The Scourge of Kubrik
May 24, 2005 | 
31 Comments
I see Kubrik everywhere! I mean, everywhere. It’s a great template, or “theme”, don’t get me wrong, but really, I swear, if I see another new Kubrick themed site I’m going to…well, I don’t know, but it’s not going to be good.
One of my original hang-ups in looking at Wordpress and Drupal that rely a bit heavily on “themes” is that they tend to produce and end design that looks a bit vanilla if it’s even original at all. Now I realize that this is 100% the fault of the user, but, as I can attest, these systems make it too damn easy to go with a theme and a bit to hard to go with a custom design.
Too Damn Easy
I can see the attraction of themes like Kubrik for those who aren’t designers, hell, it’s attractive to me too as it saves me so much time.
Just look at iPodarmy. It’s pretty plain, in part because I just edited a theme and, well, called it a day. I’m so focused on content right now, these themes are great in the sense that they can get me up and running and looking ok, but my overall design suffers because it’s just too damn easy.
At some point I’m going to have to go back and redesign and now I’m wondering if it might have been better just to learn the system and go with something more original to begin with.
Now that I’ve spent some time with Wordpress and gotten my mind around it a bit more, I can see how to more easily tackle a custom design. Drupal on the other-hand remains a mystery. Either way, the one thing I know is that people need to avoid themes (especially Kubrik—no offense Michael) like the plague if they want to have any sort of differentiation for their site.
Themes can be great, but they can also heap your site right into a pack of mediocre, look-a-likes, which, especially in the long run, isn’t a good idea. I realize and truly believe the content is the most important, but when it comes to themes like Kubrik (which is only “bad” because it’s EVERYWHERE) I have to draw the line.
Easy doesn’t always equal better. Do something different. I know I need to.
Filed under: Web Design
Keyword Tags: kubrik wordpress drupal themes design
Comments
1. Hermann said:
Like they say, too much of something is never good.
I guess there isn’t much to do about it, I’m pretty sure Wordpress wouldn’t be as popular if it didn’t come with a theme and forced you do go look for one and install it before you could do anything. Where you draw the line…
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:15 AM | #
2. Remi said:
I guess the theme would be as popular as the other WordPress themes if it wasn’t the default WP one ;)
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:37 AM | #
3. Mikkel said:
I’m sure TextPattern would be a lot more popular, if it came with something that simply looked like a theme. Right now, it’s just showing an article and a search box.
My guess is, that some people choose wordpress, simply because they don’t have to do anything to make it look good .. It already does.
But too much Kubrick makes Kubrick ugly. Which it isn’t.
I, as an example, do not have a single site using a default theme in my bookmarks nor feeds.
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:42 AM | #
4. Bob said:
In an effort to get the new Wordpress up and running, I went with Kubrick for about half a day while I searched the ‘net for other themes to use in its place. In the end, I settled on Quentin, which is nice, certainly different from Kubrick, and yes, too damn easy. It’s the same reason I went out and grabbed a three-column liquid CSS template for my new site – I can add the pretty bells and whistles in with the content, but getting the basic layout done would have taken too long, and I’m already feeling the pressure of getting the site done so I can release it to the public.
One of these days, I’ll scrap Quentin in favor of a hand-rolled design for bobsawyer.com. Until then, at least it’s not Kubrick.
(PS: Love the live preview!)
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:45 AM | #
5. Matthom said:
I develop my blog by hand - all the way down to the commenting system and RSS feeds.
Ever since WordPress came about, I’ve been torn in between - should I continue the long developing hours of hand-coding my site - or should I just “get on with life,” and use WordPress?
The better WordPress gets, the more I just want to end the constant headaches of developing my site by hand. But I enjoy it - that’s why I’m torn.
I’m curious (since I’ve never used it) - how does MovableType handle the “template” thing?
I see WordPress as a great thing, but it’s also “saturating” the web with “bland looking” sites, at the expense of advanced features and very little (if any) development time.
We all have to decide, for ourselves, if the trade-off is worth it.
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:46 AM | #
6. DD said:
Nothing to take away from Kubrick but I don’t believe it would be so popular if it wasn’t the default theme in WP 1.5 – I have seen much better designs, as I am sure you have. However some people either don’t have the time to create their own design or simply don’t know how as they may not be web developers.
WordPress versions prior to 1.5 had an ugly default theme which was there purposely in order to push people to create their own blogging identity and uniqueness on the internet. But I guess as WP has grown as one of the most popular blogging solutions they were pressed to give bloggers and “out-of-the-box” solution that also looked good for most part.
