As I said in a previous post, I’m a big proponent of premium themes. As a designer, it provides me with a great jumping off place, and creating a custom look, along with custom page layouts, and implementing some of the more complex custom features is a breeze.

I had the opportunity to work with a client on her blog layout the other day using the Thesis theme. It was great to get to pop around in the dashboard and see how the features worked together.

The good:

• Many of the features that would required other plugins are already built into Thesis. This includes critical elements like a place for your analytics tracking code, several sidebar widgets, and SEO tools
• Classic, easy-to-use navigation for your visitors is built in
• Cross-browser compliance
• Beautiful typography
• Great support
• Free upgrades

The bad:

• The SEO tools are missing a critical piece if you’re using WordPress primarily as a CMS. They don’t give you the option to change the menu name on the pages, which hampers your ability to have short menu tags with long, keyword-rich headlines.
• Honestly, that was the only issue I saw with the system, and it’s probably something they can fix in the next revision.

Here’s a link to the DIY site. (disclaimer: yes, I am an affiliate, if you use this link and purchase the product I get paid a small commission)

Find Out More About Artisteer

Having just read some really great tips on this post Tips for New Bloggers: Three Columns Thisaway Template (I), I’m even more convinced that the average blogger needs Artisteer. While I think it’s great to understand the inner workings, for the average Joe, it’s too much of a struggle for the same end-result.

• Click here to download the Free Custom WordPress Theme
• Click here to download the Free Blogger Theme