New Themes: Motif and Suits
It’s the first Theme Thursday of 2014, and we’re kicking the year off with two new free themes.
Motif was designed to help you create a beautiful online presence for your business. You can integrate your logo with the custom header image, present your products with the grid page template, and feature your customers’ testimonials.
As a responsive theme, Motif will also keep your site sleek across a variety of devices, making it easy for your customers to find you and learn about your products, no matter which device they’re using.
Read more about Motif on the Theme Showcase, see it in action on the demo site, or activate it on your own blog by going to Appearance → Themes.
Next up we have Suits, a theme designed to make your content look its best. This theme is responsive and so your content will retain Suits‘ elegant and sophisticated styling for mobile, tablet, and desktop visitors.
It’s easy to tailor your custom look with Suits by adding a custom background or header to match the cut of your jib. There are a range of features in this theme including Featured Images and Post Formats. Suits truly is a theme for all occasions.
Read more about Suits on the Theme Showcase, or activate it on your blog by going to Appearance → Themes.
- January 9, 2014
- Themes
WordPress.com News 
I really like the Motif theme, in terms of pages it has some great option. It would be wonderful for creating portfolios. I would love to use it in one of my blogs. 🙂
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i can not get the big image look in my website how to get it????????
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Hi there! The layout on the screenshot is the front page template, and the big image is the featured image of the page to which you applied the front page template.
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I need help getting back on my word press site. The sign it wont allow me.
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Hi Kim, I’m sorry to hear you are having issues signing into your account. You can find some useful information about account recovery here: https://wordpress.com/support/account-recovery/. Should that not work there is also our support forum here: https://wordpress.com/forums/. Hopefully, you can get the sign in sorted and get using these new themes.
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Wow nice, particularly like the Motif theme.
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It nice to hear of free themes
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I love the “Suits” theme!
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Wow, the Motif theme is absolutely great.
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The themes are nice no doubt, can’t wait to use it.
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Both themes look great and they are free :o)
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I really like suits!
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Excelent theme!
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I tried it – but I was a little baffled by the Custom Header – it limits the image to 320 pixels wide, which looks very odd – more like a logo than a header – is that a bug or a feature?
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Hi John,
the size of the Custom Header is an aesthetic choice, it can be used for a logo or gravatar, whatever you like.
If you need a wider area for a custom header, there are lots of themes that support that, Suits being one of them.
Cheers!
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I’ve just started using this theme, but not for business. It would suit me down to the ground but for two aspects:
(1) The size of the header – absolutely minute, and I don’t understand why it’s even there. As for featured images, I can’t find anything in ‘Appearance’ that even mentions featured images.
(2) The lack of a tagline, which is very important to my ‘brand’. Can one be inserted?
I’m far from whingeing, I promise! – I do comprehend that I’m using the theme against your intentions, as it were; but what I really need are such important to me but unimportant to you brainiacs that I’m hoping you can find your way to helping me.
I didn’t WANT to move away from ‘Newsy’; but a very small CSS deletion I made has caused trickledown, and I can’t get back to where I was. ‘Newsy’ is, at the price of AUD130, now completely useless to me.
My fingers are firmly crosses that can and will help me, and understand that I really need to fix these things urgently, before my blog’s … purpose is lost.
regards,
M.R.
http://www.margaretrosestringer.com
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Hi M.R, is it Suits or Motif you are having those issues on?
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I love this theme. I have just set it up and there are lots of exciting features to play around with. From the screen-shots though, it shows that you can have a title and then a sub-title. However, I do not seem to be able to get the sub-title to appear on my blog. I’ve gone into customise and have a heading and tagline option, but only the heading appears. I have tried removing and readding the tagline text, but I can not get it to come up on my blog. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
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Sorry, I forgot to mention, this was for the Motif Theme. Thank you.
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Hi Elizabeth,
thanks for the suggestion to display the tagline – we’ve put that into place and hope you enjoy it.
Cheers!
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Holy shit, I adore Suits. The theme and the show.
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Hello there,
I like crisp minimalist responsive layout themes and I have no intention of purchasing a custom design upgrade. I putting that up front so I don’t get sales pitch.
My immediate response to Motif was positive. However, closer examination revealed the post formats appear like pinboard stickers, rather than blending into the background of the theme as I’m accustomed to seeing them do. I dislike that stuck on the blog page appearance so I am disappointed. I was also disappointed to find there were no free of charge color palette choices provided. Though I appreciate all the other theme features it has it’s not a theme I will use.
I have Suits up on my test blog and appreciate the 3 color customization palette choices we can use free of charge. Thank you so much for them. I’m aware of the few other free themes that have this added feature and I’m hoping more of the free themes will have it in the future too.
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I have tested the Motif theme last week, but disliked it can only display small custom header. Just checked up the Suits theme and found it quite suits my need of 2 columns layout and simple colour scheme. It would be great if the in post link colour can be changed to grey instead of red.
