New Theme: Piano Black
Say hello to Piano Black, the newest theme to launch on WordPress.com. This dark and elegant theme showcases your content with a design that feels sophisticated yet techy and modern.
Piano Black front-page detail.
Make it yours with a header image, background, and custom menu, and optional RSS and Search areas in the header. Piano Black also includes a full-width-template for dropping the sidebar on pages. See more information on the Theme Showcase.
Designed by mono-lab — and a long-time popular theme for self-hosted WordPress blogs — Piano Black is available now in your dashboard under Appearance → Themes.
Jul 20th at 5:15 pm
Cool, I like the simplicity.
Jul 20th at 5:15 pm
Looks really great, but I like my current theme more.
Jul 20th at 5:16 pm
Excellent themes WordPress is coming out with of late. Is there a Piano White too?
Jul 20th at 5:19 pm
Thanks Sameer. No plans for a Piano White, but it’s a great idea.
Jul 20th at 5:22 pm
Black is the new color. 8)
Jul 20th at 5:22 pm
Very elegant theme. The idea is great but black is not my favorite now.
Jul 20th at 5:23 pm
Awesome! looks like is what my blog was waiting of. There is big competition between Theme and Coding team at automattic. Thank you guys, and yes please keep adding more.
Jul 20th at 5:26 pm
I like this theme. I like the custom background feature, custom header and custom menu. The elegance of being able to hide the sidebar on pages using the “Full-width, no sidebar” template means our content on pages using that template will span the entire width of the layout, and will be properly “showcased”, without the distraction presented by sidebar clutter. I notice that these “Full-width, no sidebar” templates are being provided on the more recent theme additions and want to thank Staff for providing them. The Theme Team rocks!
Jul 20th at 5:49 pm
Thank you, timethief, for all your hard work in the forums. You make WP.com a happier place!
Jul 20th at 5:27 pm
Oooohhh… classy. I’m SURE I can hammer out a blog that matches this theme. (Yes, I am being inspired to blog by the themes alone. That’s how good they are.)
Jul 20th at 5:29 pm
A good theme for photography. Thanks.
Jul 20th at 5:34 pm
It looks great.
Jul 20th at 5:35 pm
Definite spate of great themes recently. Great stuff, guys!
Jul 20th at 5:40 pm
White text on black background! Very difficult to read, and tiring for the eyes!
Jul 20th at 5:42 pm
Looks nice but I find lighter backgrounds more appealing.
Jul 20th at 5:47 pm
Sleek like black piano keys… I get the theme name!
Jul 20th at 5:51 pm
Trendy and cool! Like it.
Jul 20th at 6:00 pm
Very nice, simple, and techy. I do like it, but it’s a little too dark for my blog. This could also look good in white piano and silver piano themes as well.
Jul 20th at 6:06 pm
A very nice theme to use with photographs. The white type on dark background would be hard to read if there were large amounts of text.
Jul 20th at 6:17 pm
Oooooooooooooooooooh, yummy! This one I will check out later when I have time.
Jul 20th at 6:29 pm
Classy! For a swan lake ballerina. 8)
Jul 20th at 6:34 pm
I like it. It seems very good and attractive to me.
Jul 20th at 6:45 pm
AWESOME theme, I like it.
Jul 20th at 6:55 pm
This theme is good, great job! But I like white themes.
Jul 20th at 6:59 pm
Nice. This is one I might actually change to.
Jul 20th at 7:05 pm
Elegant theme, but I prefer to change the black background because is difficult to read, I have problem with my eyes.
Jul 20th at 7:23 pm
I like it, I like it. Enough to abandon Freshy??
Jul 20th at 7:28 pm
Thank you! This will be perfect for my health blog.
Jul 20th at 7:37 pm
This one is very nice!
Jul 20th at 7:40 pm
That’s a really fine theme for special blogs. But text should be not too long because white text on black background is not so well for eyes. I think it were better the text part were white.
Jul 20th at 8:06 pm
Ooo, now this one is tempting. Very classy. I especially like the piano key curve at the bottom of the page.
I’ll be tinkering with this one…
Jul 20th at 8:12 pm
At last…a good black theme. *Thumbs up* and thank you.
I always use inverted colours in Firefox, i can’t stand that awful glary white. A computer screen is not a paper, a computer screen is producing light while a paper reflecting light it, big difference. In the beginning all computers were about light text on dark background which makes more sense to me when light is focused on what “you shall read”. Pictures looks much better on a black background where the colors looks much clearer. That’s why i really like this theme.
