One of the best things about working in the creative industry is the luxury of being surrounded by amazingly passionate people. One of those people is Phil Wasson. I’ve known Phil for more than a decade now and his craftsmanship with all things metal is next to none. Over the years, I’ve collaborated with him on various projects including magazine articles, living arrangements, cooking recipes, you name it. A few years ago, he launched Super Rat Machine Works, a machine shop specializing in high-end, revolutionary BMX components.

This weekend, Phil and I sat down to rethink, redesign and reevaluate both the Super Rat website and the future business model of Super Rat’s online operation. If you ride BMX, or are at all interested in online business, you should keep tabs on Super Rat Machine Works in the coming months. Just yesterday, we launched the new website, which uses Wordpress as the CMS and a lightly modified version of my Monochrome theme available here. Along with amazing products, you can expect some innovative marketing examples for small businesses selling tangible goods from Super Rat Machine Works in the coming months.

Please get in touch if you are interested in purchasing a theme design similar to the Monochrome modification on Super Rat’s website. I plan to only sell a total of ten of these Monochrome modifications on a first come, first serve basis.

Monochrome is a magazine-style theme for Wordpress packaged with an AJAX post slideshow, a custom theme admin page to easily manage and customize Monochrome, author archives, two page templates, multi-tier drop down menus, utilizes custom fields options and a CSS framework to aid in customization. Now that’s a mouth-full.

With Monochrome, you get:

• AJAX-enabled post slideshow on the homepage
• Multiple entry points to your posts on the homepage
• Auto or manual thumbnail control
• Two widgetized sidebars, one for homepage content, one for single page views
• A widgetized bottombar which includes three widgetized areas
• A custom administration panel
• Authors archives
• Two page templates: One with sidebars and another without
• S.E.O. optimized
• Valid HTML and CSS

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?

INSTALLATION

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

CONFIGURATION

1. GETTING STARTED: Monochrome creates a new administration page in the Presentation tab of your Wordpress admin panel to easily manage an update the categories that you want to display on the homepage. View the theme options page. Type in the category id’s and you’re ready to go!
2. PHOTOS & CUSTOM FIELDS: This theme uses custom fields to manage all photos and thumbnail photos. In your Wordpress settings, you can change the dimensions on both thumbnail and medium sized photos. Change the thumbnail width to 128 px wide by 128px tall. Change the medium photo size to 575 px wide. Save the settings. Wordpress will resize every photo uploaded to the dimensions described above. After uploading the photo into Wordpress using the media uploader, Monochrome Pro automatically generates your thumbnail and slideshow images for your homepage (version 1.1 only). Don’t like the thumbnail Wordpress generated for you? Override it, by copying the link to this thumbnail photo and pasting it into the custom field value, with a key called “thumbnail.” Similarly, you can copy the link to the medium photo (575 pixels wide maximum) and paste it into the custom field value, with a key called “photo.” Here is a screenshot of all properly filled out fields.
3. YOUR AUTHORS PAGE: Monochrome 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/monochrome_lite/images/authors/ folder. For instance, mine is Allender.jpg, sized at 75px X 75px. Here is an example author page.
4. STYLES.CSS: Unlike most Wordpress themes which plug all the css in one file called styles.css, Monochrome utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework to help separate positioning, typography, forms and what I’ll refer to as custom or Monochrome specific styles. To edit all custom Monochrome specific styles, you’ll need to edit the file style.css in your wp/wp-content/themes/monochrome/ directory.

SUPPORT

The best way to receive support for this theme is to visit the forum first. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, then please get in touch. We respond quickly to all support inquiries. Just ask a few of our customers.

ABOUT BLUEPRINT

This theme utilizes a CSS framework called Blueprint. Who is credited for the ideas behind Blueprint? Some of the best designers on the web. They include Jeff Croft, designer for Blue Flavor, Khoi Vinh, design director for NYTimes.com, Nathan Borror, Christian Metts, Eric Meyer, Wilson Minor, Angus Turnbull, Olav Bjorkoy and a few others. 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.

VERSIONS

• 1.0 - Initial launch
• 1.1 - Improved thumbnail and image handling for Wordpress 2.5
• 1.1 - Revamped functions.php file for compatibility with Wordpress 2.6

Monochrome Lite is a free widgetized theme for Wordpress packaged with an author archives page, seven random rotating header images, posts with thumbnail and pullquote custom fields options and a CSS framework to aid in customization.

---

---

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?

---

Installation

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

Configuration

1. GETTING STARTED: By default, Monochrome Lite displays the latest entry, followed by the excerpts of the previous five entries.
2. PHOTOS, PULLQUOTES, CUSTOM FIELDS: This theme uses custom fields to manage all photos and thumbnail photos. In your Wordpress settings, you can change the dimensions on both thumbnail and medium sized photos. Change the thumbnail width to 128 px wide by 128px tall. Change the medium photo size to 575 px wide. Save the settings. Wordpress will resize every photo uploaded to the dimensions described above. After uploading the photo into Wordpress using the media uploader, copy the link to this thumbnail photo and paste it into the custom field value, with a key called “thumbnail.” Copy the link to the medium photo (575 pixels wide maximum) and paste it into the custom field value, with a key called “photo.” Here is a screenshot of all properly filled out fields. If you want pullquotes, then simply create a key called “pullquote” and type your pullquote into the custom field value. Here is a screenshot of all three properly filled out fields.
3. YOUR AUTHORS PAGE: Monochrome Lite 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/monochrome_lite/images/authors/ folder. For instance, mine is Allender.jpg, sized at 75px X 75px. Here is an example author page.
4. STYLES.CSS: Unlike most Wordpress themes which plug all the css in one file called styles.css, Monochrome utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework to help separate positioning, typography, forms and what I’ll refer to as custom or Monochrome specific styles. To edit all custom Monochrome specific styles, you’ll need to edit the file style.css in your wp/wp-content/themes/monochrome/ directory.

---

SUPPORT

---

The best way to receive support for this theme is to visit the forum.

---

ABOUT BLUEPRINT

---

This theme utilizes a CSS framework called Blueprint. Who is credited for the ideas behind Blueprint? Some of the best designers on the web. They include Jeff Croft, designer for Blue Flavor, Khoi Vinh, design director for NYTimes.com, Nathan Borror, Christian Metts, Eric Meyer, Wilson Minor, Angus Turnbull, Olav Bjorkoy and a few others. 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.

---