I’ve been a huge fan of Anders Norén‘s work for quite some time. Ever since the release of his Chaplin theme, I’ve been using it on sites like SouthCoast.fm and the future website for my plugin, Easy Support Videos.
When I heard that he was leading the release of Twenty Twenty, the default theme that ships with WordPress 5.3, I was beyond excited, to say the least. Chaplin really opened the door for me to adopting Gutenberg on many of my sites, and had he not made such a compelling theme, I probably would not have taken to the core page building experience as much as I have.
Is Twenty Twenty theme the best default theme ever?
That’s a toss-up, as it depends on how you define what WordPress is.
- Is it just a blogging app?
- A small business website builder?
- Complete content management system?
I think Twenty Twenty will grow into one of the most flexible default themes we’ve ever seen, but I don’t think it takes the crown from the Chaplin theme for me — yet.
I was really hoping the default theme would provide a blank canvas for creating any site with the power of Gutenberg, but it’s simply not there yet. Annoying things like not enough templates for unique page layouts and my biggest gripe, color selection is really limited. Like, annoyingly limited to a slider with no color picker or ability to input a color code for site accents.
Things will get better over time (we hope)
I’m sure these shortcomings will be solved as the product matures. Which lead me to think, will the [year number] naming convention die once WordPress achieves autonomous theme’ing?
In other words, if the goal is to build any type of website with WordPress, will we still need to ship “opinionated” themes? Core themes have always had a certain flair about them, mirroring the growth of the WordPress in the respective year they were released — do we need opinions or templates for Gutenberg to become more relevant in the future?
If WordPress makes a big shift in that direction, how much of the indie theme market disappear? How does .org/.com blend the experience with another elephant in the room — WooCommerce? Time will tell, but until that happens, enjoy my video guides on using the Twenty Twenty theme!
Twenty Twenty Theme Overview
In this video, I cover most of the features that the Twenty Twenty theme released with. An overview of the options, the customizer, and how to create content within the theme.
How to make the Twenty Twenty homepage like the screenshot
Since there is no official doc on setting up the homepage like the screenshot — nor does the screenshot feel fully “complete” — this is my overview on setting it all up. I also cover the different styles the theme ships with.
Top 7 Contact Forms on Twenty Twenty
Not all contact form plugins are the same, and they certainly don’t react the same way on the Twenty Twenty theme. Here’s a video covering all of that.
Does Twenty Twenty support WooCommerce?
In this video, I test out WooCommerce against the new default theme and highlight the areas that work well, and not so well.
Testing most popular Page Builder plugins on Twenty Twenty
Planning on using something else on Twenty Twenty other than Gutenberg? I tested some of the most popular builders on our new default theme.
Building a web or marketing agency website with Twenty Twenty
I think Twenty Twenty will work great for small business, creative, and web agency websites. Check out my tutorial on how to do it!
Is Twenty Twenty the best default theme ever?
We wrap up an extensive video series recapping the best use cases for the theme and answering the question: Is Twenty Twenty the best default theme — ever?
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