StudioPress eleven40 Review

I just finished setting up a website for a Pilates studio. The owner chose the Eleven40 WordPress theme from StudioPress.

The first thing you notice about Eleven40 is that it’s w-i-d-e. You don’t have a lot of empty space alongside your columns in this theme!

I’m a big fan of white space. It’s a very important part of design. (As its name implies, white space is the area of background around your images, text or other website items that separates one thing from another.)

White space tells your eye where and how to move. When a website doesn’t have enough of it, you feel stressed just looking at it and you’re likely to leave a page faster.

Even though Eleven40 takes up more room from side to side, it still allows plenty of white space.

Here’s what the home page of the Inspired Movement Pilates site looks like.

See how narrow the margins are compared with this site?

Other Features

Columns

You can use either a 2-column or 3-column layout, with the sidebar(s) on the right, left or one on each side.

Colors

Eleven40 comes with four color choices: orange, blue, green and red. You can see the orange in the example above.

Mobile Responsive

Automatically resizes to fit a smart phone or tablet screen. You can read more about why you should have a mobile responsive theme here.

Here’s what it looks like across several mobile devices.

Home Page

It’s easy to customize the home page using widgets. Step-by-step directions and examples are available to you once you’ve purchased the theme.

Genesis Framework

It’s built on the Genesis Framework. I won’t go into the sorts of details about it that get programmers salivating, but there are a handful of important things you should know about Genesis.

1. It’s super secure. The developers have worked very hard to give you a WordPress platform that’s built to stand up to hackers and other internet bad guys. The company has a strong commitment to security, and you benefit.
2. Built-in support for Google Authorship. Don’t know what that is? It’s a very important new development that will help you rank better in Google search. Genesis makes it easy to claim your authorship. You can read more about Google Authorship and why it’s important here.
3. Great typography. Fonts are easy to read, and of a good size with sensible line spacing.
4. Excellent tech support. StudioPress tech support is fast, dependable, and their staff knows their products inside and out.

General Impressions

The Eleven40 Theme is a clean, visually appealing theme that’s easy to use right out of the box. If you have questions, or want to customize it, the support team is responsive and helpful. This theme is best suited for a traditional blog-style design.

Demo | Download Eleven40 WordPress Theme