for the launch of the italy blog, living siena, i wanted a simple theme for the mephisto publishing system. there are a few theme options available for mephisto, but none that struck me as “yeah, that’s siena,” or, “perfect, i want it.” with that, micro was born.

micro is a simple, one column theme for websites

the sidebar is actually at the bottom of the view; a good place for sites that are just getting started. the theory is, why provide excess navigation for pages that aren’t there yet. people can scroll, we’re used to it.

i once saw a demo on google eye tracking, which showed that people don’t like to move their eyes much. the column is narrow, which nixes the eye movement thing. according to usability folks and doctors of common sense – that’s a good thing.

images

the inner content has a minimum, default width of 500 pixels – just big enough for flickr’s default image size. this makes it perfect for dropping flickr photos into your content, and you don’t have to resize them. if you’re up for resizing, more power to you. in the stylesheet, there are some additional classes that allow you to place two or three square images side by side, auto-centering, and with captions to boot.

skins

the color scheme for micro is neatly tucked away in it’s own stylesheet, making it quick, painless, and fun to create your own theme. like green? roll a green blog. blue? you know what to do.

microformats

supposedly, microformats are gonna change the way we use the web. until then, i’ve implemented hAtom here in support of the movement! viva la mofo, mofo!

more to come

the micro theme was born out of necessity, and to solve a unique problem, as most designs are. i would’nt be surprised if blogland already has a theme similar to micro. in fact, there’s probably one called micro too – if i wasn’t lazy on the google search, i might just find one.

that said, there’s still a little bit of work to do. right now, i’d say that micro is a .7 release. almost ready for prime time, but not quite downloadable yet. check back soon for the micro download, color schemes, and other enhancements.

till then, happy blogging.