I Made a Jekyll Theme

Over the last few months I’ve been working on a redesign of this website. Since it’s built on Jekyll, adding a new theme on top of the existing content is easy. However, designing your own theme can be more of a challenge.

Taking inspiration from other Jekyll themes and utilizing styling tools like Bourbon, I built up a theme that fit my needs and aethetic preferences: minimalist design, easy to read, and mobile friendly. I also added some extra features, such as built-in social sharing, commenting (via Disqus), and archive pages, to flesh it out into a more complete blogging site.

I dubbed the end result Centrarium, and you’re looking at it right now!

Like many other Jekyll themes, Centrarium is open source. The project is on GitHub, so feel free to grab it and use it for your own site! Check out the README for a list of all the features, as well as installation instructions.

Design Inspiration

I took a look at many existing Jekyll themes when designing Centrarium. Here are some themes that inspired me the most:

• Mediator, the original theme I used for this site. I adapted many features from this theme: big headers (minus parallax), post listings, social sharing, and more.
• Type Theme. Centrarium’s header image concept was inspired by this theme.
• Emerald. I borrowed the pagination button styles from this theme.

Whether you’re looking for a new theme or seeking inspiration for your own design, sites like jekyllthemes.org and drjekyllthemes.github.io are great for browsing all the open-source Jekyll themes out there.