New Theme: Oulipo
Are you tired of clutter? Are you looking for a theme that puts the focus on your content and gets out of the way? Meet Oulipo, our newest theme. Oulipo’s clean, grid-based design and elegant typography make it perfect for a one-page announcement site, a photoblog, a journal… or anything else you choose to showcase.
Example showing Oulipo's light color scheme and beautifully simple layout.
You’ll notice the unique placement of the left-side menu: it’s pinned in place. This keeps the site title, description, and main navigation in view at all times. A screenshot isn’t good enough—see it in action on the Oulipo demo site.
Make Oulipo your own with your choice of light or dark color schemes, background color, header image, and custom menu. Tip: If you choose a dark-colored background, switch first to the dark color scheme in Appearance → Theme Options to take advantage of contrasting text and border colors.
Example of Oulipo's gorgeous dark color scheme.
The simple beauty of this theme is a sight for sore eyes. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Designed by Andrea Mignolo, Oulipo is now available for WordPress.com and, for self-hosted WordPress.org sites, from the WordPress.org Themes Directory.
Quick Specs (all measurements in pixels):
- Main column width is
480, sidebar is176. - Custom header image dimensions are
712by80(width, height).
Aug 16th at 3:57 pm
Very clean and nice. Definitely like it very much!
Aug 16th at 3:58 pm
Looks great!
Aug 16th at 4:03 pm
Ahh… Simplistically stunning. Great work! Most appealing!
Aug 16th at 4:03 pm
Looks nice and clean. This could be what I’m after for a new site.
Aug 16th at 4:05 pm
Looks nice, going to try it and see it looks.
Aug 16th at 4:12 pm
Sorry, far too narrow for the writing area. Still waiting for another theme with customizable width for the writing area.
Aug 16th at 4:39 pm
Hi technogran1—no need to be sorry, we know not all themes will please everyone. That’s why we’re continuing to launch themes regularly, in the hopes you’ll find one that meets your needs perfectly.
Aug 16th at 4:14 pm
You know if i wasn’t already so happily married, I’d marry WP!
Aug 16th at 4:39 pm
Max, how do you know WP is single and not already taken? Haha, just kidding.
Aug 16th at 4:18 pm
Interesting design.
Aug 16th at 4:23 pm
This looks a lot like some of the other themes… More brighty coloured, less professional looking, fun themes please!
Aug 16th at 4:27 pm
Will there ever be any more flexible-width, two-column, moderately customizable themes?
Fixed-width themes seem to be great for single-image, short-text posts, but my rather tech-oriented posts often have multiple pictures and wide sourcecode blocks. It’d be nice to fill the screen with the post, rather than lose half the pixels to those stylish blank columns.
Rubric is getting a bit long in the tooth… but there aren’t many alternatives!
Aug 16th at 4:41 pm
Hi Ed, check out Andrea. You can also review other flexible-width themes from Appearance → Themes using the Filter options.
Aug 16th at 4:27 pm
I love the cleanness of this theme. Simplistic and would make a great live story theme where I could post the chapters on one side and list my author side on the other side. Thanks!
Aug 16th at 4:30 pm
Love this theme! Found it yesterday and since then I am reflecting on which of my blogs is going to change to Oulipo… Love the left-side floating menu very much… looks cool and professional.
Aug 16th at 4:31 pm
Love the name! There should always be one paragraph dedicated to the meaning of the theme’s name
Aug 16th at 4:42 pm
Xavier, you’ll have to ask Andrea Mignolo to tell us more about the name.
Aug 16th at 4:35 pm
O dear … Now I want to change my design again … Stop coming up with great themes WordPress!
Aug 16th at 4:39 pm
Cool theme, think I’ll try it out.
Aug 16th at 4:39 pm
Hmm, it looks pretty good, but in my opinion your previous themes are more stunning than this one. Like there’s nothing very special to its appearance. Great job, nevertheless. Keep up the good work and good luck on the next one!
Aug 16th at 4:41 pm
Looks a lot like many other WP-themes. Want more fun, colorful designs! But great work anyways! =)
Aug 16th at 4:50 pm
Love this theme… I swear I can’t make my mind. All the themes are just so amazing!
