14 DAY TRIAL // One of the first experience most people starting out with WordPress remember is seeing their blog for the first time with the simple yet functional default theme, aka Kubrick, and the Hello World post.
This went on for years and the theme has left its mark on the collective consciousness. That said, last year the developers believed it was time for a change and perhaps they were right.
Thus TwentyTen was born and that has been the default theme for WordPress 3.0 and WordPress 3.1. But its time has passed as well, a new theme, to be named TwentyEleven, is being proposed for the WordPress 3.2 release.
"Importing Duster theme, first pass at a candidate for twentyeleven theme," WordPress creator and Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg wrote in the WordPress Trac.
"Nice to have, but optional, improvements it'd be nice to have: Ability to have random rotating headers. (Core improvement to custom header functionality.) Color and layout options. More post formats. (Currently supporst Asides, Links, and Galleries.) CMS-style slider home page option. Welcome, TwentyEleven née Duster," he listed some of the improvements that could be done before WordPress 3.2 lands.
Duster is a pretty snazzy looking theme and it definitely packs a lot of functionality. It doesn't seem too overwhelming, it manages to still look rather simple and should be easy enough for bloggers just starting out to understand. Duster is an official theme created by the Theme Team from Automattic.
"Apart from the custom possibilities you’re acquainted with in most of our themes — features like custom backgrounds, headers, and menus — [Duster] is also equipped with a custom Showcase Page Template that can propel your site up to a new level," the theme is described.
TwentyTen was one of the big new changes in WordPress 3.0 and a lot of attention was paid to bringing some fresh new looks to the popular blogging platform.
However, as the name implies, the idea was to have one new theme each year, so the team is now looking for a replacement, which seems to be Duster. Of course, WordPress 3.2 is still in the early stages and Duster may not end up replacing TwentyTen if issues arise.