Before we annouce you the winners, we would like to say our special thanks to the judges: Jason Schuller, Jean-Baptise Jung from WPRecipes.com, Alexander Frison from WPEngineer.com, Jeff Chandler, Michael Castilla from WPCandy.com, and Michael Dobler from Smashing Magazine. It’s been so wonderful working together with you guys and your comments about the designs are deeply appreciated.

Here comes what you’ve been waiting for. The grand champion entitled for US$ 1500 is Firman Firdaus with his concept TypeMagz! He is the winner of the Category C (Newspaper/Magazine) and his design is the best among the 12 finalists.

And here comes the winner of Category A (General Blog/Lifestream). We present you Elio Rivero with his concept the stunning colorful JoyColor. He is entitled for US$ 1000 as the winner of Category A. Congratulations Elio!!

Completing the list of winners, hereby is the winner of Category B (Business Blog/Portfolio) who is entitled for US$ 1000. We present you Septi Yulia with her design Narcilicious! Congratulations Septi! You are officially the prettiest among the winners and the prettiest among the finalists!

And here we complete the list of the TOP 12:

4. CreatifStuff by Taufik Ridha (Category B)
5. The Hives by Nurul Izwan Dahlan (Category A)
6. GridPrefection by Jan Klosowski (Category C)
7. Synkrographiks by Hendra (Category C)
8. Valentine by Wendell Fernandes (Category B)
9. Humble by Ronggur Hutasuhut (Category C)
10. DarkMagz by Ronggur Hutasuhut (Category B)
11. EasyBlog by Taufik Ridha (Category A)
12. KeithSpot by Keith Donaldson (Category A)

Once again we congratulate all the winners. Your designs are wonderful and we’ve been very glad to host a contest with winners like you. For the rest of the finalists, there might be a big opportunity that we’re planning to also purchase your design, just check your email inbox and we’ve sent you the details.

Everyone, you’re about to see wonderful new WordPress premium themes available here!

Anyway, we know that you’ve been waiting for this. Here are the finalists, in a totally random order. We deliberately do not publish the designs as the competition has currently not ended (yet). Please welcome the finalists! (drum snares…)

Category A: General Blog/Lifestream and Photo/Videoblog

• JoyColors by Elio Rivero
• The Hives by Nurul Izwan Dahlan
• KeithSpot by Keith Donaldson
• EasyBlog by Taufik Ridha

Category B: Business Blog/Portfolio

• Narcilicious by Septi Yulia
• Valentine by Wendell Fernandes
• DarkMagz by Ronggur Hutasuhut
• CreatifStuff by Taufik Ridha

Category C: Newspaper/Magazine

• GridPrefection by Jan Klosowski
• TypeMagz by Firman Firdaus
• Synkrographiks by Hendra
• Humble by Ronggur Hutasuhut

Congratulations to all the finalists, you can check your email inbox for further information and technical details about the final competition! In the final round, you are required to submit the inner pages of the theme concept along with the source files (PSD files). Those source files will be assessed to determine the core quality of the design. Remember to submit them all by February 21, 2009. You are now all one step closer to the prizes!

Finally, we want to thank all participants and media that have helped us in hosting this contest. We won’t say any goodbye now and we can’t wait for the final day to come!

Anyway, what do you believe in designs? We believe that great designs are designs that speak and function. They were developed through insightful inspirations and born to convey an important message to the viewers. Although designs are always eye-candies, we do believe that awesomeness lies beyond.

Talking about Wordpress, what do you think an awesome high quality Wordpress themes should look like? Should they have vivid colors? Clear typography? Great content readability? Or perhaps something that conventional graphic design theories forget?

Well, we guess this is your time to decide. Express your insights by designing a theme concept for us. Show yourself off, gain some recognition, and not to mention, there is a total prize of US$ 3500 available for you, talented designers.

How to participate in the contest?

