I’ve shared quite a bit about the composition of WordPress themes and how they’ve evolved over the years. But one notion that has captured my attention lately is just how composable themes have become lately.  

WordPress themes used to be so static; stuck in the time when it was first launched. Sure, you’ll get a few maintenance updates, but that’s really it. 

Today’s themes—or rather, today’s block themes—inherit the newest additions to WordPress out-of-the-box, as blocks carry much of the “weight” themes were once required to do. And historically, many theme designers—including myself—relied on a framework that covered the basics of their theming approach; but now, WordPress is that framework.

Consequently, you can mix and match blocks from any page or template, and between any theme. It’s pretty cool, but there’s so much more to this.

Color and typesets

At its simplest form, a block theme is a data object, represented by a configuration of settings, presets, and styles within a single theme.json file. 

If we abstract a theme’s color set (all color, duotone, and gradient presets—and the application of those values), and typeset (all typographic settings—and the application of those values), we end up with theme-agnostic values for both, that can be applied independently of each other. 

Never before have you been able to apply the typographic choices of one theme, with the color definitions of another, along with any content (i.e. blocks) you’d like. And perhaps there’s a path here towards sharing colors and typesets, the way you share patterns on the Pattern Directory—adding that much more creative expression to WordPress. 

This abstraction of style is one the driving forces behind the recent effort to expose a theme variation’s color set and typeset as options within a site’s global styles.

The best part of this effort is that all existing block themes will inherit this capability, without having to do a thing. Anyone running a block theme can use any combination of colors or typesets from any of their theme variations.

It’s a step forwards for themes becoming a true composition of parts; that is colors, typesets, patterns, and templates.

But there are caveats.

Themes, and patterns for that matter, need to be crafted in a way that properly leverages global styles. When designing a theme, you should almost never apply a style directly to a block or template. Instead, lean on the theme’s global styles, which are able to properly style any block presented on the site as intended, regardless of its origin.

Patterns and templates

Patterns can already be served from the Pattern Directory using theme.json; we need more theme designers experimenting with this approach. Twenty Twenty-Four pulls a couple patterns, but I’m thinking the next default theme should use this method almost exclusively perhaps.

Aside from theme interoperability and a lower maintenance burden, the big advantage here is that pattern authors can improve them over time, and anyone running the associated theme(s) can receive those updates without any action.

I also think it’d be interesting if patterns in the Patterns Directory could declare a theme, or set of themes, that they should be available in. This way, theme designers wouldn’t need to update a theme’s theme.json file to add more default patterns to a theme.

So what do you think?

I’m confident that continuing to evolve towards this parametric-driven design system for WordPress themes will only improve the interoperability of content and design, allowing for more creativity without the typical constraints of WordPress. 

So what do you think? Do you see a near future where themes are a sum of parts; a composition of taste, derived from color, typography, and content?