite WordPress theme you designed, and why?
jez: I believe it bonsai growth, because it is so bold and loud. It jumps the visitor on first sight and it is so easily to modify. This is also one of the themes where most of the plagiarism occurs. There are plenty of porn websites that use this template. Wonder why…
Mr.BlogIt: With all the WordPress themes on the net today What Theme is your favorite?
jez: I really like the themes by bartelme and the ports by ilemoned. Milo has some great themes, too, but I see her themes more like concepts of unfinished themes. The themes by Small Potato are in so far great, as they all validate and are coded very clean. My code is sloppy and a mess to read; I believe I should read more code of other designers to learn how to “code clean”.
Mr.BlogIt: What advice would you give a new WordPress theme designer?
jez: Do things right or don’t do them at all, because there are so many themes flooding the themeviewer that are of low quality and infected by sponsored and totally unrelated links. Also do not sell out, be your own boss and do not sell your templates to third parties.
Mr.BlogIt: How long will you continue developing themes?
jez: As long as I have free time. As soon as next year (winter) I will be doing an internship abroad and I doubt I will have that much time then…
Mr.BlogIt: If you were not developing WordPress themes, what would you spend your time on?
jez: Reading stuff on the internet, listening to vinyls from my collection, of course spending more time with my girlfriend and friends, but also doing more sports. Since I am not playing in a basketball club anymore, I have been reducing my visits to the court to weekends…
Jez has a great deal to offer to the WordPress community. You can learn more about him and his works at his website: http://www.h4x3d.com/
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thanks a lot for the interview again, I totally slept over the deadline,
I need to post an article on my blog asap!
It was my pleasure, Thank you.
Good luck, can’t wait to see all your themes for the month.
Hi,
I’m in Blogger so I can’t use these themes :S
I could use one of them if one day i decide to create a WordPress blog
Hi—David: I liked the interview, well done. It gives me good ideas for my interviews at Groovy Veg. There are more and more WP designers, its a growing field. Nice take on Jez.
[...] everyone today, I just wanted to post a quick reminder to myself to include the link to my interview on “My Blog it” on my about page. Also an update would not hurt – but than again I have [...]