New Theme: Twenty Eleven

Last year on WordPress.com we introduced the world to the first new WordPress default theme in 5 years — the first annual default theme — Twenty Ten. Now it’s our pleasure to introduce you all to its successor, Twenty Eleven.

The Twenty Eleven Theme

It might look familiar. 🙂 Yep, Twenty Eleven started life as the Duster theme before it made the theme big leagues. But it’s not just a renamed Duster. There are tons of really cool improvements and features packed into it — more Post Formats, beautiful new header images, alternate color schemes and layouts, even custom link colors. All those features add up to the best part of Twenty Eleven: just how customizable it is. It looks great as a blog, a showcase of all your posts, and even a tumblelog or photoblog.

If you want to know more about the cool new features in Twenty Eleven we’ve made a page that outlines them all on the Theme Showcase. You can read up on Twenty Eleven there and check out a live demo or just simply activate it on your blog and start experimenting! And if you have a self-hosted installation of WordPress you haven’t been left out of the fun. You can wait to give Twenty Eleven a shot when WordPress 3.2 is released in about a month or try it out right now with the beta version and upcoming release candidates. We’re looking forward to seeing how you use Twenty Eleven on your blog.


Missing out on the latest WordPress.com developments? Enter your email below to receive future announcements direct to your inbox. An email confirmation will be sent before you will start receiving notifications—please check your spam folder if you don't receive this.

Join 1.6M other subscribers

119 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. nathan2055

    Awesome! Twenty Eleven is here! Time to start experimenting!

    Like

  2. vanessajaded

    I am in love. Duster was by far my favorite WP.com theme, so of course I think this one’s awesome. Changing now. Thank you, team!

    Like

  3. Eric

    What an upgrade to the default theme! It’s really been a long time coming. Good work!

    Like

  4. cosmonavigator

    Welcome Twenty Eleven. It is customizable indeed. Thumbs up!

    Like

  5. Tito Salgado

    Nice! Now that’s what i’m talking about. WordPress FTW!

    Like

  6. Andrew

    This could work!

    Like

  7. ALIVE aLwaYs

    Nice theme, looks refreshing, almost as beautiful as Vigilance (which I highly prefer) to me.
    cheers 🙂

    Like

  8. RJ45

    Can’t wait to mess up the CSS!!

    Like

  9. Kay aka Babygirl

    I love this! I was looking for a similar new theme.

    Like

  10. Margie

    This theme can be customized in ways I don’t even understand! I’ll have to try it out and decide if it is going to replace Choco as my first choice!

    Like

  11. palmerbennett

    I just tweeted about this theme yesterday, not to sound like a word nerd but I heard about it at WordCamp Raleigh and I’ve been craving that flash photo banner! Yay!

    Like

  12. Mike

    Nice… not good enough to force a change, but still…

    Like

  13. Sajib

    For whatever reason I don’t think this theme deserves to be Twenty Eleven, especially because Twenty Ten was much better than this and I simply expected something better than Twenty Ten in Twenty Eleven. I’m still a Twenty Ten fan.

    Like

  14. MClassImages

    Looks great! I just finished updating my site with the new theme, I’m loving it.

    Like

  15. Sven Seebeck

    Wonderful!

    Been playing around with Duster but have been waiting for this theme. Luckily most of my adjustments still work.

    You guys are doing a fantastic job.

    Like

  16. Tom Baker

    All of the improvements are great. Good job WP.

    Like

  17. doctorwhofan98

    I’m still getting used to it…

    Like

  18. Pingback: Twenty Eleven – a new look for All of time and space | All of time and space
  19. yakirillov

    Yep, it’s nice! =)

    Like

  20. Crystal

    Beautifully simple. I love the customization aspect.

    Like

  21. shil

    Looks good. I will try and report back. I am currently using Inuit types which I like.

    Like

  22. vitmarket

    Not bad! It is pleasant to me!

    Like

  23. bobmitchellinthe21stcentury

    Anyone know how wide images can be on this?

    Like

  24. Hugo Silva

    Love Twenty Eleven, but there are any way to use our images in random mode on the header of the blog, as we can with the default 8? It will be the perfect theme! Thank you very much.

    Like

  25. obsidianfactory

    Cool! Hope more themes come along the way ▬ I hope WP starts allowing font and background customization to its themes too ^_^

    Like

    • Ian Stewart

      You can change Twenty Eleven’s background image (and the background image of almost all of our themes) by visiting Appearance → Background. Have fun! 🙂

      Like

  26. guard13007

    Much better than the 2010 theme. That one put me off.

    Like

  27. deathgleaner

    This is good! And now there’s going to be so many blogs that look like this.

    Like

  28. andreshirani

    OMG I love it! You are the best. It’s also free!!! Thanks a lot. You are wonderful!