Although I too have to admit that I have been running Kubrick since the 1.5 release simply because I don’t have the time to design anything at the moment – as the time I do have I spend on writing content for my blog.
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:56 AM | #
7. Jaro said:
txp will have a theme support too. not sure when though, i guess there are some other priorities at the moment but it was promised by Dean, the main developer. it will surely ‘commercialize’ textpattern. i guess it’s a good thing, though.
personally when i come across a site which is using a default template i immediately leave the site. i would better read unstyled site than the kubrick-styled one.
Posted on May 24, 2005 11:59 AM | #
8. Greg said:
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one that struggled with Drupal’s theming system.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:13 PM | #
9. Adam Thody said:
I think there are maybe some misconceptions about WordPress that need clearing up.
I use WordPress not only for blogging, but also as a basic CMS for some sites ever since 1.5 came out with “Pages”. It’s extremely easy to skin with your own custom designs, and the template tags offer the flexibility to do pretty much whatever you want with the look of your site.
That being said, I think the reason we see a plethora of sites with the same theme is there are people out there who *gasp* don’t really care about the “look” of their site. They don’t want to put in the effort or have the expertise to use a look of their own, so they use the next best thing. I’m not one of those people…I can’t sleep unless I redesign every 3-4 months, but they’re out there.
WordPress didn’t make these people. They’ve been around forever, and show up in all sorts of different places, and buy and use what everyone else is buying and using. You may have seen these people going into the local Gap.
The point is not everyone cares about individuality as much as we do, some people just want things to look “nice”, and themes do that for them (not that there’s nothing wrong with that).
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:19 PM | #
10. Michele said:
I’ve just written a post on my blog to reply to your post.
I think you’re right, but unfortunately not everybody has the ability to design a good theme. That’s why I think Wordpress should let the user choose the theme to use at install time. Wouldn’t it be nice?
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:19 PM | #
11. Keith said:
DD – I know how you feel, I do. It’s just that when I see Kubrik, I almost have a negative connotation now. Not because it’s bad at all, but just because it’s soooo common. Still, I can’t argue with putting content first.
Matthom – Movable Type has some default templates you can use, but it’s a bit different in that it builds out mulitple static files based on the templates you use.
This has pros and cons. For me it lets me develop templates the way I would for any other Web project and just “hook” MT into them. Wordpress is a bit different, and it took me a bit to get the hang of it. I’m still no where near as adept at dealing with WP as I am with MT.
Part of it is the technology and part is my design process. Themes don’t really fit my usual way of working very well. But they are easy.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:24 PM | #
12. Keith said:
Adam – I hear ya. But I disagree that WP is all that easy to customize. It wasn’t for me, at least not from scratch. Add to that the ease and relative quality of themes and you’ve got a situation that almost tempts you not to design.
Michele – Agreed and that would probably make Kubrik a bit less common, that’s for sure.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:29 PM | #
13. Craig C. said:
One good thing about the old default theme in WP 1.2… it was so horribly ugly it strongly encouraged (practically BEGGED) every WP blogger to design something new.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:43 PM | #
14. Adam Thody said:
Keith - I guess it’s all relative…compared to many other apps I’ve worked with over the years I personally found WP pretty decent when it came to creating my own themes.
I think the ease of themes is a contributing factor, but I think if themes were somehow abolished, you’d just see these people stop blogging altogether as opposed to design their own.
For the majority I believe it’s a matter of “can’t” not “won’t”.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:52 PM | #
15. mahalie said:
That some people don’t care about what things look like is a point was well-made, and I think that the WordPress theme competition has created a good assortment for people who don’t care to do there own skin their site with something else.
Expect to continue seeing a lot of Kubrick though…even once there are hundreds of theme options available people will continue to stick with the default because not only might they not care about appearances, customizing in WordPress isn’t that easy if you don’t happen to know a bit of PHP.
I’ve hardcoded html and use strict web standards but the learning curve at WordPress was steep because I don’t know PHP outside of using includes.
Additionally, though improving, the documentation - especially theme and UI related - needs a lot of work.
Posted on May 24, 2005 12:58 PM | #
16. Adam Thody said:
“I’ve hardcoded html and use strict web standards but the learning curve at WordPress was steep because I don’t know PHP outside of using includes.”
This is a good point. I often forget that not everyone programs.
In upcoming versions I’m sure we’ll see them switch to a template engine with more non-programmer friendly tags.
