Mike McAlister

It seems like everyday there is a new article or tweet condemning techniques, services, apps and workflows. “Stop using Photoshop!” they say. “Flat design is a trend!” they say. “You can’t code and design!” they say. Welcome to the internet where you’re doing everything wrong, always.

I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares. –Saul Bass

A recent thread over on the ThemeForest forums has sparked debate again about the best practices when using shortcodes and custom post types in commercial WordPress themes. Namely, whether these kinds of features should be coded into the theme itself, or if that functionality is better served in a plugin.

For the past two years, I’ve kept busy developing WordPress themes full-time. Until now, my themes have been available exclusively at ThemeForest. Stumbling upon ThemeForest in early 2008 was one of the luckiest things to happen to me, as it opened up my eyes to passive income in the form of HTML templates and WordPress themes.

Themes definitely aren’t what they used to be. You used to get a zip file with a few PHP files and a brief help file telling you how to modify code (by hand, mind you). These days, even the less advanced commercial WordPress themes come equipped with custom options frameworks, template builders, advanced Javascript usage and extensive theme documentation with installation videos.