    Like

  29. nkeda14

    NIce, very clean. I like it. Might have to try it on my blog.

    Like

  30. corzgalore

    This seems very simple and a lot like some of the other simple blog themes.

    Like

  31. sheila365

    yay! i’m trying it out for my photoblog. The tags for the twenty eleven say fixed-width and variable-width. Anyway to set the width of the left column, in 2 column format to be a specific width other than what is there, which appears to be 550-ish?

    Like

  32. gilsir

    This is great!! Wish I would have thought of it for my previous blog.

    Like

  33. El Santo

    Thanks! I’m using Duster now, I only switched over a few months ago, and I don’t want to alienate my readers by going to a different format… yet. Still, this is definitely going on to my future blog format list when I consider a switch some months down the line!

    Like

  34. kensbackhome

    This theme has a lot of possibilities. I just changed themes recently, but I’m going to tinker with this one a bit.

    Like

  35. chorwin

    Very clean and well format. It somehow look like 2010 theme, but with better readability improvement to layout.
    Will give it a try for photo blog and see how it work. 🙂

    Like

  36. loulou

    cant wait to play with this new theme!

    Like

  37. jdogs2000

    It is sooooooooooo pretty, beautiful, gorges, elegant, outdoory, attractive, and OMGG[Oh My Great Gosh] I want to go there

    Like

  38. vanillamom

    really? You can rotate personal header themes? Oh, my gosh, i might just throw over twenty-ten for this, then…!

    Like

  39. MHG

    Oh man, I LOVE this. It reminds me of The Morning After, which I adore and am using right now — except you can see more than once post per page! This is tempting for a switch. Good job WP!

    Like

  40. conversexxj

    Thank you! I just added this to my rss reader, great stuff

    Like

  41. Seth

    This is great and I really love the photo blog but could you please, PLEASE include a grid option like the Suffusion theme (example: http://gudphoto.com/bikenyc/grid/)

    Like

  42. Andini Rizky

    Wow… too cool to be true! Do you have it for self-hosted blogs, too?

    Like

  43. rosaenz

    Looks great. Thank you.

    Like

  44. morethanenough12

    I love the mountain/river scape.. I find it more inspiring to write when I am looking at nature.

    Like

  45. Pingback: New Theme, Perhaps Temporary | Notes from the Metaverse, the WordPress edition
  46. Mikalee Byerman

    Love it…simple, clean, with all the important “stuff” at the top! Thanks… 🙂

    Like

  47. Shiblee

    Hi Ian, I think I was waiting for this theme. I was a user of Twenty Ten, after all. Anyway, I gave a preview on my current blog and one thing I did not like that all my images has a extra border around it. Is there any way I can remove that extra border from my images in my blog post?

    Like

  48. Shubhan Chemburkar

    Nice theme. I’m trying it out asap….

    Like

  49. Sopheak.P

    Looks great and quite similar to Theme: Mystique! 🙂

    Like

  50. Ammon

    Great job WP! Thanks for giving me something fun to do this weekend—looks like I’ll be tweaking my layout and widgets to accommodate my new blog template!

    Like

  51. Jennifer Avventura

    Great upgrade. Love this new theme.

    Like

  52. puzzle

    Very nice and clear – I love the dark variety.

    Like

  53. helar

    Aaaaah… shall I be switching again? Stay with Duster? Use 2011? You really keep me thinking!

    Like

  54. K

    Trying it out for my photoblog .. looks like a perfect blend of Duster and Twenty Ten. 🙂 Thanks, WordPress!

    Like

  55. Wez

    There is a lot to like about this one!

    Like

  56. Wolf

    I have always been fond of the theme “Duster”, but never had the guts to use it. Now that “Twenty Eleven” is made the official 2011 WordPress theme, and based off “Duster”, I think it’s about time I change to the theme I have loved ever since the moment I placed my cornea on it 🙂

    Good job!

    Like

  57. Pingback: New WordPress Default Theme Unveiled « Weblog Tools Collection
  58. Ljubomir Gatdula

    Cool, but I’ll stick to my current theme 🙂

    Like

  59. Slithzerai

    I found its layout to be extremely elegant. Also added some custom share buttons so it was lots of improvements for my blog today.

    Like

  60. yvonne simon

    More Premium Themes, please! I’m waiting for scrapbooking stuff! 😉

    Like

  61. Charlousie

    Very nice! I started with Twenty Ten, but the new version is better! Great job.

    Like

  62. Pingback: New theme called ‘Twenty-Eleven’ plus new WordPress dashboard | J & J
  63. zxenaria

    Looks crisp and clean. 🙂

    Like

  64. Sandra Eliswa Naduvilaparambil

    AWE… wait for it….SOME!!! AWESOME!!!! 😀

    Like

  65. JessiLee

    New version looks cleaner and better. Thanks.

