Simple Style Photography WordPress Theme
Published in WordPress ThemesUPDATE: Our Simple Style Photography WordPress theme is now responsive! With this theme your website will be ready for visitors using smartphones and tablets in addition to desktops and laptops.
With the free Simple Style WordPress theme you can showcase your photos on a clean, professional website. The theme was designed in a minimalist style to allow for your amazing photos to take center stage. With either color scheme (light or dark) you can have a site that shows your photos in a stylish way.
Theme features include:
- 2 color schemes (light and dark)
- Customizable slideshow on homepage
- Customizable photo galleries
- Upload your own logo, or display site name in text
- Widget-ready sidebar
- Responsive layout
The Simple Style theme gives you the ability to set up a customized theme without the cost. The homepage slideshow is perfect for showing off your work, and you can easily change the photos in the slideshow at any time. The transition effect can also be set right from the WordPress dashboard.
The theme comes with two color schemes, light and dark (scroll down to see more screenshots). You can create galleries for each of the different types of photos that you specialize in, and they are displayed in an attractive lightbox gallery.
With WordPress, your portfolio site can also include a blog. Each blog post can (optionally) include a featured photo that will be displayed above all of the content, another great way to showcase your work.
The theme uses WordPress’s custom navigation menu functionality, so you have full control over the links that are included in the navigation menu. The menu is designed and coded to support drop downs. In the footer you can enter custom text, ideal for copyright notices and contact information.
Additional screenshots are shown below.
Documentation for the theme is available here. Also, see our documentation index page.
View the theme demo | Download for free
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More Screenshots:
Example photo gallery
Example blog post with featured image
Homepage in light color scheme
73 Responses
Simple and nice theme thanks. What plug in you suggest for e-commerce?
Hi Saya,
I don’t have extensive experience with WordPress e-commerce plugins, but in general I would recommend WooCommerce or Cart66. We have a WordPress-based site that we use E-Junkie for e-commerce rather than a plugin.
i was using photoshot. It is buggy, hangs all the time and eats up all the bandwidth. Hope your theme helps me.
Awesome stuff
Nice theme, especially i like the light scheme
that’s really cool theme..
black is my favorite color..
i m enjoy to use it..
thanks
Great responsive theme, thank you. But I would have used FancyBox instead. It’s just as responsive on photo enlargement for handhelds.
Great Job and thanks again.
Thank you so much for this theme!
Is it possible for you to have a look at this site, I have just started work on it and it’s my first exposure to this theme: http://carpediempix.com
Q1: The images on the HOME page does not display fully in the white area, although their size is 1200 x 800 (when viewed in Firefox 14.1 – but it works great in IE 8. Is there a work-around to this problem? I followed the instructions provided accurately…
Q2: When I add the last page “Specials”, the menu-item ends up in the next line below the menu on the home page. I added my own logo which is 352 x 88. Is there a way I can fit in “Specials” ?
Q3. The theme allows 2 color options – dark / light. I would like to change the background to 4d4d4d and the dropdown menu to bfbfbf. Where do I edit this – in the dark / light.css files?
I would appreciate it SO MUCH if you can help me out on these questions.
Kind regards,
Maartin
Hi Maartin,
Here are my responses to your questions:
1 – It’s possible that there is a compatibility issue with the latest version of Firefox. The theme was completed prior to that release. I am using 14.0.1 and I see what you are asking about. When I test our demo site in Firefox 14.0.1 I don’t see the same issue. If you send your WordPress username and password to info@vandelaydesign.com I will login and see if I can find the problem.
2 – You can create drop downs when the nav menus is getting too long. Instructions for setting up the custom menu are in the documentation.
3 – In the Styles folder you’ll see a CSS file for each color scheme. You can make your edits there. Or you could use a child theme if you are familiar with that process.
WOW! Thanks for the lightning fast response!
Email sent
Regards
Maartin
Maartin,
The issue is being caused by your navigation menu that is extending onto the second line. I logged in and set up the menu to be on one line and it takes care of the issue with the slider in Firefox. You can find instructions for editing the menu in the theme documentation.
Hi,
Great theme, love it… just a one issue:
When I add a link to the footer text (via the theme options) the link is messed up i.e. it prepends the site URL before the external link.
Any way around this?
Thanks
Jim
Hi Jim,
That footer text area isn’t really intended for using links. You can change it if you don’t mind opening one of the theme files. From the WP dashboard go to Appearance > Editor and click on “Footer” in the list of templates/files to the right. Then find this code:
And replace it with your text/link and save it.
Hi. I love this template but I find myself stymied by not being able to create a gallery. I’ve tried several times and whenever I try to view it, I get a 404 error. The photos are there, I can view the changes, but there’s no gallery. I already went to the menus and made sure the “gallery” button was checked in the header navigation menu.
HELP!
Update: I made it work by deleting all the photos and uploading them again!
nice theme.wanna try something on my wordpress blog.
This is a great theme and suits my desire for a simple theme to publish my photos for family and friends.
