New Theme: Twenty Eleven
Last year on WordPress.com we introduced the world to the first new WordPress default theme in 5 years — the first annual default theme — Twenty Ten. Now it’s our pleasure to introduce you all to its successor, Twenty Eleven.
The Twenty Eleven Theme
It might look familiar. 
Yep, Twenty Eleven started life as the Duster theme before it made the theme big leagues. But it’s not just a renamed Duster. There are tons of really cool improvements and features packed into it — more Post Formats, beautiful new header images, alternate color schemes and layouts, even custom link colors. All those features add up to the best part of Twenty Eleven: just how customizable it is. It looks great as a blog, a showcase of all your posts, and even a tumblelog or photoblog.
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- The Twenty Eleven Showcase Template
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- The Twenty Eleven Theme
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- A Twenty Eleven Photolog
If you want to know more about the cool new features in Twenty Eleven we’ve made a page that outlines them all on the Theme Showcase. You can read up on Twenty Eleven there and check out a live demo or just simply activate it on your blog and start experimenting! And if you have a self-hosted installation of WordPress you haven’t been left out of the fun. You can wait to give Twenty Eleven a shot when WordPress 3.2 is released in about a month or try it out right now with the beta version and upcoming release candidates. We’re looking forward to seeing how you use Twenty Eleven on your blog.
Jun 6th at 6:12 pm
Awesome! Twenty Eleven is here! Time to start experimenting!
Jun 6th at 6:16 pm
I am in love. Duster was by far my favorite WP.com theme, so of course I think this one’s awesome. Changing now. Thank you, team!
Jun 6th at 6:19 pm
What an upgrade to the default theme! It’s really been a long time coming. Good work!
Jun 6th at 6:23 pm
Welcome Twenty Eleven. It is customizable indeed. Thumbs up!
Jun 6th at 6:26 pm
Nice! Now that’s what i’m talking about. WordPress FTW!
Jun 6th at 6:31 pm
This could work!
Jun 6th at 6:36 pm
Nice theme, looks refreshing, almost as beautiful as Vigilance (which I highly prefer) to me.
cheers
Jun 6th at 6:41 pm
Can’t wait to mess up the CSS!!
Jun 6th at 6:43 pm
I love this! I was looking for a similar new theme.
Jun 6th at 6:48 pm
This theme can be customized in ways I don’t even understand! I’ll have to try it out and decide if it is going to replace Choco as my first choice!
Jun 6th at 6:53 pm
I just tweeted about this theme yesterday, not to sound like a word nerd but I heard about it at WordCamp Raleigh and I’ve been craving that flash photo banner! Yay!
Jun 6th at 7:02 pm
Nice… not good enough to force a change, but still…
Jun 6th at 7:08 pm
For whatever reason I don’t think this theme deserves to be Twenty Eleven, especially because Twenty Ten was much better than this and I simply expected something better than Twenty Ten in Twenty Eleven. I’m still a Twenty Ten fan.
Jun 6th at 7:30 pm
That’s OK. Twenty Ten isn’t going anywhere. It’s still one of my favorite themes too.
Jun 6th at 7:17 pm
Looks great! I just finished updating my site with the new theme, I’m loving it.
Jun 6th at 7:19 pm
Wonderful!
Been playing around with Duster but have been waiting for this theme. Luckily most of my adjustments still work.
You guys are doing a fantastic job.
Jun 6th at 7:21 pm
All of the improvements are great. Good job WP.
Jun 6th at 7:24 pm
I’m still getting used to it…
Jun 6th at 7:58 pm
Yep, it’s nice! =)
Jun 6th at 8:01 pm
Beautifully simple. I love the customization aspect.
Jun 6th at 8:17 pm
Looks good. I will try and report back. I am currently using Inuit types which I like.
Jun 6th at 8:22 pm
Not bad! It is pleasant to me!
Jun 6th at 8:28 pm
Anyone know how wide images can be on this?
Jun 6th at 8:47 pm
The maximum content width in Twenty Eleven is 585 pixels. (We have some quick specs for all of our themes on the Theme Showcase — the content width is usually one of them)
Jun 6th at 8:32 pm
Love Twenty Eleven, but there are any way to use our images in random mode on the header of the blog, as we can with the default 8? It will be the perfect theme! Thank you very much.
Jun 6th at 8:48 pm
Yep! Just start uploading header images and you’ll see an option for randomly rotating between them.
Jun 6th at 8:44 pm
Cool! Hope more themes come along the way ▬ I hope WP starts allowing font and background customization to its themes too ^_^
Jun 6th at 8:49 pm
You can change Twenty Eleven’s background image (and the background image of almost all of our themes) by visiting Appearance → Background. Have fun!
Jun 6th at 9:29 pm
Much better than the 2010 theme. That one put me off.