Jul 20th at 8:47 pm
Love the ideas already proposed for lighter variations on this. It looks wonderful, but the black background does pose some problems for text-heavy blogs. I know no theme is right for all blogs, though – which is why it’s so good that you give us lots of choice.
Jul 20th at 10:41 pm
That’s exactly right—we want to launch a large variety so you can choose one that works best for your blog.
Jul 20th at 9:17 pm
Very nice and classy really something I will use in the future.
Jul 20th at 9:20 pm
If Piano Black were a magazine style theme, I would definitely switch to it. Right now I’m using The Morning After. Both are great though; good work theme team.
Jul 20th at 9:41 pm
This one is VERY, VERY, VERY cool! I love it!
Jul 20th at 10:06 pm
Excellent, elegant and beautiful theme, already changed to it. I love the the curve at the bottom, and I would really like to see a flexible width version of it, so it helps long lines of code in my programming blog. Thanks for the theme!!
Jul 20th at 10:11 pm
Nice, but I like more colors in themes. Although, it’s really clean cut and stylish. Add some color to that and it’s perfect!
Jul 20th at 11:18 pm
This theme is nice, but I’d like more themes where I can customize the fonts and background colors.
Jul 21st at 5:26 pm
You can customize the background for Piano Black from Appearance → Background, and the fonts can be changed with the Custom Fonts feature—which is part of the Custom Design upgrade.
Jul 20th at 11:25 pm
It’s a beautiful theme — clean and crisp. I might try this after I get bored with my current theme.
Jul 20th at 11:37 pm
This theme is amazing! In fact I’m using it already.
Jul 20th at 11:40 pm
Marvelous! Love this a lot.
Jul 20th at 11:54 pm
Thank you for this theme. It should work well with the theme of my blog (I write about Apple’s i-devices: iPhone, iPad,) In fact, I always thought that the current theme Fusion, suited it best – but with Piano Black, I might be able to achieve a look that’s closer to what I had in mind.
Jul 20th at 11:59 pm
It’s nice, truly elegant. But I’m on with more colors.
Jul 21st at 12:04 am
Elegant! Love all the new themes you are rolling out. But black is not for me. I am supremely happy with Manifest. White rocks!
Jul 21st at 12:13 am
Great work. This theme has many good features. Keep up the great work WP… go Piano Black go.
Jul 21st at 12:59 am
Very nice and sleek feel.
Jul 21st at 1:27 am
This look like another theme here. I forgot its name.
Jul 21st at 1:59 am
Very cool!
Jul 21st at 2:06 am
Spent quite sometime to find how do I turn on the full-width for the main post… arghhh… it not able to do that, it just support to turn on full-width for Page under edit page. Just wondering why the full-width not able to populate to post as well… too bad!
Jul 21st at 2:09 am
Looks smooth.
Jul 21st at 2:10 am
This is great, I was looking for this theme at wordpress.org and now it’s here for me! My readers are gonna revolt! I’m changing themes as they come!
Jul 21st at 2:20 am
It’s great.
Jul 21st at 2:32 am
Awesome, I like it! It’s really cool.
Jul 21st at 2:46 am
Piano black! Instantly becoming my favorite themes!
Now which one of my blog to use that theme properly…
Jul 21st at 3:41 am
Another theme. Great work.
Jul 21st at 3:59 am
Yeah its nice… but I’ve suggested that instead of black make in gold or rather light color. Because in physics black is the absence of all color.
Jul 21st at 4:54 am
Black is the new white!
Jul 21st at 4:58 am
Nice, But maybe we can lighten the color a little bit. Piano Silver or Gray would be nice. Plus is you make an option for 3 columns. Left and right side bars? I’m currently using Garland Theme which is nice. I will be perfect if there’s a header option for it and the comment section is separated from the tags.
Jul 21st at 5:36 am
These new themes are all so good! I am just settling into CHATEAU, but this new one is gorgeous. Very attractive. I will say right now that even though I love looking at it, though, I would not make a black blog simply because I myself have a hard time reading light text on black field. Still and all, this new template is so, so pretty.
One thing to add to Timethief’s comment about the ability to keep or hide the sidebar: Although I agree that it is thoughtful and a good thing that you have made the option to make that sidebar disappear, I still nonetheless prefer to have that sidebar *always* there because I want the reader to have all that sidebar information right there to click on while he is reading the blog post. It is not as elegant and does not put as much of a solo spotlight on the post, true, but I want that sidebar info always in their eyeballs.
