I jumped on the bandwagon and purchased the Developer License for Chris Pearson’s Thesis theme for WordPress back when it was first released. I knew that Chris was a solid designer and wouldn’t release sloppy code or ugly design. I knew that Thesis was intended to be flexible, extensible. I figured I’d need it some day.

A year has come and gone since Chris first released Thesis and I still haven’t found time to play with it, but I have been seeing quite a number of beautiful web sites created with Thesis. These are sites that aren’t discernible as Thesis themes at first glance. You will be amazed, as I was, how really malleable Thesis can be. I can’t wait to dive into it. I’ve got a couple of projects coming up and I’m itching to try my hand at creating a gorgeous Thesis theme.

This is the first of what I hope will be many showcase posts for Thesis. Just to show you that it’s not all cookie-cutter and that in the right hands, Thesis can be bent and twisted and shaped just about any way you want. As you can see from these designs, it’s often hard to tell that they are using the Thesis theme unless you peek at the source code. I offer them in no particular order so enjoy!

Shatterboxx Media

Of course I would have to start with a designer’s site, huh? This is a drop-dead gorgeous web designer’s site running on Thesis. Jamie Varon is behind this eye candy. Check out her portfolio to see her other equally lovely designs. And it’s no wonder there are some other Thesis designs she’s done that I have my eye on for a future post. :)

Toy With Me

Not Work Safe This is a great example of a very tasteful design for a very risque subject. The design is absolutely gorgeous and feminine, as it should be, since the site touts itself as being a woman’s view of exquisite toys for the bedroom. Ooh la la!

Loomis Creek Nursery

There’s no hint of Thesis on this design, with its soft, organic color palette and custom background. A very elegant treatment all around.

Fusebox Theatre Company

I love the grungy treatment of the design background (reminds me of our own design for BLUSD.org. Again, no hint of Thesis behind the scenes on this site, but it’s got a lot of bells and whistles. This is a content-rich site from the ensemble bios to the “buy tickets online” page. Very well done.

Kevin Wong Photography

This is exactly what a photographer’s web site should look like. It’s nicely minimalistic, letting the photographs take center stage. The typography is perfect and again, it’s not instantly recognizable as running on Thesis. And as you can see, Thesis has no trouble driving a site with a bit different needs than your average web site or blog.

Eric Scouten Photography

Another example of a nicely done photography site. And again, very minimalistic, but some really nice touches that help you to move around on Scouten’s quite large web site. And, it’s hard to tell it’s running on Thesis!

The Daily Mammal

This site migrated from Blogspot, and when it did, it got a nice facelift using Thesis. Now there is one little tell-tale sign that Thesis is behind the curtain, the curly braces on the comment count. But the site design is so whimsical (check out the footer graphics!) that the curly braces actually feel right at home with the rest of the playful design.

Harcourts Luxury Realty

Here’s an example of Thesis being used to drive a real estate web site, complete with realtor bios and property listings. Not what you’d expect, huh?

Supercomentario

This is a Brazilian magazine-style blog running on Thesis. (As a humorous aside, it lists the site as being featured in “The Sis Gallery.”) It’s clean and lean, with great typography and whitespace.

Live the Charmed Life

This is the web site of Dee Anne White and it was designed by Jamie Varon of Shatterboxx Media (the first Thesis site on my list). The site is rich in typography and evokes a sense of well being. And, as always, Thesis … runs quietly behind the scenes.