The Full Stack Leader

Twenty Twelve is a WordPress theme I’ve been working on for over 9 months, and yesterday it finally launched for everyone via the WordPress.org themes directory.

The theme was designed by Drew Strojny, with a mobile-first approach using responsive design techniques. The result is an elegant, beautiful, and readable theme that looks great on any device. If you’re interested in more about the design, Drew blogged about it over on The Theme Foundry and I also highly recommend watching his overview of the process, presented with humor and wit: How not to design a default theme.

Joining the team in July 2012, Konstantin Obenland contributed many hours of testing, code changes, and expertise. Self-described as a perfectionist and a native of Germany, his keen eye was crucial to nail down all the edge cases and make sure the theme works well for all users. Read Konstantin’s story.

Many more people contributed to bug reports, testing, theme-breaking, documentation. It takes an army to launch a new version of WordPress, and a new default theme is no exception. At the WordCamp San Francisco 2012 hack day, 17 contributors joined me during one of the most efficient and amazing group hack days I’ve been a part of. Looking at the photos from the event you’ll see the energy of the day.

If you’re interested in more of the philosophy behind default WordPress themes—and why they are named after the year (Twenty Ten, Eleven, Twelve …) read Why Default Themes Change Each Year.

And for history’s sake, the core Trac ticket that kicked it off: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/19978.

I hope you enjoy Twenty Twelve as much as we enjoyed making it.

Thank you to Sheri Bigelow for the photos of WCSF 2012.