I’ve never considered myself to be much of a web designer, but I’ve made a few themes in the past that people have inquired about using for their websites. Slick Blue is a WordPress theme I used to use on another blog I own, but I have since moved on to a different theme there, and decided to release this theme for anyone to download.
Here is a screen shot of Slick Blue:
With Slick Blue, you will get the following:
- 125×125 Banner Slots - Just replace the pictures and links with the appropriate code in the 125×125 banners file.
- SEO Friendly - I have gone through the code to make it as optimized for search engines as possible, using the appropriate headers, etc.
- Advertising Friendly - In addition to the banner slots mentioned above, you can easily plugin in PPC code (Google AdSense, BidVertiser or Yahoo Publishers Network) in the appropriate php file (named AdSenseLinks, AdSense Banner, AdSense Blocks).
- Widget-Ready - Theme is widget-ready.
- Comments/Trackbacks - I have separated the comments and trackbacks to help your readers follow comment conversations.
- Gravatars - Features built-in Gravatar support (no plugin required).
- Social Networking - Built-in social networking buttons below each post.
- Improved Footer - I’ve moved most of the archives to the footer. This is also a great place to put a MyBlogLog widget if you prefer to have one on your blog.
If you are a WordPress plugin junkie, you will also enjoy this theme. It is already setup to be compatible with the following plugins:
- Related Posts - You may need to make some database changes, but the call code is built into this theme. See this post for more details.
- Popularity Contest - Calculates and displays your most popular posts.
- Math Comment Spam Protection - Helps avoid spam by requiring the commentator to solve a simple math equation.
- Brian’s Latest Comments - Displays recent comments on your blog.
- Show Top Commentators - Displays your top commentators.
- WP-Polls - Displays an interactive poll on your website.
- PageNavi - Plugin to improve page navigation.
- Digg This - Displays a Digg This button when a post has been dugg.
- Sitemap - Sitemap link built into footer for search engines.
The theme is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license and requires you to keep the attribution links in the theme footer. Please do not remove them, if you modify the theme. Otherwise, you are free to make any other changes you would like.
I may eventually release other stylesheets for this theme if there is an interest, so feel free to comment below if you’d prefer a different color. If you decide to use this theme, I would also like to know once you’ve got it set up how you want so I can link to it at the bottom of this post as a sort of showcase for others that are interested!
awesome clean looking theme. Ive taken your css code for the 125x125 ad blocks to incorporate in another theme ...
Hi there, I'am new to blogging. So I want to learn much about it. Before, thanks for theme to available ...
Hi Josh. Can you be more specific? Are you having trouble getting your logo to show up ...
IM having trouble changing the logo image up top. any help? 
I've installed your theme on WP 2.5 and when I go to widgets it says "no sidebar defined." Is this ...
Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Very very nice theme. Nice & clean layout, with all sorts of goodies, while not overwhelming.
If only it had more llamas…
Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:27 am
@ Llama - Dude, you are obsessed with llamas. You crack me up!
Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Perhaps it is not I who is obsessed with llamas, but you who does not like them enough.
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Great theme! Crisp, clean and fast loading. I think a domtab navigation in the sidebar would compliment it nicely.
Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 7:09 am
how to get the widgets ready? I don’t find the theme is widget ready!! and also how to install for the adsense .
Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Len - Thanks! I’ve successfully added DomTab to one of my themes, so I may add it here or to future themes released here.
Venkat - It should be widget ready. I’ve had a few people test it and determined it was working well. Can you give me some more specifics?
In order to use AdSense, just place the AdSense into the appropriate PHP file as explained above.
Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Thanks Kyle for the theme,Is it possible for displaying adsensesquare.php only for the first 2 posts and not for the remaining posts.
Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Venekat - Yes, I recommend using the Shylock AdSense plugin to do that and then in the options just select to display it in the first two posts on the homepage.
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I’ve started using your theme Kyle, I love it. Thanks for such a great release.
Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Kyle - How do we add related posts in the feeds using this theme.Please suggest if there is any plugin that would work with this theme and works with WP2.3.2
Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
@ Cristian - The theme looks great on your site! Well done! I’ll get it added to the post above.
@ Venkat - I would recommend using the Related Posts to Feed plugin. You can find my full review here.
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Kyle:How do we display a BlogRoll in the sidebar??
Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 1:25 am
I used ur theme to create a static front page. now i want to display the lastest blog posts and archives on a seperate page displayed . which files i have to edit .??
Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 5:42 am
Is it possible to replace the 125×125 units with an adsense unit??
I am interested in it but i need a little help on that bit
Thanks
Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
@ Venkat - You can find the blogroll code here.
@ Viraj - Can you be more specific? You want to display recent posts in the sidebar or on there own page?
@ B Jaman - Yes, you certainly can. You’ll just want to remove the code in the 125×125 banner file and replace it with the AdSense unit that you want to use.
Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Hi,
I’m trying your theme for my blog and I’ve got translated into Catalan (ca.po + ca.mo).
But the point is that I don’t know how to make the them be translated into this language.
Albert.
Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 11:41 am
i sorted my last problem out kyle . would be glad if u tell me how i could edit the black popup like things which shows archives , tags , alexa ranking etc .
Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Is there any way to display the categories in the sidebar?
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 5:32 am
@ Albert - Sorry I’m not understanding. What do you mean ? You’ve already got it translated but now you want to provide a translated copy for download?
@ viraJ - You want to edit the footer section? That should be accessible from the footer.php file.
@ BJaman - Yes, you just need to add the following code to the sidebar.php file (you can adjust it to look how you want):
< ?php wp_list_categories('sort_column=name&limit=15&title_li='); ?>
P.S. Sorry for the delay guys, for some reason WordPress wasn’t notifying me of new comments. I’ll try to check back more often.
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Kyle, the code doesn’t seem to be working. I also tried the blogroll code, replacing ‘bookmarks’ with ‘categories’. That worked, but the ‘Categories’ heading didn’t look like the ‘Blogroll’ headers.
Any help?
Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
BJaman - The footer uses a header 4 tag, while the sidebar uses header 2 (h2) tags to achieve that look. You also need to add the box div to give it a consistent look.
I am having trouble pasting the code as it doesn’t display properly, so I am going to email you directly.
Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Love the theme, is there a way to have at the bottom of the front page a link to “older pages”, that display all the stories from previous days? Thanks
Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
@ Robert - Yes, it is already setup. You’ll just want to install the PageNavi plugin (linked to above in the post) and activate it.
If you have any additional questions, please let me know.
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I’ve installed your theme on WP 2.5 and when I go to widgets it says “no sidebar defined.” Is this a problem with 2.5?
Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
@ Shawn - I’ve not heard from anyone else having this problem with the theme post WP 2.5, but I will certainly look into it further and see if I can figure out what is causing the problem.
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 10:34 pm
IM having trouble changing the logo image up top. any help?
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Hi Josh. Can you be more specific? Are you having trouble getting your logo to show up all together or in the correct spot? You can name it logo.gif and upload it to the theme’s image folder (replacing the existing image), or you can go to your header.php file and search for the logo.gif code, then change it to the name of your logo.
If that doesn’t help, more specific details would help.
Sunday, June 29th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Hi there, I’am new to blogging. So I want to learn much about it. Before, thanks for theme to available for downloading.
Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 9:11 am
awesome clean looking theme. Ive taken your css code for the 125×125 ad blocks to incorporate in another theme I was using and also passed along the credit. thanks!