New Theme: Duster
I am rather pleased to announce the birth of a new Automattic theme designed and developed by the Theme Team. It goes by the name of Duster and is quite an interesting theme — if I may say so myself.
Apart from the custom possibilities you’re already acquainted with in most of our themes — features like custom backgrounds, headers, and menus — Duster is also equipped with a unique Showcase Page Template that can propel your site up to a new level.
Showing how Duster looks.
With the help of the Showcase Template you can make your front page display an introductory text message, a featured post with an image —big or small, your call— at the top, a recent post column showing the latest post and a list of other recent posts below, and a sidebar with a custom widget that displays your Aside or Link posts.
It also has several details hidden all around, like a responsive and fluid design to accommodate smaller views. We hope you like it and create beautiful sites with its help. We like it so much we’re using it for our team blog, ThemeShaper. 
Go exploring and read more about it at the Theme Showcase (you now can even activate the theme from there)!
February 16th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
I like it all except the black field/white text in the comment reply when the user comments. Is there a way to modify that?
February 16th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Neat, I may just have to test it out, we’ll see
Keep up the great work!
February 16th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
I usually don’t like the more plainer themes, but this one is the exception… I think it’s the spices of color underneath the black title-bars, and the block of text at the top of every page. It just looks so… I can’t find the correct adjective!
February 16th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I liked the look of this and tried it out, but didn’t like the white on black in the comments, which I find unreadable, so have now switched back to my previous theme.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
Excellent! Very good.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Looks great but where can I download it from?
February 16th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
I like it…. I’m tempted. A lot.
February 16th, 2011 at 9:47 pm
This is exactly what I have been looking for! Just one question – how do you implement the featured post option?
February 16th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
Think that it is a really good theme. Easy to use and to see/read. Mmm… :-p
February 16th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
I’ve already switched to Duster. LOVE it. Thanks!
February 16th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Does this allow for a visitor counter? Does it allow me to make a weekly poll on the side of my blog?
February 17th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Yes. You can use the Blog Stats Widget and create Polls in your sidebar.
February 16th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
Love the look of this theme! Thanks WordPress!
February 16th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Good theme, I’d probably go for it if it looked as feminine as this one does masculine. Not too much, just subtle. Hope that makes sense!
February 16th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
I think it’s good.
February 17th, 2011 at 12:36 am
Great work! I am wondering if there is any plans for releasing the theme to WordPress.org? Also are there any plans for releasing other theme that you guys develop or make changes to WordPress.org. I like how WordPress.com has consistencies accross themes you offer and I would love to offer the theme consistencies on our universities blogging network. I understand the difference between WordPress.com and .org. I am just wondering if you have any plans or releasing your work.
February 17th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
For sure. We certainly plan on releasing and updating our new themes, including Duster, on WordPress.org extend. The same way we are doing for P2, for instance.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:34 am
Nice themes… Thank you WordPress…
February 17th, 2011 at 3:01 am
Switched to this theme, I love it so far, LOVE the “Reply” button, looks nice and I’ve been looking for a theme that has a reply/comment button that is easy for readers to find, thanks!
February 17th, 2011 at 5:03 am
I like it… This is very nice…
February 17th, 2011 at 6:00 am
I am considering to use this theme.
Thank you
February 17th, 2011 at 6:16 am
Clean and spiffy.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:24 am
Nice theme
February 17th, 2011 at 6:28 am
I change Themes all the time. I will try this out next. I like that you can do custom backgrounds and headers. I do that to mine.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:49 am
This is really lovely! I love my current layout but let me take a look at this.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:09 am
Well done!
February 17th, 2011 at 7:36 am
It is very simple and very nice. I like it.
February 17th, 2011 at 9:57 am
I can’t read all the comments to see if there are other, but here are few considerations:
1) “modify” link is over the tag when there are many of these;
2) “modify” link floats on the different pages: after article in index, top-left on single, etc.
(sorry for my poor english ; )
February 17th, 2011 at 9:58 am
P.S. Anyway, it’s a great theme!
February 17th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Nice.
Is it possible to have, say, the three last posts as featured or sticky posts in the showcase page? I liked this feature in Inuit Types.
