Wordpress tips, tricks and tools

NT – The Land of Fairy

I somehow associate the color green to fairies and elves and the likes. Blame it on my obsession with The Legend of Zelda, the Boston Celtics (which has a leprechaun on its logo) and The Lord of the Rings (think of Frodo Baggins’ Shire).

It turns out that I’m not the only one who associates the color with the imaginary things I mentioned above. The people at NET-TEC have come up with a Wordpress theme called The Land of Fairy. And man, is the theme so green.

Pros

What I like about the theme is that although it has integrated Google Adsense into it, the ads never get in the way of the design and navigation. It’s great because some designers go trigger happy when it comes to putting ads on the page. In this particular theme, the ads are put to a minimum and are only located at the top and bottom portions of the content box.

The use of green not only goes with the name of the theme, it also makes looking at the page easy on the eyes. There aren’t any strong colors which stick out, only several shades of green, white and black. That’s it.

Cons

There are some things, however, that the powers of the fairy on the header can’t touch. Take for example the information below the title of each post. What’s contained there are the basic data like the category where the post is placed, the date it was posted and the number of comments. It would have been good if the author’s name were included. This is especially important for a team blog where there are multiple authors. We need to distinguish who posted what.

But aside from that, the theme works and that’s what everyone wants at the end of the day right? All in all, the magic of the fairy is able to hold the theme together.

Catch the magic, check the live demo or download the theme here.

Obsession

There’s a certain kind of darkness we can associate with obsession. For me, it conjures images of a man stalking a woman in a dark alley. There’s something voyeuristic about obsession. There’s the desire to see what’s on the other side.

This kind of image is captured by the theme aptly called Obsession made by the team at NET-TEC. The header itself speaks the message through the image of an angel clothed in lingerie and stripped of her wings, leaving only bloody marks where the wings used to be.

The color of the entire page is also dark which gives a brooding feeling to those who see it. But enough with the dark talk. Let’s review the theme.

Pros

The first thing I liked with the theme is its choice to use a larger font size. Although a lot of sites opt to use smaller fonts, people with poor eyesight will benefit from this kind of theme. They can even probably read the text without squinting or using their reading glasses!

And although the name of the theme is obsession, there’s no sign of obsessing over putting ad spaces to every pixel available. It’s a good thing because the overall design looks clean and uncluttered.

Cons

Right, the theme gets points for the choice of a big font size. The choice of font color is poor though. The dark font doesn’t contrast well with the darker background which makes the text difficult to read. A higher contrast between the text and background would improve readability.

Meanwhile, let’s take a look at the header. The choice of the image is fantastic, but the way it was edited looks somewhat hurried. Also, it looks too simple which is why some flowing lines or the likes would help improve the design of the header.

Obsessed with this theme? Check out the live demo or download the Obsessed theme here.