    Like

  66. edremsrola

    I love this one – Thanks!

    Like

  67. Farrell Kramer

    Love this theme. Perfect for restarting my blog!

    Like

  68. VatuBarok

    The photoblog looks amazing, I`ll give it a try next week! 🙂

    Like

  69. kristinasa

    Finally I found the theme. Thanks!

    Like

  70. Nana

    You guys have definitely outdone yourselves with this one, it’s such an amazing layout! My favourite features would have to be the showcase template, the various post formats, and the rotating customised header. And I love how the layout itself is so crisp and clean. Excellent job guys, thanks~! 🙂

    Like

  71. mrasherkade

    Does it have a colored background to the posts like Chaotic Soul? I like the colored background to posts that way I can have a busy and crazy custom background to my blog….

    Like

  72. Agents & Realtors

    I have always found the default themes too simplistic, drab and boring. I realize that WordPress is extremely popular all over the world and thus needs to be generic but a little spice is needed.

    Like

  73. Sandra Pawula

    Great work! I love the one-column post format on this theme. But, alas, just cannot resonate with the huge header. I would like to see some new themes with a good-sized one column format – like this one – or Vostok but the white version, not black. For the moment, I’ll stick with Inuit Types, my total love.

    Like

  74. C'est moi Robyn

    I am in love with this theme. I activated it as soon as I saw it in action. AWESOME THEME IS AWESOME. Love the heading fonts, the showcase template is kick-ass and the fonts are very readable too. x) ❤

    Like

  75. Kopf.Adeyemi

    The image post looks quite unique!!

    Like

  76. Lu

    Couldn’t have come at a better time – loving it and using it already!

    Like

  77. Pingback: Change is the only constant | Tangent Sky
  78. Dan North

    I’m already a Duster guy. So, here’s hoping everything stays in place now that I’m about to make the switch. Thanks, WP!

    Like

  79. nelson RN

    Wow… let me try this one!

    Like

  80. LittleMissPip

    I love this and have switched one of my blogs over all ready. I would switch them both if there was a 3 coloum layout. Maybe 2012?

    Like

  81. Tiara Kusumawardhani

    Cool!! Gonna try it right now. 🙂

    Like

  82. 7des7iny

    Nice! Thanks for all the upgrades!

    Like

  83. Thing

    Like it. On it.

    Like

  84. Meri Greis

    Thank you so much 🙂

    Like

  85. Cédric

    The Showcase is absolutely great!

    Like

  86. My Camera, My Friend

    Looks nice, but I’d have some qualms about using the default theme. I’d really have to modify it to make sure it looks like I’ve tried something more than just sticking with standard.

    Like

  87. Appaz Photography

    Really looks great..

    Like

  88. christeljayne

    I started using Duster as soon as you made it available. I just changed to Twenty Eleven today, and I really love the upgrades, especially the option for multiple featured posts on the front page. Great work!

    Like

  89. John Hayden

    Twenty Eleven is “da bomb!” (if you remember that hackneyed expression). As a former newspaper page designer, I think Twenty Eleven has all the tools I need. I especially like the floating quotes and the new featured posts and images. I’ve always preferred a standard, easy-to-read serif body type, but I might even come to love the sans serif body type in Twenty Eleven. Thank you, thank you!

    Like

  90. Aimee

    Looks great! I love that you can have a lot of pages. Nice and clean but not boring.

    Like

  91. teos1963

    Love this theme, Thanks!

    Like

  92. troy

    I’m holding out for Twenty Twelve!
    *but then again I hear twenty thirteen is supposed to be pretty good too…*

    Like

  93. Rævefisse

    Oooh, already looking forward to Twenty Twelve.

    Like

  94. M

    I picked up Duster recently for one of my blogs and I LOVED it to death, SUCH a WELL DONE website-like theme! An absolute killer. More recently y selected Twenty Eleven for yet another blog and OMG! It was even a little better: choosing the link color has been a long time dream for me. It is, I’d say, PERFECT. Thank you sooooooo much, guys! This is really something. SO well done!!!! ILWP!

    Like

  95. Ad V~

    Looks great, I’m going to try it out right now!

    Like

  96. bhmatchmaker

    Nice and basic.

    Like

  97. Adrienne

    Looks interesting … I’ll go through it. Thank you!

    Like

  98. milos babic

    Dude, congratulations! So far, this is the best theme I’ve tried.

    Like

  99. lsell

    Awesome! This is just what I had in mind when I moved to WordPress but couldn’t find! As soon as I catch up on the back-log of posts I’m trying to make into actual words, I think I’ll switch and play around with it for a while to reward myself!

    Like

  100. wdednh

    Best theme yet, thank you. This is one of the comments I got “Your site is soothing yet biting at the same time. Now how did you manage that?”

    Like

Create your new blog or website for free

Get Started