I’m so excited to finally share with you what I’ve been working on for the past few months. Meet Magnolia, a new premade WordPress theme for creative bloggers & entrepreneurs. Magnolia has an airy, minimalist design, perfect for busy bloggers that want to make their content stand out.
Magnolia is suitable for new bloggers because it has a simple installation process. You don’t have to spend hours trying to figure out how to get the same look as the demo site.
The story
It’s been two years since I launched a WordPress theme and one year since I decided to retire all my premade themes and take a break from web design and development. But when you love something, you can’t stay away from it for a long time.
Magnolia is a new theme that’s based on my most popular WordPress theme, Sarah Jane. It has the same light and airy look, with bold pops of color, but it’s so much more versatile. Just take a look:
The features
Customizable homepage
Magnolia’s homepage has three widget areas before the blog posts:
- a call to action widget area where you can upload your favorite image
- a flexible widget area that you can use for featured posts or pages
- a horizontal subscription form
You can use all of them, like the demo site, just the blog, or a combination of the four.
Customizable blog page
One of my favorite features of the theme is the customizable blog page. You can show full posts or excerpts. If you choose to show excerpts, you can show them in a single column, in two columns, or three columns (with or without the sidebar). You can also remove the date and meta description from the blog page, and change the position of the featured image.
Customizable archives
The archive pages (categories, tags, author pages, and search pages) can also be customized. You can show between one and four columns, remove the date, meta description, content, and title, and change the position of the featured images.
You can even display them as image galleries without an extra plugin.
Subscription forms
Magnolia works well with the Genesis eNews Extended plugin and has a few widget areas where you can use it.
This is my favorite email subscription widget because you can use it with your favorite newsletter provider.
WooCommerce ready
Like most Genesis child themes, Magnolia works with the WooCommerce plugin so you can easily open your own shop. Just install WooCommerce, set up your shop, and add new products.
Customizable footer
The theme has three footer widget areas where you can add text, subscription forms, a custom menu, or your favorite widgets.
It also comes with a full-width horizontal widget area that’s built for showcasing your latest Instagram posts. Although, if you don’t use Instagram, you can add a custom menu or just leave it empty.
Matches your brand
Using the live theme customizer, you can change your theme’s fonts and colors, upload your own logo, and use a hero image that matches your brand.
Easy to install
Magnolia is very simple to install. Just upload the theme, install and activate the recommended plugins, and import the widgets and demo content (if you don’t have content). In only a couple of minutes, your blog will look like the demo site.
Magnolia has many other features that are waiting for you to discover them.
Find Magnolia – Premade WordPress theme in the shop
Want to give your blog and shop a new look this spring? You can find the Magnolia theme in the shop, on Etsy, and on Creative Market.
Hello team/dev,
You made really great stuff with Genesis theme.
Hope that give you more sales with this new WordPress theme.
Regards,
Alkesh
Thank you, Alkesh!
Can you do a tutorial on how to make a wordpress theme? 🙂
Hi, Sandra! This is a complex topic that probably works better as a course, so I won’t write about it anytime soon.
Here are some great websites that teach you how to make a theme: https://www.elancreativeco.com/learn-web-design-and-development/