Just before the New Year I wrote an article where I mentioned I’d like to change the look of my blog.
I really like the clean and simple layout of the eleven40 theme by StudioPress.
But, I wanted to put a landing and portfolio page which this theme initially doesn’t have as an option.
Another thing I noticed that Simple URLs plugin didn’t work. I use it mostly for my affiliate links.
Although StudioPress has a great support and after trying everything this thing just didn’t work.
1. Keeping up with the updates
Since its release in January 2012, eleven40 has been one of the top-selling themes, originally created by Brian Gardner for his own blog.
What makes a great company is keeping up with the updates.
You know that WordPress is constantly improving and after releasing ver. 3.5, Genesis Framework was also updated to ver. 1.9.
Along with the updates, came the new version of Simple URLs plugin and everything was back to normal.
I find this extremely important because you don’t have to worry about things that have nothing to do with your business.
2. Genesis web designer is never been so easy
Have you seen my portfolio and landing pages?
If you think I hired a web designer – you’re so wrong.
I did it all by myself and I’ll tell you how you can do the same, and even more.
Early mentioned Brian Gardner, founder of StudioPress and now partner with Copyblogger Media, on his own blog writes free tutorials for the Genesis-powered websites.
All you need to do is to follow the tutorial and basically nothing more than copy-paste is required.
You wouldn’t believe me but this can turn your desires into reality knowing how simple it is.
Of course, if you need any help with your site you can always file a ticket to StudioPress support team.
Do I see some hidden future web designers here? 
3. Eleven40 is still a modern theme
Recently I was cleaning my mail inbox and noticed that some of my blogger friends left some comments about my blog design.
Hi Dragan,
Wow, that looks so great! I really like the layout of your site… it’s so clean and modern. ~ Lisa Fox, writer for the college career blog DegreesThatPay.com
Hi Dragan,
I am sincerely impressed by your blog. It is clean, simple, nicely written, nice fonts, no “noise”. ~ Tanya McTavish, marketer and co-founder at Codex-Soft.com
Actually this was the trigger for me to write this post.
The main purpose of DomainsFlow is delivering valuable content and informations without unnecessary “noisy” staff.
Of course, reader’s experience means a lot to me, so I definitely changed my mind about changing the look of my blog. I just like the way it is now, simple and clean.
Eleven40 is still a modern theme and with all those great tutorials from Brian, regularly updates and team support you can really take your WordPress site to places you’d never thought it could go.
Check out Genesis 1.9 and all 44 Genesis-powered designs today.
If you have any questions or problems related to your StudioPress theme, just put it in the comments below.
And one more thing, what do you think about Genesis Framework?
About the Author
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I really think about exactly why you branded this specific post, “3 Reasons Why I Love Genesis and Eleven40 Theme”. In any event I admired the post!
Regards,
Sara
Thanks Sara, appreciate your comment.
I’m also in love with Eleven40
Good idea to share
Great to see like-minded people when it comes to blog design
.
I see you prefer sidebar/content layout. Somehow I find sidebar/content/sidebar more suitable for my blog.
Thanks Amal for stopping by.
I am almost going to get this theme for one of my IELTS sites. However, I don’t want to use a blog homepage, but more of a pages/corporate kind of look on the frontpage. I’m wondering if this is a good theme for this?
Basically this is a blogging theme. It all depends on your web development skills. Take a look at this showcase to see various possibilities for the eleven40 theme. If you don’t want to put hard coding, maybe Executive or Agency theme would be the better choice.
I’ve used the Executive theme for a client before…super clean and professional looking.
I know I just commented saying I was ready to make the switch to Eleven40 on my own website (internet marketing), but really what I want is something that looks simple, fun, and professional but not too corporate and “blah”. Any Genesis themes that come to mind?
Thanks for your reviews on Genesis! Been loving learning the framework and playing around with it!
David
Hi David,
I checked your site and since you also run a blog I would recommend the Metro theme.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the best looking themes yet simple and professional.
If you’re having some other doubts don’t hesitate to ask.
Thanks David, appreciate your comments.
Dragan, thanks for the reply and the tip! The Metro theme looks pretty stylish and fun. Do I have to have featured stories or can I have featured pages? I’ve only used the executive theme so I’m still learning the nuances of the various child themes.
Thanks again!
David
Honestly I really loved the content management of domainsflow,I have used Eleven40 for one of my projects,could you give me an insight of how did you get the Secondary sidebar setup at the top right corner?How can we make it dropdown when a mouse is pointed? as shown on http://demo.studiopress.com/eleven40/
I spent a lot of efforts searching for answer,but couldn’t find one.Any help would be highly appreciated.Keep the good work up! Thanks in advance
Hi Nick,
This is one of the most frequent question I get. By following this tutorial you’ll see how easy it is.
If you have some other questions related to eleven40 just ask.
Thanks for the quick link,but the problem is my colleague bought the theme and I’m playing around with it.Would it be possible to get a tutorial without a studiopress account(in this scenario)?Just the dropdown of sidebars.
OK Nick try this.
The menu on the demo is a custom Menu widget placed in the header right widget area.
Go to Appearance -> Menus and create a new menu. Add your menu items. (Mine are Home, About, Blog…)
Navigate to Appearance -> Widgets. Chose the Custom menu widget and drag it to Header Right. In the widget settings, choose the nav menu you created.
Hi Dragan,
I have a couple quick questions about the eleven40 theme:
1) How easy is it to not just upload a new logo, but to position it within the header (without having to know a lot of code)? If I wanted it to be, say, bigger than your current logo, is that relatively easy to do? Is it easy to change the color of the black horizontal header, too?
