Early Theme Adopters: Espied
In our Early Theme Adopters series, we focus on bloggers creating great-looking sites with the most recent additions to our Theme Showcase. Today, let’s visit some of the sites that are already using Espied, a versatile theme perfect for blogs and portfolios alike.
From a full-blown professional portfolio to a streamlined homepage, Espied, which was launched a few short weeks ago, gives you a wide variety of options to display your best work.
You can tailor the theme to suit your most exacting needs. On top of standard customization touches like a custom header image, Espied comes with four featured color palettes, different layouts to choose for your featured images, and a custom social links menu. The Portfolio feature gives you even more choices to control the way your visitors experience your site.
Let’s take a look at some of the creative uses of Espied.
CDM Productions
The graphic designer behind CDM Productions has created a lively, colorful portfolio homepage using Espied. Hooked by the visuals, interested readers — and potential clients — can easily find additional information in the fly-out side panel menu, from the designer’s blog to a contact form to a “Hire Me” page.
bryony attenburrow
British illustrator Bryony Attenburrow has taken Espied in a more minimalist direction. Her homepage follows the classic blog format, with her latest work at the top of the page. If you’re ready to dig deeper into her work, Bryony has also built portfolio pages for the different formats she works on, from illustrations to comics.
Hot Mug
The website of book cover designer Hot Mug is a lesson in economy. Consisting of little more than a gallery of the designer’s previous work, visitors can enjoy the artist’s beautiful covers without distraction. A splashy (pun intended) custom header image adds a sleek individual touch to the site, while a Terms and Conditions page provides interested parties with all the information they might need.
If you’d like to see some other great uses of Espied, be sure to check out these sites:
- True East, a beautifully designed travel blog.
- The whimsical portfolio of dutch illustrator Merel Barends.
- Flaneur, a minimalist Japanese photoblog.
Stay tuned for more examples of sites using recently-added themes — and if there are any particular themes you’d like to see featured, feel free to leave us a comment.
- June 3, 2014
- Customization, Themes
WordPress.com News 
I like Espied, but to make the most of it I think you need the custom design upgrade, and a knowledge of CSS to make subtle changes. Still, great team, and wonderful versions here.
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The Custom Design upgrade definitely expands the options one has for creating a tailor-made look — though the three sites featured here, none of which is using that upgrade, show that beautiful sites can be created with or without the upgrade.
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Although it isn’t a layout I would choose for my style of blog, it looks really good!
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Just using it. Awesome theme! Thanks!
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Extremely flexible. I am using Sidespied as a poetry blog
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I need a blog-for-dummies. I want to post pictures, videos, art, rants, famous sayings of family members, a “crock full of nuts” folder for the verbally insane, a place for memoir chapters by family members and friends. How can I get help with this? Thanks, Frankie
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Hi — You might want to start with our series of easy, step-by-step tutorials over at Learn.WordPress.com. They cover all the basics, and more — from creating posts and pages to tweaking the design of your blog.
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Nice, I love your job. A picture is worth a thousand words.
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This looks interesting, as a beginner blogger I would love to add pictures and illustrations but I am technology challenged.
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