The WordPress theme Basic Maths, created by Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole, features an underlying grid system.

Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole released Basic Maths, a  theme for the popular blogging platform WordPress, back in November. Vinh is the Design Director for the New York Times’ online edition; he also runs the popular blog Subtraction.com. Vinh gets a lot of attention because of Subtraction.com’s custom design: it is clean and accessible. So, to fill a hole in the market, he designed Basic Maths in the spirit of his blog. Basic Maths is on sale ($30 instead of $45) until December 31.

Writer’s Note: I haven’t purchased or installed Basic Maths, so I haven’t used it. It runs on WordPress, which is what we use here at The Journal. WordPress is a powerful publishing tool, has a beautiful back end and is very user friendly. Vinh and Cole have a demo of Basic Maths to show it off.

In A Nutshell

Basic Maths has a few major selling points: microformat friendliness, well-commented code, clean widget integration, generous tag and category display, customizable color scheming and grid-based layout. The fully functional demo displays every imaginable type of content (images, headers, lists, block quotes, etc). You can view the documentation, and there is a very extensive explanation on how to integrate images.

Cleanliness and usability are central to Basic Maths. That grid-based layout makes for a clean, functional design. In Vinh’s words:

This theme is all about displaying your content in the most stunning way possible, and the core of that is a flexible layout grid that informs the layout of every element.

He even walks readers through the design process, showing the evolution of the theme and explaining each design decision along the way.

A Closer Look

Basic Maths is reminiscent of a newspaper layout. It is very accessible – transparent, even. The underlying grid provides great unity to the theme. Placement within the grid is thought out, so readers can easily find where everything is.

A set of tabs across the top provide a place for Contact Information, an About page or anything else a blogger would need. The blog title really stands out due to its size and location, but it works in that it doesn’t distract from content.

There is clear access to tags and archives on the front page, and the archives page is clean and successful. This, combined with the search field, makes finding anything easy.

Great attention is given to title and text size. Everything is just right, nothing is overbearing. The line length for body copy is ideal, making reading a breeze instead of a chore.

All of the design decisions have really been made to generously support the content. The white space on the left works to the content’s advantage, and visuals are given a leading role.

The theme works well with multiple browsers. It looks virtually the same on Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari, and Internet Explorer 7.

As with anything, Basic Maths has its downfalls. One of the main selling points, the grid toggling, doesn’t seem to work. There are issues with text baselines and horizontal rules not lining up perfectly. Hovering over links in the Top Tags area is a bit screwy. The set width is also rather narrow for increasingly higher resolution screens.

General Impressions

Basic Maths is everything a good blog template should be without all that additional design fluff so common in many themes. It may look empty, but this is good. Consider it a spacious sedan for words and images. Attention is directed to the content instead of oppressive, gimmickey backgrounds, headers, sidebars and widgets. The downfalls should certainly be considered, but these are minor issues considering Basic Math’s many merits.

The theme was designed with the reader and user in mind, and this shows. Vinh and Cole created something of great utility. Basic Maths is suitable for, basically, any blogging need.

Take a look at a couple of free WordPress themes, like the popular Mystique or LightWord, and compare them to Basic Maths: the difference is clear.

This is why I am surprised that nobody seems to be using Basic Maths.

Mystique, a free theme for WordPress.

LightWord, another free theme offered by WordPress.

Theme in Action

Basic Maths received a lot of attention and praise on Subtraction.com, a couple design blogs, and Twitter. However, I had to search hard to find people using Basic Maths. Here are the only four I found:

1. Rob’s notebook, the personal blog of journalism student Rob Wells,
2. Nonformality, a European education and learning blog,
3. Last Straw, the political and personal blog of Christiaan Briggs, and
4. Bert’s Blog, Bert Vanderveen’s blog (in Dutch).

Nonformality as of Tuesday, December 29th. Note the use of align-right images.

These are really poor examples of the Basic Maths framework. Rob’s notebook and Nonformality include pictures right below the blog title. This looks bad because it is out of place and distracts from the main content. The image use on Nonformality isn’t effective, which is dissappointing after so much effort was made in explaining how to use images. Date stamps and text are all over the place on Last Straw, ruining the precision and cleanliness of Basic Maths. Berg’s Blog actually isn’t that bad, but the light green isn’t the best color choice.

Most of these blogs deactivated the calendar and archiving widgets that make the theme initially intuitive. Basic Maths is set up to handle images with care and grace; none of these examples take advantage of this. (Would you read a newspaper or magazine without pictures? Probably not.)

Speculations On Bloggers

This comes back to the public’s appreciation of design. A blogger may look at Basic Maths and ask themselves: why spend extra when I can get a free theme that looks way cooler? Blame it on advertising, DIY home publishing or what-will-you: people want flashy over functional, multi-colored over modest, and free over forty-five.

Cost & Considerations

It is expected that designers will want to come up with something especially suited for their uses.

For everyone else that doesn’t design or code, Basic Maths is a fantastic option to consider. The cost of Basic Maths is negligible, especially considering the amount of effort and design that went into it. The cost of presenting content in a legible manner is definitely worth it for blog readers. Blog design also has a major role in attracting and retaining readers.

So, bloggers: don’t just look at it, consider it. Look at the documentation and demo; make your blog shine.

And, designers: don’t just admire it, suggest it.

This entry is an opinion piece and may not represent the beliefs of other Inksie staff members. If you have any insight, please leave a comment. Also, if you or somebody you know uses the WordPress theme Basic Maths, please leave us a link.