UPDATE: This post is old. This theme is old. Many things have changed in WordPress that have most likely broken some things in the theme. I would not suggest using this theme on a live site (it’s dated and ugly by today’s standards anyway). With that being said it is a very simple theme with an easily understandable structure compared to the way modern themes are built today. If you’re looking for a base to build on this may still be useful to you.
Way back when I originally decided to start my blog using WordPress, I was dismayed at the lack of availability of “clean and simple” themes that I could use as a starting point for developing my own.
The themes that were available, whether free or otherwise, all suffered from a lack of standards compliance, and bloat. Very few were suitable for someone who wanted full control.
So I ended up building the Limelight Theme from scratch. I built it to be as simple as possible, with clear, easy to modify code that would validate to standards. It is SEO optimized as well. It makes smart use of transparent images, and the entire colour scheme of the theme can be changed by replacing a single image, and replacing two more will complete the customization.
Over time it evolved to include support for eShop, an incredibly awesome shopping cart for WordPress which integrated with this website.