Is it possible to not display so much metadata in the showcase page like tags, categorys, ratings etc? I like these features in the individual posts but I prefer a clean front page.
I really like the ability to exclude “asides” in the showcase page.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:56 am
How do I get the sticky post to be just an image and the headline like in your demoblog: http://dusterdemo.wordpress.com/
February 17th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
If you’re using the Showcase Template, just post a Sticky Post with a large (at least 1000px width) Featured Image. You can find links to the support documents on Duster’s page.
February 17th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
This theme’s great, but for some reason my pictures and captions all get aligned to the left. Any ideas on how to align it to the centre? Also, is there any way to have a shaded area for the captions?
Other than these concerns the theme’s awesome!
February 17th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
You guys should make more 3 column themes, with sidebars on the left and right and posts in the middle, those are the best.
February 17th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Hello… extreme newbie here. I would love to try this theme. How do I get it?
February 17th, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I like it very much coz the new theme is the most beautiful design. Don’t miss it!
February 17th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Thank you for your help but I allready tried different sizes för the Showcase Template: 4200, 1200 an 1000 pixels wide and nothing changes. The Showcase Template is working but the picture is not large.
http://pamflett.wordpress.com/
February 17th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Simply lovely! I just switched to it and: “It’s Friday, I’m in love!”. Well, almost…
February 17th, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Thanks Matías.
February 17th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
This theme is fabulous, and it is the one I’ve been waiting a while for. However, one problem, I have added a comments box to the website but it is only showing as a very simple design. Is there something I need to do to make it display in the Duster-style comments box shown in the theme blurb? Any advice will be gratefully received.
February 17th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
I really love the theme it’s a nice simple and clear layout. My only gripe is the drop-down menu feature. We have a lot of subpages and it makes it look awfully cluttered with a dropdown. Is there any way to easily disable this?
February 17th, 2011 at 6:58 pm
You can create your own menus, with or without sub items, using the Custom Menus functionality.
February 17th, 2011 at 6:22 pm
Apologies about the above, I meant ‘contact form’ not ‘comments box’!
February 17th, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Now the large image on the showcase page works nicely. Great theme.
It woud be nice to have more than one featured article on the front page.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Interesting theme! I’m going to check it out.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Is this Mr. WordPress? But cool theme!
February 17th, 2011 at 7:52 pm
Okay now that I have the menu thing sorted (thanks Matías!) is there a way to have the side bar options (in our case out twitter feed, categories and archives) appear on every page? Or will they only come up on the main page? Thanks!
February 17th, 2011 at 10:17 pm
You have five different sidebars: one for the Showcase page, one for all blog views (categories, search, etc), and three footer areas. Single posts are displayed full-width to concentrate on the content but you can still use the footer widget areas.
February 17th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Really like it, would use if it was in black. Have the Structure (in Black) theme at the moment & was looking to change when going to hosting.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Looks so nice… I think I’ll try it!
TNX!
February 17th, 2011 at 8:57 pm
One question : If I mark a post as “Aside” it appears in the Showcase sidebar (with the ephemeral widget) but the title vanishes when I sort the posts by category. In my blog, when you sort by “Everyday Stuff” using the menu — you can see that the 2nd post has lost its title since I marked it as an “Aside”…. any thoughts on why this is happening – or am I missing something here?
Thanks!
February 17th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
I spied Duster on a friend’s blog who’d just switched over from the theme I’d been using. So stunning, I made the switch too. THANKS!!
February 17th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Really nice looking, it’s clean and easy to read.
Good work!
February 17th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
That is very good! Great work! *thumbs up*
February 18th, 2011 at 1:43 am
Must TRY! Thanks…
February 18th, 2011 at 1:49 am
Definitly will use this in the future.
February 18th, 2011 at 2:18 am
I love the new Duster theme! Thanks WordPress and team Automattic
February 18th, 2011 at 2:55 am
I love this theme so much, seems like I’ve long waited for this theme! I’m on it!
Forever!
February 18th, 2011 at 4:01 am
Okay, I switched back to Coraline. NOT b/c Duster isn’t gorgeous (it is!) but b/c it made some of my widgets go wonky. Perhaps I will try again when I have more time to adjust. Keep up the great work!!