Jun 6th at 9:49 pm
This is good! And now there’s going to be so many blogs that look like this.
Jun 6th at 10:03 pm
OMG I love it! You are the best. It’s also free!!! Thanks a lot. You are wonderful!
Jun 6th at 10:10 pm
NIce, very clean. I like it. Might have to try it on my blog.
Jun 6th at 10:48 pm
This seems very simple and a lot like some of the other simple blog themes.
Jun 6th at 10:52 pm
yay! i’m trying it out for my photoblog. The tags for the twenty eleven say fixed-width and variable-width. Anyway to set the width of the left column, in 2 column format to be a specific width other than what is there, which appears to be 550-ish?
Jun 6th at 11:06 pm
This is great!! Wish I would have thought of it for my previous blog.
Jun 6th at 11:12 pm
Thanks! I’m using Duster now, I only switched over a few months ago, and I don’t want to alienate my readers by going to a different format… yet. Still, this is definitely going on to my future blog format list when I consider a switch some months down the line!
Jun 6th at 11:41 pm
This theme has a lot of possibilities. I just changed themes recently, but I’m going to tinker with this one a bit.
Jun 7th at 12:02 am
Very clean and well format. It somehow look like 2010 theme, but with better readability improvement to layout.
Will give it a try for photo blog and see how it work.
Jun 7th at 12:20 am
cant wait to play with this new theme!
Jun 7th at 12:22 am
It is sooooooooooo pretty, beautiful, gorges, elegant, outdoory, attractive, and OMGG[Oh My Great Gosh] I want to go there
Jun 7th at 12:25 am
really? You can rotate personal header themes? Oh, my gosh, i might just throw over twenty-ten for this, then…!
Jun 7th at 12:27 am
Oh man, I LOVE this. It reminds me of The Morning After, which I adore and am using right now — except you can see more than once post per page! This is tempting for a switch. Good job WP!
Jun 7th at 12:31 am
Thank you! I just added this to my rss reader, great stuff
Jun 7th at 12:32 am
This is great and I really love the photo blog but could you please, PLEASE include a grid option like the Suffusion theme (example: http://gudphoto.com/bikenyc/grid/)
Jun 7th at 1:14 am
Wow… too cool to be true! Do you have it for self-hosted blogs, too?
Jun 7th at 2:04 am
It’s on it’s way with the next version of WordPress.
Jun 7th at 1:43 am
Looks great. Thank you.
Jun 7th at 1:50 am
I love the mountain/river scape.. I find it more inspiring to write when I am looking at nature.
Jun 7th at 2:20 am
Love it…simple, clean, with all the important “stuff” at the top! Thanks…
Jun 7th at 3:22 am
Hi Ian, I think I was waiting for this theme. I was a user of Twenty Ten, after all. Anyway, I gave a preview on my current blog and one thing I did not like that all my images has a extra border around it. Is there any way I can remove that extra border from my images in my blog post?
Jun 7th at 3:42 am
Nice theme. I’m trying it out asap….
Jun 7th at 3:43 am
Looks great and quite similar to Theme: Mystique!
Jun 7th at 4:06 am
Great job WP! Thanks for giving me something fun to do this weekend—looks like I’ll be tweaking my layout and widgets to accommodate my new blog template!
Jun 7th at 5:05 am
Great upgrade. Love this new theme.
Jun 7th at 6:00 am
Very nice and clear – I love the dark variety.
Jun 7th at 6:18 am
Aaaaah… shall I be switching again? Stay with Duster? Use 2011? You really keep me thinking!
Jun 7th at 6:24 am
Trying it out for my photoblog .. looks like a perfect blend of Duster and Twenty Ten.
Thanks, WordPress!
Jun 7th at 7:49 am
There is a lot to like about this one!
Jun 7th at 10:09 am
I have always been fond of the theme “Duster”, but never had the guts to use it. Now that “Twenty Eleven” is made the official 2011 WordPress theme, and based off “Duster”, I think it’s about time I change to the theme I have loved ever since the moment I placed my cornea on it
Good job!
Jun 7th at 1:22 pm
Cool, but I’ll stick to my current theme
Jun 7th at 2:31 pm
I found its layout to be extremely elegant. Also added some custom share buttons so it was lots of improvements for my blog today.
Jun 7th at 2:42 pm
More Premium Themes, please! I’m waiting for scrapbooking stuff!
Jun 7th at 3:22 pm
Very nice! I started with Twenty Ten, but the new version is better! Great job.
Jun 7th at 5:10 pm
Looks crisp and clean.
Jun 7th at 5:18 pm
AWE… wait for it….SOME!!! AWESOME!!!!
Jun 7th at 6:10 pm
New version looks cleaner and better. Thanks.
Jun 7th at 7:26 pm
I love this one – Thanks!
