If you don’t normally click through from the feed to visit the site, I invite you to take a look some time soon. I have uploaded a new WordPress theme that I have been working on called “Simple Steve.”

To see the new theme, you’ll have to choose it from the “Themes” drop-down menu in the sidebar. That will switch to the new theme and set a browser cookie so you’ll see that theme until you change it back (the menu is in the footer of the new theme).

I’m calling it an alpha test for now, because there are some problems that I already know about (doesn’t validate as XHTML strict yet, typical “looks crappy in IE6/Win” problems, etc.), and I expect to be changing and tweaking it a lot. But those are things that seem easiser to solve on the server than on a local WordPress install. And, hey: on my machine in my browser with my fonts installed and my preferences in place (and viewed in the right light at the proper distance and angle and with a glass or two of a nice dry white wine in you) I think it’s looking pretty good. Let me know what you think, especially if you find something that is genuinely b0rked.

When I first set out to write a new theme, I was inspired by complex, layered designs like those at Subtraction and 456 Berea Street. But then I started to realize that I didn’t quite have the design talent to pull off that kind of design, and that I really have a pretty simple site here that might be better served by a more simple approach. So I took more inspiration from the snazzy Slash7 and sublime Ryan Tomayko. Those are still more accomplished designs than what I have come up with here, but I hope that this new design gives us some more room to breathe around here.

Also, if there are any WordPress veterans out there with an elegant solution for a guy who wants to display a few posts on the home page and dozens of posts on the archive pages, throw me a bone in the comments, would ya?