I am using NextGen for my galleries – I was using it with another theme – and while they incorporate well in the Simple Style theme, using the slideshow option for the galleries is virtually unusable as it just doesn’t happen. Individual photos pop up quickly so is there anything I can do to make the slideshow work properly?
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
The theme is designed to use it’s own gallery and slideshow functionality. It hasn’t been tested with NextGen or any other gallery plugins because of these built-in features, so I can’t really say why the plugin galleries wouldn’t be working.
Thanks for the very prompt reply!!
I only have a couple of galleries so will try the in-built ones.
Cheers!!
Chris
Hi Steven
I have created a test gallery WM using the documentation on the theme and added some photos but when I access it I get an Error-404, page not found.
I noticed in your documentation on adding items to the menu you have a page My Work and under that, indented as a gallery sub-page, Landscapes gallery.
I tried the same creating a page Photos and adding WM as a gallery sub-page.
Initially I added the gallery WM to the menu on its own, but I still get the Error-404.
I have reloaded the photos, tried different photos with no luck.
I suspect I am dong something wrong and would appreciate any advice you may have.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
What are you using for the permalink settings? In the general WP settings section of the documentation we recommend setting permalinks to postname. If you’ve tried that and still having problems you can send me an email to info@vandelaydesign.com with your WP username and password and I will take a look at it.
Thanks Steven, that worked a treat!! I will now go through the remaining settings for Wp in your excellent docco.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Steven
One last question – I hope – on the galleries. Is there any way to sort the photos by date taken or shot number? I have had a good look around and can’t see how to do it.
Cheers
Chris
Hi Chris,
They’re shown in the order that they are uploaded, with the most recent being first. The gallery items are a custom post type, so they are displayed the same way that blog posts would be displayed, most recent first. If you wanted to change that you would need to edit the PHP code for the taxonomy template file.
Thanks Steven, I’ll check it out.
Hi Steven
I have sorted the order issue thanks but from the start I have not been able to show the Tag line below the Title.
I believe everything is as it should be but the Tag line will not display.
Is there something else I should be doing?
Cheers
Chris
Chris,
The theme is coded to only show the title. If you want the tagline to show below the title you would need to add the WordPress code to display the tagline.
Thanks Steve. I’ll check it out.
Hi Steven. Thank you for a great theme.
One thing I have noticed so far is when you add text with apostrophe (‘) in Footer Custom Text, it gives you symbol “\” before the apostrophe itself as well.
For example:
“photographer’s permission.”
becomes
“photographer\’s permission.”
Any idea how to fix this bug? or could you please tell me what php file handles this option?
Many thanks,
George
Hi Steven.
Please ignore my previous question.
By using ' instead of keyboard solved the problem.
Many thanks
George
I meant “'”
Sorry doesn’t display correctly. What I meant is an HTML symbol for apostrophe.
George,
You can find a list of special HTML characters here – http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/htmlchrc.html
Very good and professional theme. Thx.
Hi Steven,
First of all, this is an amazing template.
I have a answer. Is it possible to change the red text?
Thanks in advance.
André
Andre,
If you’re asking about changing the color of the text you can do that by editing the CSS of the theme.
I really like this theme; thank-you.
Is there a way to get the thumbnail images on gallery pages to display correctly for portrait orientation?
Example: http://www.dsbcreations.com/gallery/horses/
Notice the photos taken in ‘portrait’ are cut off.
Clicking the image displays the image properly. I’ve tried to edit the thumb nail (in the image’s options in the media list) but that had no effect.
Thanks,
John
Thanks for the very fast answer.
Regards,
Andre
Hi John,
The thumbnails are created by resizing the photo and then taking the middle of the photo if it needs to be cropped. Since the thumbnails are in landscape mode that means that the top and bottom get cropped on portrait photos. You would need to customize the theme to change this.
Thanks, Steven.
I’m digging into the theme. I’m pretty comfortable with php but pretty new to the wp world so it may take me a bit to work it out.
I’ll be happy to make my changes available to others if I get it, though I’m not certain what works for me will suit anyone else. Something to give some thought to, though…that portrait orientation shots need to be displayed properly.
Regards,
John
Hi Steven, great theme! I really like the simple, no-nonsense style. Also the responsiveness is a great asset to have in a theme nowadays. Only flaw in my opinion is that enlarged images don’t scale down to accommodate smaller screens
Is there a way to make the images fit on mobile phones?
I tried using a different lightbox plugin to counter this issue but the theme doesn’t let me. Is there any way to deactivate the theme’s default lightbox so I can use a different lightbox plugin?
Hi Mario,
I haven’t tried to use any lightbox plugin so I can’t say for sure, but you would probably have to make some customizations to the theme.
Hi Steve,
I love the theme! However, I’m having a difficult time uploading it. I downloaded the theme from your site just fine, but when I choose to upload it, wordpress will not let me choose the entire simple style folder. There are only the .php and .css files that it will let me choose, and that doesn’t help. I know there must be an easy fix…
Thank you,
Sandy
Hi Sandy,
Are you trying to upload it as a zip file or just as the theme folder? If you upload the zip file it should work. I’ve tested it and it is working for me. The other option is to upload the theme folder (after unzipped) via FTP to the wp-contents > themes folder.