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Hi aearthr, I’m pleased Suits is fitting what you want. Thanks for the suggestion of how we can improve Suits. There is no setting for link color, currently you can change that using the palettes or custom design upgrade: https://wordpress.com/support/custom-design/.
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When I found a great image for a header I was disappointed that my original theme that I loved didn’t support one. I changed to Suits and am very happy with my blog’s new look. Great work.
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I tried both of them. Suits is winner – but in a little bit more colourfull version than original version 🙂
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Suits is great, but is there a way to make the size of embedded video and pictures smaller, so it’s not so big and overpowering within a blog?
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It’s “Motif”, Tammy … Sorry for not being explicit. I wasn’t allowing for the fact that I’m dealing with people who have about a thousand things going on in their heads/worlds at one time! :-\
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Hi M.R.,
thanks for the feedback, the theme now displays the headline.
Concerning the featured images, these can be added to your posts and pages: https://wordpress.com/support/featured-images/
Cheers!
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I don’t understand, Frank – that is, unless you’ve also made some change to the featured images? As I wrote earlier, I could find no trace of featured images anywhere in the dashboard. So, thanking you for the addition of the tagline, would you confirm that changes HAVE been made to enable access to featured headers? Alternatively, can you instruct me how I insert them, please?
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Motif supports featured images, which are displayed in the content area of your posts and pages.
However Motif does not support featured header images. If this is a necessary feature for your blog, we have a selection of other themes that do support this: http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/features/featured-image-header/
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The Motif theme is sharp and has lots of possibilities but I’m experiencing an issue with the Grid Page template. I do not see an option to customize an excerpt (it doesn’t appear under Screen Options either) and the alternative “More” tag isn’t functioning the way it is intended. See http://sportscollectoroz.wordpress.com/the-rookie-card-showcase/
Any guidance on how to resolve is greatly appreciated.
Since the Motif theme is geared towards a business’ online presence, I would also like to make a recommendation. Add social media links to either the header or footer, header preferred. I think the important ones to include would be LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Facebook. Some may also want Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Flickr.
Thank you for the fantastic looking theme!
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Hi there,
thanks a lot for the nice words!
We’ve added support for manual excerpts to pages. You’ll see the excerpts now appearing in the Screen Options: https://wordpress.com/support/splitting-content/excerpts/#creating-excerpts
I also appreciate the suggestion concerning the social media links.
Cheers!
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I should add, having read yet again the disclaimer re support questions here, that the support page on featured headers is all very well, but certainly DIDN’T (? now) have any relevance. I’m reluctant to change themes again without some certainty that I WILL be able to access featured headers …
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Frank, I’m now TOTALLY confused. May I start again, please? – otherwise the responses I’ve had will drive me silly (OK, sillier) …
I like Motif very much, but it has two insuperable problems for me, one of which you have solved by telling me that now it shows the tagline.
The other, vital problem is the ridiculous size of the header: it’s obviously not meant as a header at all, but for some kind of logo. SO … My question was, can it be made much bigger, so that it can be a real header?
I only ventured into featured header territory because you did! 🙂
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Hi M.R.,
the size of the custom header in Motif is fixed, and there isn’t a way to make it bigger.
Having a fixed size for the custom header has been an aesthetic choice by the theme designer.
If you need a wider area for a custom header, there are lots of themes that support that, Suits being one of them.
Cheers!
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CSS to the rescue, Frank. This is a theme that I really like, with the exception of the header size; so Rich fixed it all for me.
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Looks great! 🙂
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I’m pleased you think so. I reckon you guys with your clever brains can always derive something from another person’s slightly different p.o.v. 🙂
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Oh, and Panos gave me a search box in the nav menu, too.
🙂
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These are good themes, but the designers should definitely mull over the criticism that has been expressed here.
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Love to see new themes added! I especially like the Motif.
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Hello. Using Motif and love it. Is the “Leave a Reply” embedded in the code? I believe I have searched all my options to turn comments off and it still shows. http://kristykanerhea.wordpress.com/
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Hi krhea,
the “Leave a Reply” form will not be displayed if the comments are disabled for a certain post or page.
In case you need more information about disabling comments, you can find some useful information here: https://wordpress.com/support/enable-disable-comments/
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Really nice theme — I will surely use in my new project. Thanks.
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I am using “suits”…thanks for the theme.
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front page title is a slide?
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Working to use the Motif theme. The FRONT page template is a piece of work. Any way to get rid of the overlay content? Only want my featured image there. It is odd how the content of the page can show up on top of the image. This should be the header image area. The customer header, should reserve for a logo, optional. It is a shame such good theme will have so much problems. Many people want to use Motif but they can’t get to it.
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Hi Leslie,
thanks for your suggestions. You can remove the overlay of the content using a bit of Custom CSS, which is part of the Custom Design upgrade: https://wordpress.com/support/custom-design/
Let me know if you need help writing the CSS. Cheers!