To participate in the contest, you must submit a theme concept to ColorLabs Project. It’s not a theme, it’s just a concept. Here are some technical requirements of the concept:

• The theme concept is intended for Wordpress. That’s rule number one. But the great news is: there is a broad possibility of amazing stuffs we can create with Wordpress.
• We believe that there are numerous ways to present a theme concept, but to participate in the contest, your theme concept must be created in Photoshop format.
• The theme concept must cater the 1024 X 768 user’s screen. Therefore, considering the margin and borders, the maximum width of the design is 980 pixels.
• To participate in the contest, you need to publish a blog post and tell a bit of your story about the contest. You should also give a linkback to this post. (optional)
  
• Designs must be submitted in JPG or PNG format to contest [at] colorlabsproject [dot] com. You also have to tell us the background story of the concept: what inspired you, how you designed, what the design is all about. Designs are not only about shapes, colors, or patterns. They should have insightful story that complete the whole as one. In the story, please also mention your full name and any URL you would like to be linked to if you win.
• If you use any stock/source images in the designs, please submit them as well and mention the URLs in the story above. Please make sure that those images have extended usage licenses that allow the distribution of the design.
• Designs must be submitted before 14th February 2009, midnight (GMT+7).

The competition is divided into two phases:

1. Qualification Round: ending February 14, 2009.
   In this round, participants are only required to submit the front-page of the theme concept in PNG/JPG format. In the end, there will be 12 theme concepts that will be selected to compete in the final round.
2. Final Round: February 14, 2009 - February 21, 2009.
   In this round, finalists are required to submit the inner pages of the theme concept along with the source files (PSD files). Source files will be assessed to determine the core quality of the design.

The contest is divided into 3 (three) categories:

1. Category A: General Blog/Lifestream and Photo/Videoblog
   Theme concepts participating in this category should include general elements for standard personal/lifestream blogs or photo/videoblogs.
2. Category B: Business Blog/Portfolio
   Designs competing in this category should include several basic elements of business/portfolio blogs. They should be able to market products/services or function as a showcase site.
3. Category C: Newspaper/Magazine
   Theme concepts participating in this category should include main elements of an online newspaper/magazine, particularly: headline, featured posts, multiple post listings, and ad spots.

The winner from each category will receive US$ 1000 and additional US$ 500 will be awarded to the best of the three. So it’ll be US$ 1500 for the best of the best and US$ 1000 each for the rest two winners. All winners will be interviewed and featured in ColorLabsProject. One contestant may submit more than one design and he/she may win more than one category as well.

Designs are assessed by a special team from ColorLabs Project and a number of Wordpress enthusiasts that we invite as guest judges. Three main factors that we will put into considerations are (1) the background story of the concept, (2) how well the theme concept presents the site’s content to the viewer, and (3) how far it transforms Wordpress into something stunning yet well-functioning as a website.

We will then make the winning theme concepts available as official ColorLabs Project themes and we will credit the contestant for the design.

Terms and Conditions

• One contestant may submit more than one theme concept, he/she is also able to win more than one category.
• Theme concept has to be completely new, never been published anywhere, and never been used to compete in similar contests.
• Theme concept must be originally developed by you and it must be entirely your own work. If it contains any stock images, it must be certified that they have an extended usage.
• You understand that by participating in this contest, your theme concept is possibly used by ColorLabs Project and may be made available for purchase on our site. Winners will be awarded a cash prize for their work. Any other theme concept will only be made available for purchase after a once-off fee agreed by both parties. Sales generated off the theme will be kept by the company.

The Judges

ColorLabsProject Design Contest will be judged by Jason Schuller, Jean-Baptise Jung from WPRecipes.com, Alexander Frison from WPEngineer.com, Jeff Chandler, Michael Castilla from WPCandy.com, Michael Dobler from Smashing Magazine and Michael Jubel Hutagalung. Additionally, we are still waiting for confirmations from several other guest judges and we’ll put it here as soon as they become official!

So, are you in?? Submit your theme concepts now!

Hereby we present you a new ColorlabsProject, along with a new membership system provides all-in-one solution for customer to ask for theme support, read the online regularly updated theme documentation, upgrade theme licenses in few clicks, and download the latest version of the themes.

Online documentation, theme knowledgebase, and tutorials will make you easier to get through the installation and configuration process. We will also post some articles about how to modify particular section of the theme, integrate plugins, etc.

