Now this is exciting stuff:

From now on, all Graph Paper Press themes will be configurable via a customized theme options page located on your Wordpress Admin panel. A screenshot of the working theme options page is above. Customized theme options pages opens up new possibilities for both novice users and advanced users, enabling quick changes without sorting through lines of code. This feature will be included in our February theme release, which is currently being tested and will be officially released next week.

Our next theme builds off of our previously most popular themes, utilizes a Javascript post slideshow, four fully widgetized areas on the homepage, the customized theme options page mentioned above, switchable style sheets, plus more.

This next release is most definitely our most exciting release to date.

Curious to see how our clients use Graph Paper Press themes? Check out the following sites to see our themes powering a few very attractive sites on the world wide internet:

http://dopeswan.org/

Dope Swan is a community arts organization focused on providing outlets that support and engage emerging creative talents within the visual and performing arts.

http://blog.dubtastic.com/

Dubtastic is a 30-something dad, amateur photographer, professional graphic and web designer who enjoys Mexican food and debating on the best method for surviving a zombie outbreak.

http://globalhiphop.org/

A site dedicated to hip-hop and underground music world-wide by musicial activist Ben Herson. There is a lot of content making its way onto this site and it’s coming together nicely.

Want others to see your work and drive traffic to your new site. Post comments below showcasing what you’ve done with your Graph Paper Press theme.

Happy publishing!

Now you can get all Graph Paper Press themes for only $99.99. This offer includes all “premium” themes on sale today and in all of 2008. When a new theme is released in 2008, you will receive a link to the theme download via email. Currently, Graph Paper Press plans to release one theme per month. Pretty neat, huh?

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Deadwood is a magazine theme primed for publishers who want to multiple entry points to their content in a clean and clear fashion. Deadwood can transform your tubular blog into a real website.

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Deadwood comes packaged with:

• Ten rotating custom header images
• AJAX-enabled sidebar on the homepage
• Multiple entry points to your posts on the homepage
• Two fully widgetized sidebars
• A fully widgetized bottombar
• Authors Archive page
• Two page templates: One with sidebars and another without
• S.E.O. optimized
• Valid HTML and CSS
• Utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework

Installation

1. Unzip the downloaded file
2. Upload the entire “Deadwood″ folder to your “/wp-content/themes/” folder
3. Log in into your WordPress control panel
4. Click the Presentation tab
5. Select the “Deadwood” screenshot

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CONFIGURATION

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1. GETTING STARTED: To get Deadwood off and running, you will need a minimum of 5 categories to populate the homepage. The main section on this page is the latest article posted in all categories. The top right section shows the next three latest posts. The section below the main section shows the previous five entry excerpts, offset by four. The bottom five section pulls the latest posts in categories 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. You will want to change these category number id’s to the categories you want to display, which is detailed below.
2. YOUR CATEGORIES: In the “home.php” you will find a series of query_posts functions which refer to specific category ID numbers from my database.
   You will need to change the category numbers to reflect the ID numbers of the categories that you want to display on your homepage. Category numbers can be found in your control panel under Manage->Categories. There are a total of 5 spots in the home.php file to change to reflect the post categories that you want to display on the main page.
3. YOUR PHOTOS: If you want your website to resemble that of the Deadwood theme demo site, you will need one small photo for each blog post. Small photos should be cropped to 150px wide by 100px tall. Upload the image to the web and copy the URL to the photo. Within Wordpress’ Write Post page, scroll down towards the bottom and click on the Custom Fields section. Add a key called “small_photo” and then paste the link to the small photo into the key value field. View a screenshot of the custom fields used for Deadwood. Make sure your custom field values and keys match those in the screen shot above (but change the key value to the exact url to your images.) Custom fields are one of the most overlooked, yet powerful, tools in Wordpress. Read more about using custom fields. Photos posted within each entry’s post body should not exceed 350px wide, otherwise, you will make your homepage layout look icky.
4. YOUR AUTHORS PAGE: Berlin comes packaged with an author archive (authors.php), which will display some author specific info pulled from the Users page in your Wordpress installation. In order for the author’s image to show up, you’ll need to place a jpg of the author titled by the author’s last name in the wp-content/themes/deadwood/images/authors/ folder. For instance, mine is Allender.jpg, sized at 75px X 75px. Here is an example author page.
5. STYLES.CSS: Unlike most Wordpress themes which plug all the css in one file called styles.css, Berlin utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework to help separate positioning, typography, forms and what I’ll refer to as custom or Deadwood specific styles. To edit all custom Deadwood specific styles, you’ll need to edit the style.css file located in your wp/wp-content/themes/gridline/ directory.
6. BEST PRACTICES: It is best to keep your excerpt to one a one line description overview of your post. Having too much written in the excerpt field can bloat the homepage with text.

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Credits

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Deadwood utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework to help streamline design and development. Most major websites use some form of css framework to allow for rapid, consistent development and design. Take the Blueprint 101 course to learn about all the possibilities.

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Deadwood Lite is a free minimal theme primed for writers who want to focus their online efforts on readability, pull quotes and clarity. Deadwood Lite comes packaged with:

• Ten rotating custom header images
• Two fully widgetized sidebars
• A fully widgetized bottombar
• Authors Archive page
• Two page templates: One with sidebars and another without
• S.E.O. optimized
• Valid HTML and CSS
• Utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework

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Installation

1. Unzip the downloaded file
2. Upload the entire “Deadwood Lite″ folder to your “/wp-content/themes/” folder
3. Log in into your WordPress control panel
4. Click the Presentation tab
5. Select the “Deadwood Lite” screenshot

Head on over to the brand spanking new forum for modification and customization tips for all Graph Paper Press themes. I will soon be posting tutorials in the, you got it, tutorials category in the forums.

Graph Paper Press just released a new magazine theme called Berlin to the Wordpress community. It builds off of a few of my previous theme designs and includes a couple additional features, the coolest of which is a dynamic, ajax-enriched main feature section. Take a peek!

Next week, I plan to release two additional themes, one paid, one free. They are looking very nice, I must say, and I’m excited to see them start populating the blogosphere.

Here is what is next up on my increasingly long list of “to do” items here at Graph Paper Press:

1. A tutorial section where you can learn how to customize your theme, add advertising, customize header and logo images.
2. A forum where users can share ideas.
3. Create a mailing list. The mailing will go out once a month with new theme releases. I plan to keep it simple.