Posted on May 24, 2005 01:02 PM | #
17. Jason Beaird said:
The purpose of blogging is to provide easy to setup and easy to update form of web publishing. So why is it that we get a gag reflex when we see sites that all look the same? Because we’re web developers. For the general public WP themes like Kubrik and default blogger.com themes like Minima or Sand Dollar do the trick. They provide an accessible means of web publishing that doesn’t require a knowledge of..well..web publishing.
If a website designer (in any shape or form) is using a theme…any theme, they shouldn’t expect much respect from the webdesign community. Content is king, but if hundreds of people can contribute something original to CSSZenGarden, the least we can do is come up with a somewhat distinguishable shell for the content we provide inside.
Posted on May 24, 2005 01:07 PM | #
18. Keith said:
mahalie – That’s the same problem I had, the PHP and docs were a bit of a steep climb at first. On the upside, I leaned a ton about PHP and now I’m getting pretty comfortable with it and once you get some of it the rest comes easier.
Jason – “The purpose of blogging is to provide easy to setup and easy to update form of web publishing.” Not to nit too much, but that’s debatable. I guess it all depends on your goals, and I guess for many “general public” “bloggers” something like Kubrik is just fine, and you’re right there are many who that just should do.
Posted on May 24, 2005 01:24 PM | #
19. Adrian said:
The only reason why I’m still on Kubrick is because I don’t have time… I did have a bunch of themes that I ran on the beta of WP 1.3.x, but the switch to 1.5 broke them, and I just haven’t had the time to get them fixed and working correctly in WP 1.5.1.1… I will eventually, but considering a significant chunk of my traffic is my rss feed, many of my readers on my sites never see my actual site.
Posted on May 24, 2005 01:24 PM | #
20. Andrew K said:
Bah! WP1.5 = difficult to skin? Hardly! It’s a walk in the park compared to WP1.2, that’s for damn sure. Once you’ve pulled it to pieces you’ll never look back. I’ve already lost count of how many times I’ve used WP for clients – and I can most certainly assure you there was nothing remotely ‘Kubrick’ about the sites.
That said, I 100% agree on your ‘Kubrick fever’ comment. What disturbs me more are blogs which use a slightly modified Kubrick, because you know those are the ones that will stick with it and help age Michael’s design at double the pace.
Although I’ve never downloaded anyone elses themes, Kubrick doesn’t even make my top 3 anymore :( No offence to Michael, of course! It was a breath of fresh air in comparison to the original WP design, but I feel it’s heavy over use has aged it at triple the rate of any other design.
Posted on May 24, 2005 02:33 PM | #
21. Jennifer Grucza said:
Hmph. Well, I think the Kubrick design is quite nice, and better than my old “design” (if you could call it that), which is why I kept the default when I installed WP 1.5. However, I did get tired of it looking so generic and the same as everyone else’s (not to mention kind of cold-looking with the blue and gray), so I modified it to use my own header image and colors. I rather like it.
Not everyone has the time or energy to spend tweaking the design of their personal blogs. I do enough web development at work that I don’t usually feel like doing it when I come home, too.
Posted on May 24, 2005 02:52 PM | #
22. Glen C. said:
Heh, good point Craig C. I think if they made the dafault template something so horrifically ugly that it had be changed, we’d see a lot more good designs. I’m thinking bright pink background with red text. But then again, it hasn’t stopped anyone on Xanga. Thank god for Bowman and the rest that worked on the Blogger templates.
Posted on May 24, 2005 03:33 PM | #
23. mike said:
In regards to Kubrick, I have to say when I first saw it I thought it was very nice for a theme. Now i’ve seen it so much I can’t stand to see sites using it, and I pretty much click off of anyone I see. It’s probably stupid, but it just gives me the sense that the person hasn’t been too much work into the site and it most likely won’t be worth browsing.
RE: WP templating..
I have to agree about the templating on wordpress being more difficult then movable type. I recall absolute frusturation when I attempted the switch a while back. Perhaps part of the problem is that I got used to movable type. When I tried tweaking wordpress I just couldn’t deal with the problems I was having. Perhaps now that I am a bit more knowledgable with php, and now that wordpress has grown quite a bit since the last time i’ve tried (last time i tried was almost 2 years ago i think), it may be easier. Unless you work with php regularly the leap from movable type is a huge one if you plan on writing up your own template. As a someone who is not a serious programmer I find the MT variables much easier to work with (plus I also liked that MT outputted static pages).
as a side note, i’m glad i’m not the only one who found drupal difficult to chop up as well.