Nice theme but even better, nice, clear documentation…
A question;
I do wedding videography.
I am wondering if on a page like this one:
http://vandelaydesign.net/simple-style-responsive/gallery/architecture/
I could post Vimeo embed code so my video thumbnails would show here instead of the photos.
Or do you have a template geared more towards video?
Hi Jamison,
The theme gallery does not support video. At this point we only have photography themes and church/non-profit themes, so we don’t have anything that is geared towards video.
Hi Steven,
I really like this theme!
Ik have but one question: In the gallery pages the word “Photography” in for example “Landscapes Photography” seems to be hard coded. Perhaps I am doing something wrong? If not, in which file can I fix this?
Regards,
Frits
Hi Frits,
It is in the taxonomy.php file.
I’m in the process of building my site and am trying to change the hover text color. I see the original is #7f251f, and have found there are three different areas in the css and i have changed them all, but the hover color is not changing. Am I missing something?
Thanks!
An update: I think the original is #ba251c, but I’m still at a loss after trying to add my own css or update anything in the css.
Holly,
The theme has multiple stylesheets because of the 2 different color schemes. In addition to the main style.css file there is also a folder called “styles” and inside that folder is white.css and black.css. You’ll need to edit the link hover color here.
how can I add a custom menu to the footer?
I have added the code, but it diisplays below the footer text which is my copyright notice. Here is the code:
<!– start footer
‘footer-menu’) ); ?>
‘footer-menu’) ); ?>
<?php if ( get_option( 'photography_footertext' ) “” ) { echo get_option( ‘photography_footertext’ ); } else { ?>
<?php if ( get_option('photography_google_analytics') “” ) { echo stripslashes(get_option(‘photography_google_analytics’)); } ?>
–>
Gisel,
If you want the nav menu to appear above the footer text you’ll need to add the code for the menu before the code for the footer text.
Thank you very much for these!
I was wondering if there was a way to show image’s on the main blog post page. Since my site is more visual that is more important than words.
Like a thumbnail or something.
Thanks… great theme
Hi John,
If you include the image in the post excerpt it will show up. The excerpt uses HTML, so you would have to copy and paste the HTML.
Loving this theme, I just had a quick question. I am trying to edit the size of the slideshow, 940×580. I’ve read all the comments and see you mentioned to go into the css and the files, under js and slides. I’m not seeing where to edit this in the files. If you could please point me in the right direction. My images are being cropped when I upload them in the slideshow. Thanks for your help!
Hi Holly,
If you wanted to avoid having the images cropped for the slideshow you can size them to 940 x 580 before uploading. That way you’ll have control over what shown rather than allowing it to auto crop. As far as changing the size/dimensions of the slider, there is not much else that I can do. We don’t provide support for theme customizations because there are endless customizations that users would be able to make and we simply don’t have the time to support a free theme in this way. If you’re comfortable editing the code of the theme you make any changes that you’d like.
I believe that simpler themes are better and feel good . will be using one of your themes for sure. thankyou
Hello,
Very nice theme.
This question concerns all your themes.
Is it possible to activate automatically galleries slideshows on by setting the playback time?
Thank you in advance for your answer
Hi Lebreton,
I’m not sure I understand your question. You can set the amount of time between slides if that’s what you are asking.
Thank you for your answer
But where is this setting?
Thank you in advance
It’s in the slider settings in the theme options.
Hello,
please, I have a question. I don´t know how to use Search widget. I would like to search images I have already uploaded to my page. It is possible to write metadatas like tags to identify each images? It is possible to search for an image with these metadatas?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Raquel,
The WordPress search function does not search photos. I’m not aware of any way to edit the search function to do this, although it may be possible.
Hello Steven,
ok, thank you very much for your quick answer.
I do love this theme just a pity that it hasn’t been tested with nextgen gallery as I was recommended nextgen and have already uploaded my photos. If there was an easier way to bulk upload on this theme or transfer my photos from nextgen I would continue to use it. As it is I am having to look for another theme. Shame
actually solved my problem as I upgraded to the latest nextgen plugin and the slideshow works
I really love this theme. Nice and simple. Thanks for sharing! One question, is there any way to add a widget to very bottom right of home page/pages? A bit lower than the available theme option footer? Thanks!!
Hi Lisa,
You would have to add that widget area into the code of the theme.
Beautiful theme…. Thanks for Sharing !!!
I have the same question that john… but it’s not work
“Hi John,
If you include the image in the post excerpt it will show up. The excerpt uses HTML, so you would have to copy and paste the HTML.”
I’m not an expert in html. Can you give me the code please ?
Thank you
Hi Milo,
I can’t give you the code because it will come from your post. Flip to the HTML tab in the WordPress editor and copy the part that you want to use as the excerpt. Then paste it in to the excerpt area before publishing the post.
Thank you very much Steven !!!
It’s work perfectly now…..
In fact, I’m a novice with wordpress and the excerpt was not activated in my option.