2) I noticed you have an opt in form after your posts, and that it’s a different opt in form that’s on the demo for the eleven40 theme. Therefore, does Studio Press offer you a variety of opt in forms that yo can use for this theme?
3) And lastly, how easy or difficult would it be to add in an opt in form to my home page, sort of similar to the Balance theme by Studio Press?
Thanks.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Genesis is a very flexibile framework when it comes to modifying the existing themes. But certain knowledge of CSS is required. For most cases you don’t have to do hard coding but to find and correct the initial code to your needs.
1) Positioning of the new logo as well as changing the header background is a matter of CSS styling. Basically you need to replace existing code to your needs. All these things can be found in StudioPress support forum.
2) No, StudioPress doesn’t offer various opt-in forms along with the demo themes. I’ve made a custom opt-in form based on Brian’s tutorial here.
3) Again, it depends on your CSS skills but it’s not very difficult. I added an opt-in from Generate to eleven40 home page just to see how it works. If you need I can give you all the code.
For a novice, it will take some time to catch all the things. But eventually it can save you a lot of money
Best,
Dragan
I’m thinking of installing eleven40 but is this theme SEO friendly ??
Reply pls.
Hi Giriraj,
Yes, eleven40 is SEO friendly. Under each post/page you have SEO theme settings with custom document title, meta description, meta keywords…
Hi Dragan,
whenever i make a new post it shows full summary on my homepage, how can i show the post in excerpt form on homepage
Hi Suraj,
When you edit the post, you need to press “Insert More Tag” button behind the text you want to show on homepage.That should be it.
Hi Dragan,
Are you using a plugin of some kind to create your end of post opt in form? I really like it and was having trouble with the font in the one I tried to setup. Thanks in advance.
Hi John,
No it’s not a plugin. I just followed this Brian’s tutorial How to Add a Newsletter Signup Box After Your Posts.
Give it a try, it works.
Can I get this theme for free somewhere ??
Pls do reply.
No, this is a paid premium theme! As I mentioned early in my posts, paying $79.95 consider as an investment. After all your site/blog is your asset and it’s very important to put it on a solid foundations. If you think seriously than you won’t regret paying this one-time fee.
Hey Dragan, nice site. I’m also trying out this theme on a new site of mine. Got to love genesis and its child themes!
You’re added to my blog feed
Hi Neil,
Yes, Genesis with its child themes really rocks and I’m glad to see eleven40 as one of your choices. Good choice!
Thanks Neil, appreciate your comment and nice to know you as well.
Hi Dragan,
Thanks for your article, it’s been really helpful. What I would like to ask is if it’s possible to have the 3-column layout for the entire website (vs. just the homepage) and whether I will be able to use my own logo and header (to span across the entire top of the page), on top of the nav menu. Thanks in advance for your response!
Hi Tanya,
The answer to both your questions is YES it’s possible.
As you can see I use 3-column layout for the entire blog. Genesis is so flexible that you can set column layouts individually for each category, page, post…
Of course you can add your own logo and header-it’s practically very easy. Today I published my first Genesis tutorial so I might cover that in the near future.
Just to have a feeling of the possibilities (for the eleven40) take a look at this showcase.
Hi,
.
I like your website much. particularly when I put the mouse on your logo , it goes inward . great idea
my question is whether eleven 40 is better than prose .
my criterion are responsiveness and addition of adsense later to the blog . I am a java programmer with php hands on. so coding is not a problem. pls advise. my blog would have programming tutorials.
regards
vinodh
Hi Vinodh,
Well there’s no big difference between eleven40 and Prose. Both match your criteria with mobile responsiveness, adding adsense code…
However it all depends how you see your blog in terms of design. Most people use Prose when they want custom design while eleven40 is more for blogging without changing too much the inital design.
I hope I helped a little bit with your decision.
thanks for replying to my query on a weekend
Thanks Dragan. I’ve been thinking of making the switch to Eleven40 for my personal website and after reading your review and a few others, I’m feeling like it’s time
Hi David
I reply on your question about Metro theme here.
You can set your features posts or pages on a home page. I find this useful if you want to highlight your services or products. Inside the dashboard it’s very easy to control where you want to place featured work because it’s the matter drag-and-drop thing.
However, you can use this theme as a pure timeline blog (like I do) or combination between blog and featured page.
As you can see, this theme is very flexibile and I think it would fit nicely to your site.
Sounds like it; I’m going to give it a whirl! Thanks again Dragan; I’ll let you know how it goes
Hi, I have just purchased eleven 40 theme from Studiopress but could not find a contact form. How to create a contact form for this theme.
Also one note on your blog, it just looks awesome. Congrats and keep it up.
Thanks in Advance,
Pradeep
As contact form I’m using Contact Form 7 plugin and you can download it here.
All you need to do is to create a new page, I called it “Contact”, put some text and at the end copy the shortcode in the text editor. You’ll see the shortcode after activating the plugin in dashboard under the “Contact” button. Save your page and test it by sending yourself a mail.
Thanks a lot for your needed help..
Hi,
Please tell me about the image that you put for all the posts on your blog. What should be the size of the image and where do you get the images from?
Hi Pradeep,
I’m using 600px wide and arround 200px in height pictures. Somehow this dimension fits nice to my posts. Sometimes I get pictures from Fotolia, BigStockPhoto or Flickr. There are also great places to find stock images for publishing on your blog like iStockphoto, stock.xchng, Shutterstock, Stockvault and Everystockphoto. I highly recommend using images in the blog posts so go for it.