Jul 21st at 6:25 am
Wow. But Matala seems good for now.
Jul 21st at 7:00 am
Well, I’m one of those people who doesn’t like simplicity. But the design is good.
Jul 21st at 7:02 am
Fantastic. I like it.
Jul 21st at 7:19 am
Uwm. As in the name: too black!
Jul 21st at 7:28 am
There’s so many new themes that I’m really having a difficult time choosing which theme to activate on my photo blog.
Piano Black is really a lovely theme.
Jul 21st at 4:37 pm
That’s a good problem to have.
Jul 21st at 8:18 am
Love it!
Jul 21st at 9:31 am
Looks just lovely.
Jul 21st at 9:33 am
I can dig it!
Jul 21st at 10:01 am
I’ve been really looking for such a simple black theme.
This is exactly my type! I have already activated it. Cool.
Jul 21st at 10:54 am
Oh that’s really cool, I really like it a lot.
Jul 21st at 11:14 am
Now active on my site. Love the colour and so clean looking.
Jul 21st at 11:54 am
Love all these themes you are rolling out. Nicely done WordPress.
Jul 21st at 12:17 pm
Elegant and interesting theme, but I love my current theme and I am gonna stick with it!
Jul 21st at 12:31 pm
Definitely elegant, but I don’t know if it is easy to read with a dark background, I would use it mainly for pictures, like a portfolio.
Jul 21st at 12:56 pm
This looks sleek and classy!
Jul 21st at 1:06 pm
My theme, Ouilipo, looks better. :]
Jul 21st at 1:08 pm
Cool! I really like it. I like the black simplicity. It looks sleek and simple to use.
Jul 21st at 2:05 pm
Elegant! Love all the new themes you are rolling out. But black is not for me. I am supremely happy with Manifest. White rocks!
Jul 21st at 2:37 pm
DANGIT! I thought it actually had something to do with the piano. Oh well..
It’s okay.
Jul 21st at 2:50 pm
This theme is not only really cool looking but it works really well with hand-held devices as well.
Jul 21st at 5:22 pm
Cool theme, maybe I can try out for a photoblog.
Jul 21st at 5:37 pm
Very stylish theme!
Jul 21st at 6:46 pm
Black is the favorite.
Jul 21st at 7:34 pm
I like the use of the gradient which actually makes it a black and grey theme. Quite compelling.
Jul 21st at 7:35 pm
Looks awesome!
Jul 21st at 7:47 pm
Black is the new, er… black.
Jul 21st at 7:57 pm
I like it, and I’m tempted to change my theme. However, I’m concerned that the font is too small for large amounts of text. It’s a good theme for photos.
Jul 21st at 10:09 pm
This theme is absolutely PERFECT for my music blog.
I’m updating the look very soon and I love the black and “sleekness” to it.
The first thing I said when I saw it was…. “ooo… pretty.”
Jul 21st at 11:23 pm
Wow! This theme is really clean, nice and optional for personal blog. I like it.
Jul 22nd at 1:10 am
Now I’m really confused to pick up the new theme for my blog because recently WordPress has announced so many lovely themes!
Jul 22nd at 1:35 am
Nice theme! I like this style!
Jul 22nd at 3:39 am
I’m with Sameer up there on wanting something along the lines of Piano White, but I think it should be Piano Ivory, slightly off-white. This theme is quite elegant.
Jul 22nd at 4:28 am
I changed to this one. I really like it!
Jul 22nd at 6:15 am
Looks really nice!
Jul 22nd at 8:36 am
Sleek. Black is beautiful!
Jul 22nd at 10:23 am
A nice theme but… I prefer more light and cheerful themes for WordPress not so black, the best example is Twenty Eleven.
Jul 22nd at 12:34 pm
I’m a fan of dark themes. This one’s awesome!
Jul 22nd at 7:23 pm
Piano black seems very interesting.
Jul 22nd at 7:26 pm
Very nice. I prefer darker interfaces as I work with graphics and 3d a lot myself. Love the clean design of this theme. 5 stars!
Jul 22nd at 9:33 pm
I like that one…dark like mine!
Jul 22nd at 11:06 pm
Looking good! (But I don’t like dark themes, particularly. Wouldn’t fit my blog, anyway.)
Jul 23rd at 2:53 am
This would be good for a blog posting film pictures of modern day objects and people.