Holy macaroni it’s the year twenty-ten already. Where’s my orbital-space-whatever-flying car — I’m gonna need it to beam myself up to my space villa on Mars. Or not. It still doesn’t feel we’re here already. I know 2010 is just a year after 2009 but, still..
Anyway, first post of 2010!
Five years and five days ago, like a boy who had discovered how awesome cotton candy can be (for the record though, cotton candy was never my thing), I stumbled upon WordPress — which was, at the time, a shiny new blogging engine still in its infancy. But that didn’t matter, for I deleted my HTML-hardcoded blog whose code I shamelessly copied and modified from some random blog — and never looked back.
My host then, Stafa, graciously installed my first copy of WordPress (version 1.2.1) via Fantastico — magically sprouting a Hello World entry telling me it’s my first post and that I could edit it and start blogging. My website just talked to me, I marveled.
Back then, WordPress’s default theme was bland, full-width’ed and a dull-green that shouted for a change. Then I found Kubrick. Yes — if Kubrick looks familiar to you, that’s because it is the very look you see every time you install a fresh copy of WordPress. From version 1.5 on, Kubrick became bundled along with WordPress as the default theme we all know now — in 2010, that might also shout at you - change me!
But five years ago, Kubrick was a game-changer.
Rounded corners, appealing minimalism, subtle footer gradients, and with an easily customisable header image to boot, it wasn’t hard to see why Kubrick took the blogging world by storm then. Once I got Kubrick running on my shiny new WordPress installation, I started, with however limited knowledge I had of CSS, modifying it so that I had the most unique Kubrick theme on the net.
Fast-forward five years later, I’m on my own domain sporting a self-made theme I designed and coded from scratch — what you’re looking at right now. Thus it goes without saying that Kubrick was largely instrumental in sparking my personal endeavor in web-design. Even the tehCpeng.net version two theme I’m running now is based on the Kubrick framework — a last-minute design decision as I wanted the new theme to differ as much as possible from my previous works off the Hemingway framework.
Later on this year, WordPress will be retiring Kubrick as its default theme — the first time in five years. Needless to say, Kubrick is now relatively dated among a largely design-centric blogosphere it helped stir about in the first place. Tina Daunt of The Huffington Post has a great piece on how Kubrick, a single blog theme revolutionised the blog design arena. I couldn’t agree more on Kubrick’s contribution on changing the face of the blogosphere into one that not only focuses on content, but also on design and aesthetics.
Reaching my fifth year in blogging on WordPress, I can’t help but to look back on the humble beginnings. As Kubrick retires as the default theme for WordPress, it will most likely be forgotten among the new generation of WordPress users with access to sleek and shiny modern themes widely available today. But blog designers around the world would never forget Kubrick’s former glory and how we were once inspired by this humble theme to make the web a much more beautiful place as it is today.
Interesting post Ember, it can be amazing how much a simple innovation can change how everyone does their stuff; and continue to be the leader of the pack in its field for such a long time.
Thank you, Jon.
It is indeed amazing. =) I hadn’t thought much about Kubrick being such a game-changer for the web. I mean, it was for me personally, but I wasn’t aware of its impact on the whole blogosphere in general back in 2005. Until I read Tina Daunt’s article. Interesting.
Time flies isn’t it? =P Did you read back the posts you wrote five years ago? What do you think?
Haha. I do, sometimes. And.. some are quite.. immature, heh. It’s amazing how different I was looking at things only 4–5 years ago hehe.
Happy fifth year in the world of WordPressing! To think of it, you’ve been in the business for half a decade — now that makes it sound like a really huge, flattering accomplishment (it’s like saying “five years in blogging” but decorated with more confetti). Congratulations anyway!
It’s indeed big news that WP is retiring the Kubrick theme. It was one of the first theme who I spent countless hours prowling through the code (like how we can magically adjust hues and colours of the header image).
Anyway, happy 2010 to you (and to Danbo).
p/s: And you’re one of the few bloggers out there whom I know spells WP as “WordPress” and not “Wordpress”.
Thank you, Teddy! Haha, well five years is nothing compared to how long you’ve been blogging! =D
Ah, so even you used Kubrick back then! Well Kubrick certainly drew a lot of us into ‘prowling through its code’ trying to customise it no doubt — giving birth to a lot of self-taught designers out there (me included!) =D You’ve come a long way too, Teddy!
As for spelling WP, I realised how people spell them both ways too! I know ‘WordPress’ is the correct spelling but more often than not I just get too lazy to capitalise the ‘P’, haha. But then if it’s an entry mostly on WordPress then I’d be a little more serious with the ‘P’, heh. =P
Naw! Don’t say that *smacks you in the head* my blog was five a few months ago too! We’re not too far from each other!
Yea, the first theme was a shoddy modification work based on the Kubrick theme. I didn’t know colours and typography very well back then, so do forgive me for using Kristen ITC and a shade of sickening lime green in the older themes (they were so hideous that I didn’t even bother counting them as one of the WP themes I’ve crafted thus far).
We’ve both come a long way, Ember! So many years tumbling in the blogosphere and I’m surprised that both of us are still holding up well. Your designs have got exponentially better over the past five years — here’s a big pat for you in the back. Really love your work, so keep it up!
But that doesn’t mean I want you to retire this theme and create a new one. This one is too lovely for me to let go!
Have a great week!