Posts by rubiqube

Don’t mention it! I actually enjoy writing and this is a great way to interact, get some feedback myself and learn more about what users want. I think I’ll jump in the forums a lot more.

The slider text is indeed Salient reminiscent, but other than that… they’re pretty distinct, yeah.

Exactly! I think the switch to a slider works really well on mobile, so aesthetically and functionally I don’t find much wrong with the theme, so it’s either something about how the content is managed (is there a theme options panel or does it support the new Theme Customizer?) or maybe the review team just wanted you to work on the finer details. Here are some ideas from me:

- Try to get rid of the menu overall menu underline and just stick with the one for rollover, maybe just a bit thinner.

- At very narrow screen sizes (phone), the slider caption font size is really small, maybe remove it altogether or find another way to show it?

- I like the clean look of the area with icons, but without some separation, it’s hard to focus on something. Try to add some separation, even something very subtle, like a corner shadow or something. Similar to what you have for that section’s bottom separator.

- In fact, I would ditch the subtle shadow that separates sections (and use a straight line only), because the way it’s used now suggests the sections are stacked on top of each other. This doesn’t really jell with the menu shadow anyway.

- Replace the remaining “lorem ipsum” with something else. You won’t believe how much this influences someone subconsciously into thinking this looks unfinished. As a general rule, I always try to imagine a use case for my theme and use text that would be appropriate for that, at least for headings and larger text.

- Go back and rework some of the finer details, such as spacing / padding for the blog post footer or the comments icon. The tweets widget could use a bit of spacing and more styling.

- The footer could use a bit of work: try a subtle pattern for the background, try something with the widget titles (maybe introduce a bit of color) and definitely change the font color so that’s consistent across all widgets. Now you have links in white and color, plus text in white and grey. Maybe dotted (or more subtle) underline for the recent posts? The footer might actually be the area that reviewers were hinting at.

This might seem like a lot of observations, but it’s mostly minor stuff and I struggled a bit. But since all this is subjective, it can also make it or break it and a reviewer might see these small tweaks as an improvement over the previous iteration.

I would also say to try and contact support and see if you can find more details regarding why was the theme rejected, but I suspect you won’t get specifics, just general guidelines. So your best bet might be to update and resubmit, but make sure you explain what you changed and how that impacts the design.

Good luck and I really hope to see this one approved, I might use it for a future project. Now it’s back to the drawing board for me as well.

Later Edit: What SurmountStudios said! Definitely style the error messages for Contact Form 7 too, the defaults aren’t pretty.

First of all, let me just start by saying that I really like your design. While it’s not 100% original (but these days nothing is 100%, everything is a remix!), I think you have some interesting ideas in terms of layout and I think it’s a theme that can be easily customized. For me and for a lot of theme buyers that is key! I don’t know what’s going on in the backend (I assume this is a WordPress theme?), but aside from some minor alignment / font size issues with the slider text on mobile, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be accepted.

I had my latest theme rejected as well (similar minimalist design, although that just one of five unique skins), so let me try to shed some light on why yours might have been rejected. The reason was “We already have a number of submissions with the same overall design and concept and we have to draw the line somewhere” and then explaining that the design was too minimalist, without being effective, meaning that the theme looked too much like a framework than a full fledged design.

While I do think my design has true potential and was a bit disappointed at first, I will try to improve the theme and come up with some design tweaks. However… here’s where I take issue with the whole “we have to draw the line”, “too much of the same” ideas: I agree with them 100%, but I feel they are applied randomly. Some themes slip through the cracks (I really want to think this is the case), while others get the short end of the stick.

I apologize in advance for posting this on your thread, but I felt your case was a great example: there’s a theme approved a few days ago (that I will of course not name) that’s very similar to yours (one page navigation, simple design). However… that theme looks like something thrown together in a few hours. It’s the most basic of basic themes I’ve recently seen on ThemeForest, the design is amateurish at best and has major usability issues. Yet… it’s there, rocking 0 sales.

And that isn’t an isolated case. There are many other themes approved in the last few days that are very, very similar in design to existing items, yet reviewers didn’t feel they more of the same. Which is fine, but some of these themes simply do not work on mobile. I found one where you couldn’t click portfolio items at all.

Sorry if this sounded harsh, but I really hope someone from the Envato team can jump in and shed some light on how this can happen. I know reviewers don’t have an easy job and I don’t want this to sound like I’m badmouthing their work, but if we’re going to make ThemeForest a “cleaner, better place”, that encourages creative design, let’s do it right and let’s measure everyone using the same ruler. I would gladly have my next themes rejected multiple times if that means less themes in the queues, but better quality overall. Is this the goal or am I just getting this wrong?

That’s it from me!

Any idea why only some of my themes (older ones it seems) benefited from the $5 price increase?

bobocel said

rubiqube said

doru said

bobocel said
I would order romanian food online, here in Spain, because there are not the same products we have there. That’s basically the first thing I’d do.

what food do you want to order that you can’t find in Spain?

Probably ”?uic?” and “mici”! Sorry, this might be funny to Romanian users only.

Actually I don’t like “mici” so much, but yeah, you definitely won’t find that in Europe, unless you are living in a place where a romanian brick-store is. And what’s the point to do that, when you can have one store Europe-wide.

Yeah, I know. My in-laws moved to France more than a year ago and we’ve been sending them packages containing the weirdest things (as in “I never thought I would mail this”), one of them being “sare de lamaie” as a replacement for “bors”.

We’re also moving there in a month, so I’m sure it will be fun! Yeah, they’re full on cheese, but you can’t beat Romanian smoked cheese, cas, etc.

doru said

bobocel said
I would order romanian food online, here in Spain, because there are not the same products we have there. That’s basically the first thing I’d do.

what food do you want to order that you can’t find in Spain?

Probably “tzuica” and “mici”! Sorry, this might be funny to Romanian users only.

@WPScientist Nah, man, yours is awesome! I was talking about themes that basically encourage you to paste complex HTML /CSS code in the editor.

PS: I bought a copy of Nuance just to be able to pick your brain. Decided composers are not my thing, but respect!

And one a bit off topic, but since we’re doing memes…

LandonWilson said

rubiqube said
So a yeah… my post is basically a big thumbs up for Jonathan’s point: design should (also) matter. And to use the cars metaphor to prove this point: why is an Audi A4 way more expensive than let’s say a Ford Focus? They both share a lot of the same features.

German engineering.

Ha ha, nice! So much for that metaphor to prove my point, cause engineering is more like the backbone, the coding.

Anyhow… lots of good examples out there of products with great design and usability priced higher than the competition, even though they have similar features. Don’t wanna say the A word, cause then we’ll definitely shift this thread in another direction, but most of you got one of their products in your pocket. Or on your fancy docks.