Aug 16th at 4:52 pm
This theme looks perfect for a photography blog! It has the main focus on the pictures.
Aug 16th at 5:03 pm
Really looks great, but I’m happy with my current theme
Aug 16th at 5:15 pm
Lance, thank you for the lovely write-up—it’s so exciting to see Oulipo on WordPress.com!
Aug 16th at 5:15 pm
Very beautiful in its simplicity. I’m married to Inuit Types now, although the union required CSS.
Aug 16th at 5:19 pm
I love the pinned left-side menu. I wish more themes had that!
Aug 16th at 5:23 pm
Hmmmm…. too simple?
Aug 16th at 5:26 pm
I’ll try it out.
Aug 16th at 5:32 pm
So many new themes! You guys spoil us.
Aug 16th at 5:58 pm
It is some out of box offering from WP this time around. Is there any double menu theme like one for Categories and another for pages only.
Aug 16th at 6:02 pm
Clean and simple. I really like it. Thanks for another great theme! *goes to test Oulipo out*
Aug 16th at 6:29 pm
With a name like Oulipo, I was expecting the letter “e” to be missing. Still, it’s an attractive theme that’s going to be well worth investigating.
Aug 16th at 6:51 pm
I love minimal designs.
Aug 16th at 6:58 pm
Love it!
Aug 16th at 7:26 pm
Not this one, sorry, keep it up.
Aug 16th at 7:43 pm
“Are you looking for a theme that puts the focus on your content and gets out of the way?”
Yes, I should be, but I don’t have the self-discipline. Consequently, my blog looks like my house and is full to the brim with all the stuff I’m frightened of losing. One day I’ll go minimal. More power to those who can…
Aug 16th at 7:43 pm
Very nice! I like it.
Aug 16th at 7:45 pm
Wonderful. I’m totally using this.
Aug 16th at 8:00 pm
I too am hoping for some themes with more width to them. Please… all the pretty ones are so narrow I can’t use them.
Aug 16th at 10:47 pm
More wider-width themes coming soon.
Aug 16th at 8:42 pm
We loved it so much that we changed our theme! Thanks.
Aug 16th at 8:55 pm
Another new theme… more…we want more hahahaha
Keep up the good job!
Aug 16th at 9:02 pm
Great for a showcase, as you stated, Lance. I like the typeset.
Aug 16th at 9:10 pm
Loved the design, let me try this on my photoblog.
Aug 16th at 9:22 pm
Let’s give it a try with a dark color scheme, looks interesting, thanks for this one!
Aug 16th at 9:44 pm
This is just what I had been looking for for my cartoon blog. Thanks so much!
Aug 16th at 9:57 pm
Like this one and I’m trying it out. Looks really clean and uncluttered and hopefully easy to manage…..
Thank you ♥
Aug 16th at 10:03 pm
Looks good!
Aug 16th at 10:03 pm
“Simply” lovely.
Aug 16th at 10:04 pm
Simple yet beautiful. I really like the navigation menu on the side of the blog.
Aug 16th at 10:11 pm
Awesome. I love the minimal design of it – leaves the content to do the talking.
Aug 16th at 10:37 pm
Hey Lance!
This looks like a very good theme for the photo-video blog that I intend to start. I’d consider it for my already existing blog, but I was counting that on a wider main column for text. But anyhow, thanks for the new addition, Theme Team!
Isn’t this WP.com’s 100th theme already?
Cheers!
Aug 16th at 10:48 pm
Our 100th theme—Modularity Lite—launched in June 2010. Whoo-hoo!
Aug 16th at 10:37 pm
Oulipo…wonder what it means? Nice work!!
Aug 16th at 11:01 pm
Beautiful theme and I especially love the left menu that stays in place. I always knew something was missing on my blog and that’s what it was! I don’t know if I can incorporate this theme into my blog, but I’m definitely going to try it. I just changed to the Coraline theme. Any chance that pinned down menu can become an option on that one? In any case, thanks for keeping WordPress so up to date. I recommend it to everyone without reservation.
Aug 16th at 11:44 pm
No plans to add a fixed-position menu to Coraline. It works nicely when the menu is on the side, not so well when it’s at the top.