With this new system, you can update your profile (name, email, password, and blog URL) and you don’t have to rely to newsletters (in the past, using the old system) which happened to be unreliable as it often caught as spam, got lost on its way, etc, etc. Should there be any updates made to the theme, we will post a Tweet to inform you all and afterward you can log in to the site and click the download link. And anyway, you will never find the link expired or whatsoever anymore; and you don’t have to buzz us to activate the link, LOL.

Along this new system, Affiliate Program is also renewed. We won’t be using E-Junkie system anymore and all affiliate needs to sign up as affiliate. We apologize for any inconvenience that happen because of this but trust us: all these stuffs will eventually ease you in many aspects.

We also have a new section called “Showcase”. It is a place for you to show off your sites which are using our themes. We selectively put sites to that section as only the best of all that will be added there. And not to mention, we do have prizes for those who get featured there. So, submit your sites now!

And if you are a premium customer but do not have an account to access this new system, simply send us an email to sales [at] colorlabsproject [dot] com and mention the username and password that you want, you can change the password later. Don’t forget to mention the PayPal e-mail you used to purchase the theme.

Bottomline, we create all these things to provide you a better service. Thanks for purchasing the theme!

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/colorlabs!

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feeds as well!
http://feeds.feedburner.com/colorlabsproject

Remember!! Send us an email, provide a username, a password, and your PayPal email!

See ya!

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There are basically 3 colors applied across the theme: the dark tone, the light tone, and the link hover cover. With these 3 user-definable options, you can get any color you want for your blog.

What should I do?

1. Log into your WP Dashboard.
2. Activate the Platformate Theme. (you should have done this already, I guess)
3. Go to Design >> Platfotmate Options
4. In the top-right section of the theme admin panel, you’ll find “Theme Color“.
5. Put the codes below to your admin panel, save the settings.
6. Visit your blog, refresh the page, and you’ll see your blog in a new color.

Note: The category spoilers colors in the right sidebar must be configured in “Category Color Assignment” in the bottom-left of the admin panel.

So, what are you waiting for? Colorize your Platformate now!

Tips on Custom Colors

You can use this references to get more color codes:

• http://www.hypergurl.com/colormatch.php
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_colors
• http://www.webmonkey.com/reference/Color_Charts
• http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm

To get the best and professional look, you can use some web color palette software like Adobe Kuler.

Platformate Theme is available at Colorlabs Project: Platformate.
Get it while it’s hot! Click here to purchase the theme!

The Theme Walk-Through

The upper part of the theme shows a list of most commented posts, titled here as “Hot Discussions”, and a list of most popular posts that are generated by the Popularity Contest plugin. Why putting these lists on the top? Don’t these lists usually displayed in the sidebar or at the bottom of a blog? Well, why not? Imagine if there is someone who accidentally bumped into your blog and they have no idea what your blog is all about. Isn’t it a good idea to deliver them the most popular post? Isn’t it an effective way to show them the best that your blog has and hope them to become one of your loyal readers?

The content is positioned at the centre of the theme in a width that will give your visitor a good content readability. It is not too wide nor too narrow; yet giving you enough space to post a medium-sized (500 pixels-wide) pictures. The paragraph spacing is enough and the font typeface is Arial, the every browser’s favorite. Breadcrumbs are located above the post title, giving the readers the information about where they actually are; post meta data is located under the post title. Comment and trackbacks are displayed separately to give the readers more focus on the current discussion and the comment list is Gravatar-ready.

To the left, there is the left sidebar, a usual sidebar that a blog usually has. This sidebar is widget-ready and configurable through Wordpress administration panel. To the right, there are the color-configurable category spoilers. This section will display some posts from several categories along with their thumbnails. These thumbnails have some hover transparency effect so that these elements do not make the whole layout look too “full”. The footer is located at the bottom of the page with a bit Apple Mac grey color touch. Pages from your blog will be displayed here. There is also a login/site admin/logout link available for you so you can get rid of the WP Meta sidebar widget.

The Main Features

If you’ve been wanting a personal blog with a personalized magazine look, we believe that The Platformate Theme will suit your needs.

1. Theme Administration Panel.

   You’ve got no idea about PHP, (X)HTML, and CSS? Don’t worry about all the complicated commands and manage everything from the theme administration panel.