February 18th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Now the featured post feature works perfectly for my older post. Thank you theme team
February 18th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Luv the new theme…
February 18th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Hi all,
I cannot seem to upload the ‘cool comment form’ on to the website. In it’s place I have a bog standard comment form: http://tamesidetories.com/contact-us/
How do I upload Duster’s comment form?
Many thanks in advance.
February 18th, 2011 at 10:47 am
Great fonts, very clean. Well done guys!!
February 18th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Great one! Dope
February 18th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
fantastic
February 18th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Cool and clean theme. Great job.
February 18th, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Quite nice to work with.
February 18th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Very simple THEME… I like it.
February 18th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Some of my post titles are vanishing if I set them as “Aside” .. I am switching back to Coraline .. maybe I will get back to Duster in a couple of months ..
February 19th, 2011 at 12:07 am
Cool theme page. But I got one question though: can you maybe come up with other lovely themes too like flowers too? Thanks
February 19th, 2011 at 12:10 am
I just switched to Duster! Thanks for the perks and options. And I love the different colour schemes!
February 19th, 2011 at 6:21 am
If only I wasn’t so in love with mine. It looks pretty nice.
February 19th, 2011 at 7:31 am
Wow! That’s great!
February 19th, 2011 at 8:39 am
Thanks so much for Duster. I really love the possibilities it has to offer.
February 19th, 2011 at 9:18 am
Good work
February 19th, 2011 at 9:52 am
greats job, i wanna try it
February 19th, 2011 at 10:47 am
Looks like the theme doesn’t work properly on the iPhone if you’re using the ‘showcase mode’.
February 19th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Love it! Already switched!!
Finally found my perfect theme.
February 19th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Sweet, been waiting for a theme with a sticky, thanks.
February 19th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Thank you.
February 19th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Really nice.
February 19th, 2011 at 6:51 pm
Nice one!
February 19th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
This is the first theme that looked good enough for me to switch to since I first started blogging a year ago. I like it a lot.
February 19th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
I use it and I totally fell in Love with it.
Thanks for this awesome theme!
Greets from Germany.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:20 am
Kind of plain for my liking but it’s okay.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:29 am
Looks good! I tried it out on my blog and I may use it in the future… perhaps when I have my logo picture for my blog. Currently, I’ll stick with Spectrum but in the future I will definitely consider this. Thanks for sharing!
February 20th, 2011 at 6:34 am
I just switched to this theme on Friday and it is perfect. This is the theme I had been waiting for so long, thank you!
February 20th, 2011 at 8:14 am
Finally, a theme that suits me… Thanks.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Not bad. I may have to give it a try.
February 20th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Great! Simple but wonderful.
February 20th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
I love this theme! So SEXY!
February 20th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Elegant and cool at the same time! I like the idea of removing the sidebar in other pages—makes it look much more cleaner.
Kudos to the Theme Team! They should make more themes that implement Helvetica as its primary font.
February 20th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
Like the new theme!
February 20th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Looks nice!
February 20th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
For my blog, The Ethical Nag I have just switched over to this from 2010.
I really didn’t like that choppy 2010 mix of serif fonts!
But I do love the clean fonts available for Duster. It’s versatile enough to add colour in the header or background too. I’m still playing with the Showcase / sticky thing and don’t know if it will work or not for me.
MANY, MANY THANKS!
February 20th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
How to activate the Large image option? From the Settings > Media, I already set a minimum and maximum size of the large image, but the radio button for Large is inactive when I upload an image. Could you please help? Thanks.
February 21st, 2011 at 1:28 am
I like the Theme, so nice.
February 21st, 2011 at 4:46 am
Nice theme. Already switched. Thanks.
February 21st, 2011 at 6:19 am
Simple but interesting
Nice.
February 21st, 2011 at 7:04 am
Wew, great theme, simple but nice.
February 21st, 2011 at 11:10 am
Might give it a go if I can get all the widgets on there…
February 21st, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Hey it looks great! Thanks for the hard work. All the best.
February 21st, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Cool! I might use it for a CP Blog or CP Army someday…