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.
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July 20th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Cool, I like the simplicity.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Looks really great, but I like my current theme more.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
Excellent themes WordPress is coming out with of late. Is there a Piano White too?
July 20th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Thanks Sameer. No plans for a Piano White, but it’s a great idea.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Black is the new color. 8)
July 20th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Very elegant theme. The idea is great but black is not my favorite now.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 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!
July 20th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Thank you, timethief, for all your hard work in the forums. You make WP.com a happier place!
July 20th, 2011 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.)
July 20th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
A good theme for photography. Thanks.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:34 pm
It looks great.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Definite spate of great themes recently. Great stuff, guys!
July 20th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
White text on black background! Very difficult to read, and tiring for the eyes!
July 20th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
Looks nice but I find lighter backgrounds more appealing.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Sleek like black piano keys… I get the theme name!
July 20th, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Trendy and cool! Like it.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Oooooooooooooooooooh, yummy! This one I will check out later when I have time.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
Classy! For a swan lake ballerina. 8)
July 20th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
I like it. It seems very good and attractive to me.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
AWESOME theme, I like it.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
This theme is good, great job! But I like white themes.
July 20th, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Nice. This is one I might actually change to.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I like it, I like it. Enough to abandon Freshy??
July 20th, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Thank you! This will be perfect for my health blog.
July 20th, 2011 at 7:37 pm
This one is very nice!
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 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…
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Very nice and classy really something I will use in the future.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
This one is VERY, VERY, VERY cool! I love it!
July 20th, 2011 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!!
July 20th, 2011 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!
July 20th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
This theme is nice, but I’d like more themes where I can customize the fonts and background colors.
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
It’s a beautiful theme — clean and crisp. I might try this after I get bored with my current theme.
July 20th, 2011 at 11:37 pm
This theme is amazing! In fact I’m using it already.
July 20th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Marvelous! Love this a lot.
July 20th, 2011 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.
July 20th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
It’s nice, truly elegant. But I’m on with more colors.
July 21st, 2011 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!
July 21st, 2011 at 12:13 am
Great work. This theme has many good features. Keep up the great work WP… go Piano Black go.
July 21st, 2011 at 12:59 am
Very nice and sleek feel.
July 21st, 2011 at 1:27 am
This look like another theme here. I forgot its name.
July 21st, 2011 at 1:59 am
Very cool!
July 21st, 2011 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!
July 21st, 2011 at 2:09 am
Looks smooth.
July 21st, 2011 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!
July 21st, 2011 at 2:20 am
It’s great.
July 21st, 2011 at 2:32 am
Awesome, I like it! It’s really cool.
July 21st, 2011 at 2:46 am
Piano black! Instantly becoming my favorite themes!
Now which one of my blog to use that theme properly…
July 21st, 2011 at 3:41 am
Another theme. Great work.
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 at 4:54 am
Black is the new white!
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 at 6:25 am
Wow. But Matala seems good for now.
July 21st, 2011 at 7:00 am
Well, I’m one of those people who doesn’t like simplicity. But the design is good.
July 21st, 2011 at 7:02 am
Fantastic. I like it.
July 21st, 2011 at 7:19 am
Uwm. As in the name: too black!
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 at 4:37 pm
That’s a good problem to have.
July 21st, 2011 at 8:18 am
Love it!
July 21st, 2011 at 9:31 am
Looks just lovely.
July 21st, 2011 at 9:33 am
I can dig it!
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 at 10:54 am
Oh that’s really cool, I really like it a lot.
July 21st, 2011 at 11:14 am
Now active on my site. Love the colour and so clean looking.
July 21st, 2011 at 11:54 am
Love all these themes you are rolling out. Nicely done WordPress.
July 21st, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Elegant and interesting theme, but I love my current theme and I am gonna stick with it!
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 at 12:56 pm
This looks sleek and classy!
July 21st, 2011 at 1:06 pm
My theme, Ouilipo, looks better. :]
July 21st, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Cool! I really like it. I like the black simplicity. It looks sleek and simple to use.
July 21st, 2011 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!
July 21st, 2011 at 2:37 pm
DANGIT! I thought it actually had something to do with the piano. Oh well..
It’s okay.
July 21st, 2011 at 2:50 pm
This theme is not only really cool looking but it works really well with hand-held devices as well.
July 21st, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Cool theme, maybe I can try out for a photoblog.
July 21st, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Very stylish theme!
July 21st, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Black is the favorite.
July 21st, 2011 at 7:34 pm
I like the use of the gradient which actually makes it a black and grey theme. Quite compelling.
July 21st, 2011 at 7:35 pm
Looks awesome!
July 21st, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Black is the new, er… black.
July 21st, 2011 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.
July 21st, 2011 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.”
July 21st, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Wow! This theme is really clean, nice and optional for personal blog. I like it.
July 22nd, 2011 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!
July 22nd, 2011 at 1:35 am
Nice theme! I like this style!
July 22nd, 2011 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.
July 22nd, 2011 at 4:28 am
I changed to this one. I really like it!
July 22nd, 2011 at 6:15 am
Looks really nice!
July 22nd, 2011 at 8:36 am
Sleek. Black is beautiful!
July 22nd, 2011 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.
July 22nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
I’m a fan of dark themes. This one’s awesome!
July 22nd, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Piano black seems very interesting.
July 22nd, 2011 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!
July 22nd, 2011 at 9:33 pm
I like that one…dark like mine!
July 22nd, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Looking good! (But I don’t like dark themes, particularly. Wouldn’t fit my blog, anyway.)
July 23rd, 2011 at 2:53 am
This would be good for a blog posting film pictures of modern day objects and people.