Aug 16th at 11:32 pm
> check out Andrea.
I did. Unfortunately, Andrea’s reversed colors (dark background, white text) is absolutely the wrong choice for a tech blog: hard to read, clashes with colorized source code blocks, and wrecks the contrast for most of my pictures. It also has a rather low upper limit for the “flexible” width setting: lots of wasted space on a 1600×1200 monitor, which isn’t all that large these days.
WordPress.com has over 100 themes, yet maybe a dozen are flexible width. Seems like everybody prefers to jam their posts into a tiny peephole down the middle of big screens, surrounded by blank space. Vertical scrolling FTW, eh?
How about another dozen really flexible themes, with the options and tweakage found in all those fixed themes?
It’s be nice…
Thanks!
Aug 16th at 11:42 pm
Ed, this discussion comes up enough that I started a post on the Themes forum: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/wider-themes. I’d love for you to share these thoughts over there so they don’t get lost in the shuffle of comments.
Edit: Oops, that forum thread is closed. Go ahead and post a new one so everyone there can see it and add their comments.
Aug 16th at 11:36 pm
Thank you for the new theme. The menu doesn’t disappear out of site – a definite plus. But I’d concur with some other wp-users here – a theme with a customizable width for the content area would be great. I am thoroughly enjoying using WordPress – it’s probably the most user-friendly blogging application in the world.
Aug 17th at 3:52 pm
Andrea has an option for fluid versus fixed width, and we have a few more like that coming soon.
Aug 16th at 11:42 pm
I agree with kenounirenashin.
The font colors are nice though. I am enjoying the last one, Coraline.
Aug 16th at 11:44 pm
Ah, if I wasn’t already so madly in love with Andrea, I might’ve taken this one for a spin! ^^
Great theme as usual, guys! You really work wonders!
Aug 17th at 12:32 am
Absolutely gorgeous. Does it have a one-column option?
Aug 17th at 1:33 am
Simple, elegant, and beautiful. Nice!
Aug 17th at 1:36 am
You guys are too much, I mean how many themes that look great can you make? It is a nightmare for me as a fairly new crime blogger to find the right theme. Just when I think I have settled on one I go back and peek at the themes again and you have another great looking theme for us…
Thanks for the dilemma guys
Cheers
Aug 17th at 2:23 am
I like clutter, it matches my office at work and home.
Aug 17th at 4:38 am
A simple theme with all new features but something is still missing! Particularly, I don’t like grid based themes. Looking forward for other impressive tribal type theme! Nice work though, fellas!
Aug 17th at 4:54 am
It’s almost a little too clean and simple for me it’s very nice nonetheless and thank you for another great theme surprise. You guys rock, as always!
Aug 17th at 5:25 am
Wow! The theme team seems to be working overnight.
Aug 17th at 7:11 am
Alright, keep ‘em coming guys!
Aug 17th at 7:57 am
Bravo WordPress! More, more! =D
Aug 17th at 8:43 am
I really do like the clean look of this, and the static item on the left looks great.
Aug 17th at 9:30 am
No offense, and sorry if I hurt your feelings, I’d just like a theme with bigger sidebars because I got a lot of widgets to use… and I’d like to be able to customize size.
Aug 17th at 9:55 am
Wonderful. This theme is perfect for publishing a book online.
Aug 17th at 11:12 am
It is simply amazing. I can not wait to try it.
Aug 17th at 12:12 pm
Love this clean look! Very nice!
Aug 17th at 12:14 pm
You’ve got so many good ones that it’s so hard to choose!
Aug 17th at 12:33 pm
Well it’s kind of ‘OK’. But seriously guys ‘n girls, I am getting a bit tired by yet another minimalistic theme. Why don’t you guys have a blast and publish the most feature rich and strongly designed theme ever? As a nice, over the top showcase of WordPress functionality and versatility. Come on, go baroque or burlesque!
Aug 17th at 4:01 pm
Been there, done that! The new default WordPress theme Twenty Ten, and others inspired by it, like Coraline are super-strong and showcase almost every single feature available in a theme. We’ve already seen some superb adaptations and customizations on those two themes.
