One of the reasons we’re so confident developing exclusively on the Thesis framework is that it’s so incredibly versatile. We’ve been amazed over the last few months at what fellow Thesis developers have achieved, so we thought we’d share some of our favourites as a source of inspiration and encouragement.
This is a list of just a few of our favourite Thesis powered sites. One of the biggest factors for us in putting together this list was the level of customization achieved. This is because while we all know and love the underlying benefits inherent in the Thesis architecture, we recognize the importance of stamping your own identity on the web through a unique design. These sites then we reckon have just about a perfect marriage between form and function – and they’re all totally unique. Check ‘em out and let us know what you think!
Eric Souten’s Photoblog
We’re kicking it off with a timeless classic. Eric’s photoblog has been around for awhile, but what’s been achieved here – quite early on in the Thesis game – was one of the major factors that convinced me to jump on board. Integrating with SlideShowPro with simple, elegant styling, Eric also mixes things up with a nice change in style when switching from the photoblog to his personal blog.
Eric Souten's Photoblog
Flowtown.com
Here’s one you might not have seen before. And it’s one you won’t believe is running Thesis. The guys at Flowtown.com specialize in conversions and they’ve done a great job of implementing Thesis to do just that.
Flowtown.com
Kristarella.com
This one needs no introduction except to say that we particularly love her tweet display tutorial – so much so that we’ve implemented here at DIYninjas!
Kristarella.com
Bleikamp.com
Another long standing member in the Thesis community, Ben Bleikamp’s blog not only provides great insights on user experience and marketing, but it does so with one of the most clean cut, stylish implementations of Thesis we’ve ever seen.
Bleikamp.com
WPbandit.com
Now here’s some guys we recommend putting on your to-watch list. And you should definitely take a visit to wpbandit.com. Not only is their implementation of Thesis one of our favourites, but they’ve got a stack of stellar themes available for download for free. These guys pay attention to detail – and it shows!
WPBandit.com
Alpharetta Women’s Specialists
If you wanted a little more reason to keep an eye on the guys at WPBandit, it’s that they’re the team behind (they’re the designers, not the doctors!). This has to be one of the most beautiful Thesis implementations I’ve encountered so far.
Alpharetta Women's Specialists
Harcourts Luxury
So what’s a post without a little self promotion? Harcourts Luxury is a DIYninjas project and the first Thesis based site to be featured in the Wordpress Showcase. But don’t take our word for it, check it out for yourself:
Harcourts Luxury
FuseBoxTheatre
Designed by the renowned John Sexton, FuseBoxTheatre is not only an incredible achievement in design, but it packs some of the best custom code we’ve seen yet. We love the jQuery slider and the awesome use of some of the newest features in Thesis 1.4.2, such as post thumbnails.
FuseBoxTheatre
DIYthemes 2.0
If you haven’t seen this one yet, you’re definitely missing out. The new DIYthemes site now sports a brand new Thesis customization and we reckon it’s one of the best. The rotating header is sweet and, as is to be expected, the typography executed to perfection.
DIYthemes
And that’s it for our favourites, but if you’ve got any you think should’ve made the list then please feel free to drop ‘em in the comments below!
If you’re keen on joining the party, then head on over to DIYthemes and pick up a copy of the Thesis theme. If you want help building something that’s a cut above the rest, then you’re welcome to drop us a line too – we love working with Thesis!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
The second Website, Flowtown, was even new to me. Over time I have collected my favourite Thesis-Websites in my Blog ThesisWorld’s Showroom. The text is in German, but the screenshots are international.
Ooh, thanks Mitch! I think that’s the first time my site design has been featured anywhere!
Good choices. These sites are smooth.
Thesis World: Some great sites you’ve collected there, ThesisWorld.
We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on your updates!
kristarella: Glad you like the choices. I’d be very surprised if we were the first to nod your way; your site stands out as one of the best thesis mods so far – not to mention the sweet tips and tricks that make up the content!
Mitch, thanks so much for featuring our site and our design. I must say that we are honored and your selfless promotion of others really inspires us. Your Harcourts Luxury design is beautiful as well and ironically one of our favorite Thesis designs.
Looking forward to your profile in the Thesis Designer Series.
Great content you guys! there is so much potential with the thesis theme. Everyone has worked hard on it. I always thought the websites that are on the main thesis showcase left a little something to be desired, so this helps.
one thing i’m struggling with with thesis and other wp themes is that many are full of “eye candy” but for bloggers vs. real websites that actually have pages and sub navigation. this seems kinda like common sense but other themes like woothemes suffer from same problem.
if you have other good examples of real websites for small or medium businesses that use thesis with typical website content and not just blog postings, it would be enormously helpful.
and thanks again for helping to raise awareness and knowledge about thesis and how it can be used.
Jermaine Maree : Wouldn’t have put you in if I didn’t think what you guys were doing was awesome!
jay: I’m sure you took a look at Flowtown.com which we posted above, which is a great example of an SME using Thesis for primarily non-blog content. Admittedly there’s not a huge amount of sub-page navigation, but it certainly gives you an idea.
Check out our review on Thesis here, which talks a lot about using Thesis in the SME space for non-blog sites.
Great examples you present here (and in the comments),
currently I only use Thesis for my blog (and not for my portfolio) but this will be a good inspiration when I can take some time to make it all into something based on WP and Thesis.
Hi, I can’t take credit for the graphic design of Flowtown but I did do all the WP & Thesis coding. It was quite the challenge (and with a tight deadline!) but I managed to bend Thesis to look almost exactly like the Illustrator design I was given. Thanks for featuring the site!
Love to see what you think of
http://www.kentuckytheater.com/
… built on a shoestring budget integrated with Google Calendar.
Love Thesis.
I’ve used Thesis for several projects and have been delighted with how easy it is to customize. In general, the amount of hard-code changes that must be made is much less with Thesis than with other themes I’ve worked with; often many of the things I need to customize are simple configuration changes in the admin interface.
Hai Ninjas,
Thanks for this fab collection of excellently designed and coded sites! Just started looking into Thesis for our clients, and because of all the non-customized bland site, was getting worried that it was not very customizable. Wishing you a Happy New Year and much success in 2010!
I like the image you show of Flowtown.com. It is similar in structure to what I’m trying to accomplish with my blog structure (header/menu/featurebar then three columns of (in my case) posts divided up by categories (one each per column). I clicked thru to the site and its changed. At least I didn’t see the same layout. Is it archived somewhere that I could study it? Trying to learn Thesis and how to put together a cool site structure.
Great list of cool sites.
Thanks.