2. Auto-Thumbnail Your Old Posts.

   Seriously, please forget the time-consuming thumbnail generation with Photoshop, forget Wordpress Post Custom Fields. Thumbnails across the theme will be assigned and generated automatically as requested, for every image sizes. You don’t need to spend your valuable time creating the thumbnail images but purely focus to your website content. Both automatic and via-custom-field assignment are available.

3. Easy Customizations.

   You can also customize the look of your pages. Show or hide headline spoilers, colorful category bar, category spoilers, and video/random post gallery with a single click. If you don’t need any of those features, simply turn it off to suit your liking. The theme panel is designed to make all users, both novice and advanced users, experience the ease of customizations without getting any CSS/XHTML problem.

4. Google-friendly Website.

   An in-depth integration with Google Analytics, the best and the most reliable web statictics, and with Google Feedburner, a feed and podcast management, giving you a better control of your RSS feeds. Feeds are automatically redirected and Google Analytics code is optimized to give you the best performance.

Copyright Notice

1. TimThumb is an open source automatic image resizing script developed by Tim McDaniels and is distributed under the MIT License.
2. Feedburner “Feedsmith” plugin was originally developed by Steve Smith and is now available for download to all Feedburner.com users
3. Google Analytics is a web tracking and statistics tool from Google.com. Tracking codes are available to all Google Analytics user and can be downloaded from Google.
4. All sample images are courtesy of its respective authors. Details about sample images can be read here.
5. Wordpress template files and CSS stylesheets are developed by Michael Jubel Hutagalung.

Screenshots

How to Purchase?

Simply sign up with us and purchase the theme here. There are two types of license available: Single License (US$ 50) and Developer Pack (US$ 175).

This list is updated and is waiting for you voluntary work to add a new language become available. If you want to join the localization team, simply send the translated .PO and .MO file to sales [at] colorlabsproject [dot] com, and get a 50% discount on Platformate.

So, what about localization? “Although WordPress displays in U.S. English by default, the software has the built-in capability to be used in any language. The WordPress community has already translated WordPress into many languages, and there are Themes, translation files, and support available in many other languages.” - Wordpress.org

WordPress in Your Language

To get Wordpress in your own language, read this post from Wordpress.org thoroughly and download any available localized Wordpress that you want. There are 58 languages available for you. After that, simply upload all the files and you will find everything in the Wordpress Dashboard panel is now in your own language.

If you still see English texts in your Wordpress Dashboard, do a double-check and analysis. Open your wp-config.php file in a text editor and search for:

define ('WPLANG', 'xx_YY');.

xx_YY is your language code, for example: de_DE for German, id_ID for Bahasa Indonesia, or fr_FR for French. If you did not find that command there, you probably downloaded the wrong file.

If you did and you don’t want spend your valuable time re-uploading the whole package, read this post regarding manually installation of wordpress language files. For me, uploading a total of 4MB files is somewhat time-consuming. Why? Because there are only 3 files that needed to do the whole translation. (Shouldn’t I tell you this in the first place?) Read that post and search for .PO and .MO file for your local language and do manual installation.

Arthemia Premium in Your Language

OK, you got Wordpress in you own language, what should you do now? Well, here’s what you need.

1. Arthemia Premium theme (of course). You can purchase the theme here.
2. A .PO and .MO editor, you can try POEdit. You can download POEdit here.

And here is the step-by-step procedure on how to translate Arthemia Premium without editing the template files.

1. Install and run POEdit. Go to the menu File >> Open and select the file id_ID.po, which is included in the purchase package. id_ID.po is a language file for Indonesian version of Arthemia Premium. This tutorial will enable you translate that language file to another language.



2. After that, your POEdit would look similar to this picture below. On the left is the original strings, which are in English, and on the right is the translated string, in this case is still in Bahasa Indonesia.



3. Edit every string and translate it into your own language. Simply type a new word in the edit box that is located at the bottom section. Beware of symbols (%), HTML tags (<p>, </p>, etc), and punctuations (dot, comma, semi-colons). Do not erase any of those.
4. When you’re done, save the file as a new language file. Eg. fr_FR.po for French. A complete list of naming convention can be read here.