We’re always looking for new ideas for themes, so if you know of any that match “baroque or burlesque” we’d love to learn of them in our themes forum. Drop us a link to the theme, and why you think it should be included on WordPress.com.
Aug 17th at 3:00 pm
Wow, thank you so much for this, I was getting annoyed with the more chaotic themes. I’ll have to try it at some point.
Aug 17th at 3:57 pm
Yeah, it’s a nice one, but I was looking forward to a theme with customizable colors you know… like Vigilance. I’ve tried but it gets too thin and plain looking so please design something with customizable colors and good features.
Hope you’ll see to it. 
Aug 18th at 4:56 pm
Check out Garland and Under the Influence, two themes that have customizable color schemes.
Aug 17th at 5:46 pm
Perfect for me.
Aug 17th at 7:39 pm
Elegant and clean theme. Thanks for the great choices.
Aug 17th at 8:05 pm
Oooo I like it a lot. Might have to change over. Thanks for all the hard work over there.
Aug 17th at 9:16 pm
Nice theme… no fancy stuff, only simple white. And big header. And wide posting area. And nice font. And, it’s just great.
Aug 17th at 11:10 pm
I like it, I think I will use it in another blog I’m about to start. Thank you for keeping it simple.
Aug 18th at 1:30 am
All these brilliant themes! It’s gonna make me lose my mind on making a choice.
Aug 18th at 2:48 am
It will be one of my most favorites themes… good, it’s look like very simple.
Aug 18th at 4:24 am
Boom boom boom, it is very nice.
Aug 18th at 4:57 am
I like it, especially the dark one.
Aug 18th at 11:44 am
Very nice – my long painful search for a successful refresh might be over!
Just need to redo my header image now to fit this.
Aug 18th at 12:39 pm
This theme is soooo beautiful! The part I like the most is the cherry tree. I love it!
Aug 18th at 12:43 pm
It is looking nice, but I need green theme, or beach look theme.
Aug 18th at 4:58 pm
Beach theme: that’s a cool idea.
For green themes, explore the themes from your Dashboard by going to Appearance > Themes and click Feature Filters at the far right near the search field. Click one or more filters (in this case, green color), then click Apply Filters to see themes that match.
Aug 18th at 2:22 pm
This looks great. Could you embed short video / audio clips instead of a photo?
Aug 18th at 4:47 pm
Yes, you can add videos and audio to any WordPress.com theme. See details on the supported video services at support.wordpress.com/videos/ and Audio at support.wordpress.com/audio/.
Aug 18th at 5:25 pm
Simply, I don’t like it that well.
Aug 18th at 5:56 pm
This one would be absolutely *perfect* for me if you could hide the title, tagline, and menu.
Aug 19th at 4:16 am
Great idea, Heather. (You can hide the menu now by creating an empty Custom Menu.)
Aug 18th at 8:25 pm
WP is really spoiling us for good.
I am so tempted to change to this one cos i LOVE clean cluster-less look. I LOVE the pinned down left menu but what if i have a lot of pages? I have seven pages currently (planning to add more later) and when I tried the preview just now, part of my left menu was cropped off. Hmm, maybe it will just affect the preview but I’m so afraid to activate the theme.
Aug 18th at 8:54 pm
Do like it’s simplicity, may switch.
Aug 18th at 9:16 pm
Awesome “classical” theme.
Aug 18th at 9:57 pm
Great design. I <3 wordpress!
Aug 18th at 10:16 pm
LOVE the pinned side menu and I like how simple it is. Thanks
Aug 19th at 1:22 am
Great theme. Great typography. Just what I’ve been looking for. It’s a keeper for me.
Aug 19th at 4:17 am
A good option actually!
Aug 19th at 6:05 am
Love the simplicity and topography. I found it by happenstance and now the search for my ideal theme may be over! (i also checked out the designer’s other themes – amazing sense of aesthetics!)
Aug 19th at 6:27 am
Thanks for your hard work. I do like the cherry tree very much. If you have more such nice new themes, I hope you can share them with us. Thanks very much.
Aug 19th at 9:57 am
Good job! I love this one… wanna try later.
Aug 19th at 12:05 pm
Freakin’ amaaaaaazing! LOVE IT!