Jun 7th at 8:47 pm
Love this theme. Perfect for restarting my blog!
Jun 7th at 8:52 pm
The photoblog looks amazing, I`ll give it a try next week!
Jun 7th at 8:53 pm
Finally I found the theme. Thanks!
Jun 7th at 11:01 pm
You guys have definitely outdone yourselves with this one, it’s such an amazing layout! My favourite features would have to be the showcase template, the various post formats, and the rotating customised header. And I love how the layout itself is so crisp and clean. Excellent job guys, thanks~!
Jun 7th at 11:01 pm
Does it have a colored background to the posts like Chaotic Soul? I like the colored background to posts that way I can have a busy and crazy custom background to my blog….
Jun 8th at 7:30 pm
Yep. Switching to the dark color scheme adds an almost-black background to your blog posts.
Jun 8th at 3:16 am
I have always found the default themes too simplistic, drab and boring. I realize that WordPress is extremely popular all over the world and thus needs to be generic but a little spice is needed.
Jun 8th at 3:58 am
Great work! I love the one-column post format on this theme. But, alas, just cannot resonate with the huge header. I would like to see some new themes with a good-sized one column format – like this one – or Vostok but the white version, not black. For the moment, I’ll stick with Inuit Types, my total love.
Jun 8th at 6:50 am
I am in love with this theme. I activated it as soon as I saw it in action. AWESOME THEME IS AWESOME. Love the heading fonts, the showcase template is kick-ass and the fonts are very readable too. x) <3
Jun 8th at 6:50 am
The image post looks quite unique!!
Jun 8th at 9:26 am
Couldn’t have come at a better time – loving it and using it already!
Jun 8th at 10:26 am
I’m already a Duster guy. So, here’s hoping everything stays in place now that I’m about to make the switch. Thanks, WP!
Jun 8th at 11:03 am
Wow… let me try this one!
Jun 8th at 12:57 pm
I love this and have switched one of my blogs over all ready. I would switch them both if there was a 3 coloum layout. Maybe 2012?
Jun 9th at 1:22 am
Cool!! Gonna try it right now.
Jun 9th at 11:40 am
Nice! Thanks for all the upgrades!
Jun 9th at 11:45 am
Like it. On it.
Jun 9th at 12:27 pm
Thank you so much
Jun 9th at 2:42 pm
The Showcase is absolutely great!
Jun 9th at 7:14 pm
Looks nice, but I’d have some qualms about using the default theme. I’d really have to modify it to make sure it looks like I’ve tried something more than just sticking with standard.
Jun 10th at 12:58 pm
Really looks great..
Jun 10th at 5:26 pm
I started using Duster as soon as you made it available. I just changed to Twenty Eleven today, and I really love the upgrades, especially the option for multiple featured posts on the front page. Great work!
Jun 10th at 6:02 pm
Twenty Eleven is “da bomb!” (if you remember that hackneyed expression). As a former newspaper page designer, I think Twenty Eleven has all the tools I need. I especially like the floating quotes and the new featured posts and images. I’ve always preferred a standard, easy-to-read serif body type, but I might even come to love the sans serif body type in Twenty Eleven. Thank you, thank you!
Jun 10th at 6:34 pm
Looks great! I love that you can have a lot of pages. Nice and clean but not boring.
Jun 10th at 9:24 pm
Love this theme, Thanks!
Jun 11th at 1:01 am
I’m holding out for Twenty Twelve!
*but then again I hear twenty thirteen is supposed to be pretty good too…*
Jun 13th at 3:30 pm
I have no doubts that Twenty Twelve and Twenty Thirteen will both be awesome themes.
Jun 11th at 8:24 am
Oooh, already looking forward to Twenty Twelve.
Jun 11th at 2:27 pm
I picked up Duster recently for one of my blogs and I LOVED it to death, SUCH a WELL DONE website-like theme! An absolute killer. More recently y selected Twenty Eleven for yet another blog and OMG! It was even a little better: choosing the link color has been a long time dream for me. It is, I’d say, PERFECT. Thank you sooooooo much, guys! This is really something. SO well done!!!! ILWP!
Jun 11th at 6:08 pm
Looks great, I’m going to try it out right now!
Jun 11th at 6:15 pm
Nice and basic.
Jun 11th at 8:19 pm
Looks interesting … I’ll go through it. Thank you!
Jun 12th at 3:19 am
Dude, congratulations! So far, this is the best theme I’ve tried.
Jun 12th at 9:05 am
Awesome! This is just what I had in mind when I moved to WordPress but couldn’t find! As soon as I catch up on the back-log of posts I’m trying to make into actual words, I think I’ll switch and play around with it for a while to reward myself!
Jun 12th at 3:27 pm
Best theme yet, thank you. This is one of the comments I got “Your site is soothing yet biting at the same time. Now how did you manage that?”