5. Upload the file and put it in this folder: /wp-content/themes/arthemia-premium/
6. Refresh your Arthemia-Premium-powered blog and notice the difference. If you feel like something is grammatically incorrect, repeat the step above and re-upload the language file. Some pages you need to check are the front page, the PAGE page, the post page, the archive page, the search result page, and the author page.
7. You’re done.

Note: Texts in the sidebar and footer section of the theme are controlled from sidebar widgets. Go to Dashboard >> Design >> Widgets and edit those texts.

What languages are already available?

These are some language files that are already available for download. This list is updated and is waiting for you voluntary work to add a new language become available. If you want to join the localization team, simply send the translated .PO and .MO file to sales [at] colorlabsproject [dot] com, and get a 50% discount on Platformate.

1. Indonesian - Bahasa Indonesia (id_ID)
2. Spanish - Español (es_ES)
3. Czech - Ceština (cs_CZ)
4. Polish - Polski (pl_PL)
5. Italian - Italian (it_IT)
6. Dutch - Nederlands (nl_NL)
7. French - France (fr_FR)
8. German - Deutsch (de_DE)
9. Norwegian (nb_NO)
10. Slovak – Slovencina (sk)
11. Greek (el)
12. Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR)
13. Danish (da_DK)
14. Serbia (sr_SR)
15. Russia (ru_RU)

Well, Wordpress and Arthemia Premium are now in your own language. Terima kasih. Thank you. Merci beaucoup. Muchas gracias. Danke. Dankie. Dêkuji. Sas efharisto. Arigato gozaimasu.

Please welcome the magnificent Candi Borobudur, the unique traditional house of Bataks, and the one-of-a-kind Kecak dance and sculptures from Bali. Feel the spirit of Monumen Nasional Jakarta, the beauty of Taman Laut Bunaken, and the 1883 gigantic explosion of Gunung Krakatau. Meet the tribal Papuan villagers and the beautiful Kalimantan dancers. Welcome the tasteful Indonesian fried rice, harmonic angklung instrument, stunning batik arts, Bandung city light, Bogor souvenirs, and last but not least, the former Bandoeng Technische Hoogeschool, Institut Teknologi Bandung.

And welcome to Indonesia, everyone.

The CHMOD 777

Upload and activate the Arthemia theme. Then, the first step is to make the scripts and cache folder writable. You can either try ‘777′ writable or ‘755′ writable. Some web hosting company prevent you making any folder ‘777′ writable due to some security reasons. But, I suggest you to try with ‘777′ writable first. I use FileZilla to do the FTP work because it is free and has a lot of features. To make the folders writable, simply right click the folder name and select ‘File Attributes’ and a dialog box will show up.

You can tick all the attributes there, consider it a finger exercise, or directly type 777 as the folder attribute. Do this to both scripts and cache folder.

You’re done with FTP work and may continue to the image uploading procedure.

Uploading an image

To upload image, you can use the built-in Add Image WP feature. In the post editing page, notice the Add media icons just below your post title and permalink. Click “Add Image” and an image uploading page will show up.

Upload any image that you like, preferably the properly sized one (for example: 300×300 pixel or bigger for Arthemia theme).

After the image is uploaded, you can see the image location from the ‘Link URL’ field. In this tutorial, it is: http://michaelhutagalung.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1.jpg. Values may vary depending on your blog settings. One may have the time-structured folder while others may not. Copy that value but remember to get rid of your blog home page location. In my case, the final value will be wp-content/uploads/2008/08/1.jpg.

Then, close the image uploading page and you do not need to clik ‘Insert to Post’ button if you do not want to. When you’re back in the post editing page, scroll down until you find “Custom Fields”. Make a new Custom Field with “Image” as the key and the image location as the “Value”.

You’re done. Please feel free to comment or ask for support in the forum but only if you’re 100% sure that you did not miss anything.

The Theme Walk-Through

The header part of the theme consists a small logo and a wide area for 728×90 advertisement space. Below, we have a nice drop-down navigation bar which displays pages that we have in our blog. To the right of the navigation bar, there is a search box and a magnifier icon.

