2011 – a year of big milestones & happy memories

With only 3 days left of this year we thought it only fitting to sum up the whirlwind year that was 2011. I asked a few of the WooTeam members what their favourite themes were, and their favourite moments in the year, to summarise how much we actually packed into the last 365 days. In no particular order:

Ryan Cannon Ray

I’m going to go with Wikeasi as my favorite theme of this year. It’s a hard choice to pick over other releases like SupportPress/FaultPress and our first responsive themes, but I was tasked with this theme brief during our WooTrip. Thus the research I did into it leaves a special place in my heart for Wikeasi. It was then cool to see that turned into a beautiful and functional theme thanks to Chris Rowe and our ninjas.

Our London WooTrip was definitely my favorite moment. I had only been with WooThemes for about 3 months and I was already jet setting to London. It was so awesome to finally meet everyone at WooThemes face to face, and of course was a great week in London.

Mike Krapf

Wow! It’s so hard to pick a favorite theme as there were so many! f I had to pick one, it would be Kaboodle, for the subtle texture, design and muted colors which really allows the content to shine through.

This has been an amazing year at WooThemes!!! We finally launched the new backend, added new ninjas, released WooCommerce, etc., but my absolute favorite part was the WooTrip. It was such a pleasure meeting the entire WooTeam and getting to know everyone. The trip was a good combination of business and pleasure and having the opportunity to meet some of the WooThemes users was an added bonus.

Scott Webb

My fave theme from the year would end up being Emporium. I love it’s flexibility due to designed specifically for WooCommerce. I customized my version to have a photoblog/portfolio custom post types in the back but I love it even without those changes. I love that WooCommerce works perfectly and allows for blogs to become artisan store fronts.

My fave moment has to be the opportunity to work with WooThemes and then followed by joining the team to work as a WooThemes Ninja. Close second is launch of WooCommerce as I find it’s gone deeper into WordPress and what WooThemes is doing for it’s users.

Mike Jolley

FaultPress has to be my favourite theme because of what it started. It may not have been as popular as Supportpress because of its niche appeal, but it was the first theme I worked on for Woo, the first responsive theme, and the first to utilise LESS CSS. Certainly a milestone release.

My favourite moment was probably the end of our first month after launching WooCommerce. Seeing its popularity in terms of both downloads and sales was highly motivational, and its always nice to get the thumbs up from the bossmen!

Daniel Dudzic

Favourite theme of 2011: Canvas V4 – I’m using it in almost every project saved me hours in development 🙂

Favourite moment: Joining the WooTeam. It was my kind of a small dream, to join WooThemes 🙂 People have been very kind and supportive during the past 3 months. The atmosphere in the team is awesome, and I’m really exited to work with such talented devs & designers. Can’t wait to visit you all in WooHQ 🙂

Sven Hutchinson

For me obviously the highlight has been joining the absolutely awesome WooTeam! I have loved the responsive and app themes that have been produced. Also, seeing the rate at which the woocommunity have been putting together sites using WooCommerce in the blink of an eye!

My favourite theme was FaultPress, a real ground breaker!

Jeffrey Pearce

From a Woo perspective it would have to be the WooTrip and learning from the technical talks at DIBI. But from an actual hard work perspective I’d say the rate of growth that we achieved while maintaining our support level is pretty awesome, as well as rolling out the new backend and responding to bugs/feature requests for it. That was stressful but impressive as to how we responded as a company – not always pretty but we were pretty effective in my opinion.

Magnus Jepson

Favorite theme Currents because of the clean and crisp design and great use of google fonts, and also the story behind the theme. It was our first normal theme to be responsive and to use Less CSS.

Favorite moment was meeting all 10 members of the WooTeam in London, being gathered for the first time all at once, getting a chance to know the people behind the avatars we see every day online.

James Koster

My favourite theme of 2011 is SupportPress. I think we really pushed the boundaries of what is possible not only with WordPress, but (at the time) with html5 and css3 delivering a feature-rich, responsive theme which transforms WP into a kick-ass help desk app.

Hard to say what my favourite moment was! I guess overall my favourite moment was actually joining the WooTeam full time. But launching WooCommerce and meeting you guys (albeit briefly) at DIBI are up there too!

Kirstin Pauk

Favourite theme: Kaboodle. Why? Without doubt one of the best business/portfolio designs that WooThemes has released. Not only is the clean design cool but it’s jam packed with features and now with the kaboodle commerce theme it’s become one of the best all round themes.

Highlight of 2011: Launch of the new backend and forum. It’s unique, easy to use and alot less complicated than the previous backend.

Matt Cohen

I’d say, regarding my favourite themes, I’d notch it up to both the Canvas revamp, which was a particularly fun and intriguing project for me with all the additions, refinements and considerations that needed to go into it, as well as Wikeasi, which was, for me, a release that was elegant and quite avant garde, in that no-one had really attempted a theme with those features before.

Other highlights from a code perspective include the Editorial columns functionality and the unique approach to Announcement.

Highlights include the WooTrip, for certain. In particular, meeting everyone for the first time, our evening out at Picadilly Circus and DIBI. Included in that are the Shelley Point trip in January and the inclusion of another animal into the WooPen (along with the «Hoender» otherwise known as Jeff), in Mole (Warren).

Tiago Noronha

My favorite theme was Teamster, the reason because it kinda shows the power of WordPress as a multi-author blog where each user has their own user profile, portfolio page, etc.

My favorite moment was definitively the WooTrip. It was was awesome to get to know everyone. The group meeting we had in the hotel conference room was great because we never get the chance to do that kind of brainstorming…

Adii Pienaar

For me the highlight of 2011 was the launch of the new backend after 16 months in development, along with growing the team from 10 to 17 members this year. And WooCommerce of course.

My favourite release of this year was Currents, and especially acquiring the design.

Mark Forrester

For myself one of my favourite moments must have been our WooParty in London where we invited the local UK community to join us for an evening of beers, WordPress chat and ten pin bowling. I never expected 50+ people to show up in a town foreign to most our team. It was great engaging with, and getting to know the people behind the online avatars.

My favourite theme was probably the the beautiful Announcement theme, and brainstorming it’s widgetized homepage modules and various announcement themed homepage layouts.

2012 is going to be a year filled with many more big milestones and new, innovative product launches. We are excited.

About

Mark Forrester

I'm a proud co-founder of WooThemes, based at our headquarters in beautiful Cape Town. I'm also a keen photographer, goofy dad and avid sports fan.

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