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FOr sub pages, can you change the widget on the default template? See http://kristykanerhea.wordpress.com/competencies/think/ I would like to add other items instead of Archive and Meta. Thanks!
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Yes, you can select which widgets you want to display in the sidebar: https://wordpress.com/support/widgets/
In Motif, the sidebar on the right is called “Main Sidebar”.
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These are some nice looking themes, I may have to update to one of them someday 🙂
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this is clean and simple
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Motif theme is Great, I am currently using it in my blog. Im new to blogging. Currently building my community and hoping to have a great audience. 🙂
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Two great looking themes. I especially like the look of the motif theme. I’ve been looking for a new responsive theme for my website, I think I may have just found it!
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This is it. 🙂 Simple, beautiful and so many possibilities.
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Will definitely give Motif a go 🙂
http://myofficepod.wordpress.com
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My vote goes to ‘Suits’! I’m a fan of its minimal, straightforward design.
I do have a concern over the text layout. When a word does not fit the line anymore, it gets cut with a dash instead of simply placing the word on the next line. That also goes with the title – which is a real eyesore.
Hope the developers could fix it – I can totally stick to this theme for years! 🙂
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Hi, Yom. I just pushed a fix for this in the theme. It should now just wrap the words for you. Thanks for letting us know how we can improve the theme and we hope you continue to enjoy using it.
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The suits theme is great, necessary even!
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I really like the Motif theme. One problem, however, is the drop-down menu doesn’t work on a tablet. Does anyone have any insight in how to correct this?
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I also found Motif is missing a closing tag for the opening according to the W3C validator
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Hello
I am currently new to wordpress & have set up my first blog: http://yashovardhanbhatia.wordpress.com/
I am using the SUITS theme which is amazing but am facing major issues with the header. The basic problem being I am not able to get any image to fill the whole space of the header apart from the one I had uploaded initially. I designed a custom header using photoshop as well but it just crops both sides and makes it a smaller header in terms of the width. I’ve tried all pixel images, resolutions, sizes everything but none seem to utilize the full header space which is currently there.
I have not purchased any custom design pack etc. Simply using the free theme.
Would love to get a solution to this problem as I feel really stuck with this one image. Will buying a custom design pack thing help?
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Hi there, the best place to get help is by posting in our very active support forums: https://wordpress.com/forums/
Since you’re new to WordPress.com, you might first like to check out some tips for getting help in the forums.
Thanks!
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Hi! Love this theme! Looks great!
The grid goes all wonky when you have more than 8 items. It’s being talked about here:
https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/motif-theme-grid-layout?replies=4#post-1603711
I can’t change the code as they’ve suggested. Can you fix the theme please?
Thanks!
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Hi Shannon,
I’ve pushed a fix for this issue, so that the grids are now aligning correctly.
I’m sorry about this problem, I should have paid more attention in math class. 😉
Cheers!
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I love the Suits theme, but now it does not allows to return to default colors set. How can I resolve? Thank you!
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Hi there, if you need help setting up the theme, feel free to post in the support forums: https://wordpress.com/forums/ Thanks!
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Hi! Loving the Motif theme! Only having a problem with the grid page:
http://liefsuit.wordpress.com/hrc/
It doesn’t align after 6 subpages and I can’t find a solution anywhere. Hopefully you can point me in the right direction for contact or an answer? Thank you so much!
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Hi Esther,
we have deployed a fix for this issue. I’m sorry that you ran into this problem, and I hope that you continue to enjoy using the theme.
Cheers!
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Thank you Tammie! I just checked my blog and it now suits the layout I desire 🙂 Thanks for this – really glad to stick with it! Kudos to the developers!
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Hello! I just built a site using Motif but I can’t figure out how to remove the WordPress “Like” buttons from the testimonials on the front page. Any advice? This is the site: http://www.safirassociates.org.
Thanks!
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Hi Sara, the options for Likes can be found in your dashboard, under Settings > Sharing. There isn’t an option to turn off Likes for the testimonials only – it’s tied to your overall site setting. If you need further help, please post in the support forums: https://wordpress.com/forums/ Thanks!
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I really liked the suits theme but I have one question: I uploaded a first header and it took the whole width of my blog, which I really love. I wanted to switch image but every other image I upload, they appear to be 2 black side bars so the header doesn’t fill the whole width. What should I do? What strange Idea to leave to side bars. I don’t want to buy the upgrade, and I cannot work with css. Can someone help me?
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Hi annelissen. Suits has a fixed width header, so it doesn’t have a full width custom header by default. We are constantly looking to improve our themes and thank you for your feedback on this as not being what you expected.
I’m a little puzzled if you didn’t see this the first time. If you are able to replicate it again by uploading a new image then can you please open a support issue as this would need to be investigated. You can do that here: https://wordpress.com/forums/
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This theme looks great 🙂
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