Anariel Design Releases Bricksy, Its Third WordPress Block Theme – WP Tavern


Yesterday, Anariel Design’s third block theme, Bricksy, went dwell within the WordPress.org listing. Ana Segota, the co-founder and self-proclaimed “inventive motor” of the corporate, has nearly develop into a grasp at block-based theme design at this level, and this mission is simply her exhibiting off her abilities.

I really took the theme for a spin over the weekend once I noticed it was ready within the evaluate queue, so I’ve had a number of days to mess around with it. Regardless of a number of trivial points, it has shortly develop into one among my favourite block themes.

Bricksy WordPress theme home/blog page.  Header shows logo and menu. It is followed by a three-column section of Cover blocks with background images that include a header and button. Following that is a two-column grid of posts.
Bricksy weblog web page design.

Whereas I’ve usually appreciated Anariel Design’s two earlier block themes, Naledi and Clove, I couldn’t see myself putting in them on a real-world mission. They have been merely not my private model. Nonetheless, Bricksy is a theme I might positively use if I had a mission for it for the time being.

One in every of my favourite design parts is the cursive handwriting for the positioning emblem, which can also be used throughout numerous patterns.

Offset three columns of team member sections with images, names, roles, and social links.  In the center, there is a cursive header that reads "freedom," followed by "Our Team".
Crew Various sample with cursive header picture.

The draw back is that these are photographs, so they don’t seem to be simply recreated by end-users with out Photoshop chops. I wish to see the crew rethink utilizing a handwriting-style font — perhaps one from Google Fonts — that enables customers so as to add customized textual content instantly from the editor.

Bricksy has, palms down, among the most beautifully-designed patterns I’ve seen in a block theme but. In whole, there are 32.

WordPress block pattern explorer, which displays a categories panel on the left and a three-column grid of patterns on the right.
Bricksy’s normal block patterns.

It’s making an early bid for my favourite theme of 2022, however I cannot get forward of myself. We nonetheless have nearly a whole 12 months to go earlier than I make that decision.

It even features a customized social hyperlinks format. An increasing number of themes are bundling their very own takes on this sample, however Bricksy’s shade scheme and default Cowl block picture stand out.

Cover block with a background of a pier over a lake. Content contains image, title, subtitle, link buttons, and a social links menu.
Social Hyperlinks block sample.

With 32 patterns, I might dedicate a whole publish to all of them, however I’m restricted on time. For essentially the most half, they’re layout-focused fairly than industry-focused patterns. This implies they can be utilized on an unlimited vary of web sites. Nonetheless, the pricing tables and crew sections make sense for small companies. Bricksy additionally helps WooCommerce.

Probably the most putting factor about every sample is that all of them appear to suit throughout the theme’s total design. Usually, when themes embrace dozens of block patterns, a few of them can really feel like a further possibility merely for the sake of including another factor in. And, that by no means feels just like the case with Bricksy.

For long-form content material, the theme is first rate. Nonetheless, it might be higher. Its 720px content material width and 18px font measurement can shortly develop exhausting to learn. Slicing the width anyplace from 80px to 120px makes it way more comfy. Bumping the font measurement up a few further pixels works too.

After I first activated the theme, I believed it was totally damaged. I had questioned the way it managed to slide via the evaluate system. The theme’s header was outputting seemingly random demo content material. However, it was additionally acquainted. I used to be optimistic it was a check publish from my set up.

Header of a website is erroneously displaying the content of a post, which is a table, image, and list.
Nav menu exhibiting a weblog publish’s content material.

The difficulty was robust to seek out. After all the pieces from deactivating plugins to scrubbing templates from the database, I lastly discovered it. The ref key for the Navigation block within the theme’s header.html template half was the perpetrator. Bricksy pointed to a particular publish ID within the code:

<!-- wp:navigation {"ref":4790,"format":{"sort":"flex","setCascadingProperties":true,"justifyContent":"proper"}} /-->

4790 is the ID of a literal publish on my check set up, so the Navigation block confirmed its content material as an alternative of a menu. More than likely, this was instantly copied or exported from the positioning editor. Theme authors must be careful for particular ID references of their code when constructing from the editor, ensuring to take away them earlier than transport.

Other than a few trivial points and a single OMGBBQ one after activation, I loved utilizing the theme. It has discovered its place in my recommended-themes listing.


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