Below the bar, there are the headline and featured section. The black box on the left will display one headline post of your blog and a short excerpt of the post. Excerpts can be added manually per post or taken automatically from the first 55 words of the post. There are two different layout for the headline section, you can see both live here and here. The featured section, located on the right, rotates a number of featured posts along with their thumbnails. Number of rotating posts can be defined from the theme admin panel.

Below those sections is the category bar. This colorful category bar will display five of your blog’s category along with the description of each category. To the left-bottom of the category bar, there is one big section that will display the content of your latest post. Below the latest post, there is a post listing which has a 2-column/1-column layout, each of which can be set from the theme admin panel. To the right of the post listing is the sidebar and category spoilers. These colorful category spoilers will display the latest post from its category and just below those spoilers are the normal blog-like widgets. You can add whatever widget you like there, just like usual Wordpress blogs.

There are also a video section and random post section at the bottom of the page. The video section will display your latest video blog post and the video can be played right away from the front page. To the right of the video section is the random post section that will display 12 random posts of your blog, each of which is displayed in the thumbnail form. Just above the footer section, there are 3-column of favorite post lists and you can add ’sidebar’ widgets here as well.

The Main Features

If you are running an online magazine, a corporate website, or even a personal blog, Arthemia Premium is your one-stop answer for your all needs.

1. Theme Administration Panel.
   You’ve got no idea about PHP, (X)HTML, and CSS? Don’t worry about all the complicated commands and manage everything from the theme administration panel. You can assign images for header logo, bookmark (favorite) icon, categories for headline and featured section, categories to be shown in the category bar, latest posts from each category, thumbnail sizes, show/hide post excerpts, and all.
2. Category Color Assignment.
   You can assign colors to each of your blog category and stand out with your own styling. Colorful, duotone, grayscale, you name it. And again, no need to edit the stylesheet template. You can style the color to match your liking or simply customize it to match your logo color tone. Simply add the Web hex color values to the category color setting in the theme admin panel and, voila, your website, a new look.
3. Auto-Thumbnail Your Old Posts.
   Seriously, please forget the time-consuming thumbnail generation with Photoshop, forget Wordpress Post Custom Fields. Thumbnails across the theme will be assigned and generated automatically as requested, for every image sizes. You don’t need to spend your valuable time creating the thumbnail images but purely focus to your website content. Both automatic and via-custom-field assignment are available.
4. Banner & Adsense Management.
   You can configure ad banners on your website. Simply upload, assign, and add hyperlinks. In addition, you can get your Google Adsense banners displayed, hassle-free. Complete your Adsense account information in the theme administration panel and your Adsense will be on your website, in one click. Provided ad spots are 728×90 leaderboard banner, 468×60 banner, and 300×250 rectangle banner.
5. Easy Customizations.
   You can also customize the look of your pages. Show or hide headline spoilers, colorful category bar, category spoilers, and video/random post gallery with a single click. If you don’t need any of those features, simply turn it off to suit your liking. The theme panel is designed to make all users, both novice and advanced users, experience the ease of customizations without getting any CSS/XHTML problem.
6. Google-friendly Website.
   In addition to the integration of Google ad service: Adsense, Arthemia Premium provides you another in-depth integration with Google Analytics, the best and the most reliable web statistics, and with Google Feedburner, a feed and podcast management, giving you a better control of your RSS feeds. Feeds are automatically redirected and Google Analytics code is optimized to give you the best performance.

Copyright Notice

1. TimThumb is an open source automatic image resizing script developed by Tim McDaniels and is distributed under the MIT License.
2. Feedburner “Feedsmith” plugin was originally developed by Steve Smith and is now available for download to all Feedburner.com users
3. Google Analytics is a web tracking and statistics tool from Google.com. Tracking codes are available to all Google Analytics user and can be downloaded from Google.
4. All sample images are courtesy of its respective authors. Details about sample images can be read here.
5. Wordpress template files and CSS stylesheets are developed by Michael Jubel Hutagalung.

Screenshots

Below are some screenshots of the theme section: front page, single post view, single post view with videos, archive page, and theme administration panel. Click photos to enlarge.

How to Purchase?

Simply sign up with us and purchase the theme here. There are three types of license available: Single License (US$ 70), 5-site License (US$ 140), and Developer Pack (US$ 240).