Posted on May 24, 2005 03:36 PM | #
24. Geoffrey said:
Interesting post topic. I was thinking just the other day that I tend to ignore blogs that use generic templates. I figure if the author doesn’t care enough to at least try to differentiate themselves a little, the content can’t be worth it. Just another filtering system. I’m sure there’s great content on templated blogs—I just might not get to it.
Posted on May 24, 2005 04:13 PM | #
25. Adrian B said:
I remember only to well how I groaned and shook my head in dismay when I read of a port of Kubrick for Textpattern. Good on you Keith, I couldn’t aggree more.
Now if we could add drop shadows and some wicked-worn stuff to it, I might be converted!
Posted on May 24, 2005 05:06 PM | #
26. Jonathan Snook said:
I personally used MovableType but when I had to set up a new blog for work I checked out Textpattern first. But found the templating system difficult to use… mostly because I wanted the capability of using PHP. Then I tried WordPress and was quite impressed. I was able to wrap the site design around the template system in just an hour or two. It’s definitely a bonus if you have programming (specifically PHP) experience, that’s for sure.
To battle the monotony, it might be more advantageous if there were more than just two default themes. Like say, offer 10 default themes or offer theme packs when downloading the software.
Posted on May 24, 2005 05:51 PM | #
27. Adrian B said:
You could have 50 default themes and there would be a couple that stand out and would get used repeticiously (is that a word?). The question isn’t Textpattern, MT or Wordpress or whatever, it should be about the ease of setting up a personalised layout for newcomers. I would guess that most reading Keith’s output have a good clue to what they are doing code-wise. These monotonous themes trap the beginner.
For too long the CMS designers have aimed at their own kind. Maybe they should think about the huddled blogging masses and give them some layout options right from the admin interface, if required.
Posted on May 24, 2005 10:41 PM | #
28. Michael Heilemann said:
Don’t worry Keith, you aren’t the only one tired of Kubrick (It’s with a C mind you). Though at least I come across a Kubrick-based layout and can write it up as a point for me, I don’t know how everyone else handles it ;)
But I think its interesting to note that the popularity of Kubrick probably has little to do with its ‘design’ and more to do with a different need of some kind. Otherwise it would never have spread as far and wide as it has.
To be honest I think we’re still in early days, and the templates, framworks and themes we’re using now are painfully basic and not easily customizable by ‘the common person’. In a few years we should have WYSIWYG drag and drop layouts with color guides and what not, which will certainly make it harder to create a framework, but easier for the end user to customize into something unique.
Posted on May 25, 2005 12:25 AM | #
29. Rimantas said:
I think the main reason for Kubrick success was, that it is extremely well designed.
It looks great (sorry for those who have an alergy for it now), but more than that – it is very clear and very readable.
So I have nothing against Kubrick (or any other theme/template). If content is good that theme won’t make me turn away – especially that it makes text easy to read.
And I don’t expect passionate biologist (mathematician, dentist or plumber) who likes his subject and shares this passion in his blog to start strugling with graphic design, html, css and php. In most cases result will not be good…
Good, usable theme won’t make me turn away from good content, while terrible design (or extremely fancy one, just for the sake of being fancy)/legibility problems may turn me away indeed.
Posted on May 25, 2005 03:34 AM | #
30. Richard said:
I’m a long time WordPress user and like both aspects of it: that there is now a well designed default theme and lots of others to choose from, and that the theme “system” makes it a lot easier to build your own or start from one and tinker/modify.
As implied above, fewer people stuck with the default theme in earlier versions because it wasn’t visually attractive while Kubrick is so some folks are going to stick with it.
What amazes me here is that all you designers have not said a peep (that I can remember reading) about WordPress’s back (admin) end. I think it’s ugly as sin and poorly layed out and the weakest part of the entire system. How come you guys and gals aren’t building new “themes” for the back end? Or at least baraging Matt with ideas?
Posted on May 25, 2005 07:26 AM | #
31. Aleksandar said:
Kubrick is a great starting point for your own design. Remove the unnecessry markup and you can go far and wide with your own design.
1.5 allowed me to do what I want, without (almost) any changes in core WP code. I simply copy the existing code from WP code into a function library in my theme directory - then change it the way I need it. When update comes, my code still works. This is mainly for output functions like wp_listcats and similar. I would not like to change core-core stuff.
And with such liberty in theme content and design, results can be vastly different than Kubrick.
Posted on May 25, 2005 08:02 AM | #
Comment Preview
said: