Sarah Gooding
Okay Themes, founded by Mike McAlister, has rebranded and is now known as “Array.” Despite the fact that the shop produced high quality WordPress themes, the previous name seemed to imply a passable, lackluster product. Array is a stronger name for a top-notch theme shop that is successfully pioneering a return to simplicity in both design and function.
The rebranding represents McAlister’s departure from Themeforest, where he’s been selling for the past five years. Moving forward, his themes will be available exclusively through Array and WordPress.com. “After fighting the good fight for five years, my body of work has officially outgrown the ThemeForest marketplace,” McAlister said. “Although it has been a great platform for starting my business, my own ethos and aspirations have evolved.”
Array and its new logo, composed of an impossible shape with a perspective trick, represent the ever-changing digital landscape to McAlister and his team. “I’ve been through the ups and downs of the WordPress ecosystem,” he said. “I’ve carved a niche in a bloated, saturated marketplace.” Known for his simple, minimalist WordPress themes, McAlister has been one of the forerunners in the revolution to bring simplicity back to WordPress themes in what he perceives to be a “bloated, settings-infested theme landscape.”His team’s commitment to simplicity is helping to reshape the WordPress theme market. Consumers are slowly gravitating toward more design-specific themes that aren’t loaded down with hundreds of options. McAlister’s story is one among many WordPress theme developers who are leaving Envato’s marketplace to make their own way.
I’m really excited for Mike and the team and their new endeavour. Looking forward to seeing what they produce next! I’ve been a fan of Okay Themes for years, and I think this new brand is even stronger, and represents a renewed energy in the team. Exciting! :)
Thanks for the kind words, barkeep! Bringing sexy back is hard work, believe it or not, but we’re enjoying the challenge and the rewards. We’re doubling down on simplicity across the board, and our customers couldn’t be happier.
Absolutely *love* that logo and the concept behind it. Gorgeous execution!
The problem is the word Array is a programming term, so search for wordpress array and you do not find this company. Have them contact me for help.
Hi there. We aren’t in Google yet because we’ve only just launched yesterday. ;) We’ve taken the proper precautions and chatted with knowledgable SEO folks to ensure we’d be ok using a more generic word, such as Array, for our new brand.
If you’re searching for ‘wordpress array’, you probably not looking for themes anyway.
I see their pricing has been raised as well. Same product higher price.
Check this out: http://wpcandy.com/thinks/about-35-dollar-themes/
Three years ago Mike suggested a high-end commercial theme should cost $125.
$69 for a good theme with support is mid-range today and I’d say a great deal.
Exactly … the “free economy” seems to think that everything should be $10 or it’s a “rip off” even though that same customer will want two hours of tech support on how to install the theme, update it, change the headline, how to upload a logo, change colors, where to find the manual, and what .zip means. So, considering a pro charges minimum $70 an hour, the fact is any premium, well supported theme should cost $70 with *one* hour of tech support max. However, folks expect too much, without ever having built their own theme, wrangled responsive break points, or dealt with the vagaries of PageSpeed or codex compliance. Great themes from Mike!
Indeed, I have raised the prices to $69 with the launch of Array. As Steven pointed out, I have been a proponent for higher theme prices since 2011, and I’m still not satisfied with where prices are at.
WordPress theme pricing seems to be in a race to the bottom, but our design, development and support practices simply call for a slightly higher price. It’s not an attempt at getting more money from customers, rather a way for us to keep providing the same level of quality that is expected from Array.
As Christopher suggests, if we spend even 1 hour providing support for a customer over the course of a year, we’ve already lost money on a theme sale. And that doesn’t take into consideration the costs of design and development of a theme, which can take upwards of a month to complete.
We’re confident and comfortable with our new pricing and happy to answer any questions about our decision to raise them!
Sorry Mike, but if you are taking up to a month to develop those simple themes, than you clearly have no idea what you are doing or you are spending only 5 minutes a day on development. Anyone could make 1 of those themes from your site in a day. You basically grab 1 theme already done and tweak the CSS and some html here and there and you have a new theme. The fact that you have such few themes considering what you are offering is quite sad.
This should be great news to you then, Steve. I expect to see your theme shop up and running within the week!
wow, I can compare that to, taking an iPhone snap of a masterpiece painting and claiming it as another masterpiece. It is true that with basic firebug knowledge anybody can rip a WordPress theme design and layout off browser. But that will only be a shell of what the real theme is. The WordPress goodness behind the theme cant be exported that way.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Steve. I adhere to a strict quality over quantity approach, which keeps my business lean, growing and profitable. Surely anyone can duplicate what I’ve done, but coming up with the design to begin with is the hard part.
Congrats on your new theme shop. I have always been a fan of your audacious minimal designs.
Clean minimalist themes that also have wow pizzazz, that’s an art form, I hated all those theme forest themes with a zillion built in user options, one theme for all uses means those wanting a clean lean fast and functional have to carry a lot of bloat they’ll never use… Great work….
Anyone has the right to develop themes and market them at whatever price range they are comfortable with. If theme development is your main source of income, it means your a professional and you need a price range that supports your business and all that goes with it. Things that only small business owners can appreciate.
I have always used premium themes, with child themes, its how I learnt to develop. Free themes always seem to just miss the mark of what I need in some way. Mind you times evolve and I’m sure there are good free themes out there. I ask you who makes them? Coders/ programmers with a paid 9 to 5 gig, that fiddle late at night as a hobby?, rich kids that code for fun?
The free society, is a great ideal, I certainly use Ubuntu, but still have to own a windows machine for some functionality. WordPress core is free and highly developed and supported, this both amazing and a real triumph for making the internet web accessible for everyone. So paying for a premium theme that out of the box achieves the look feel and function that you desire for that website, is a small comittment in the grand scheme of things, of course if you are not happy with it, just bypass and go look for a free theme on WP.org, that is your choice and privilege
P.S. I’ve never used Mike’s themes, but they look great and are typical of the themes I am now favouring in my own work as a WP site dev.I also charge for those services, everyone has to make a buck!
Go forth and code…
Stuie. B
Array’s themes are thought out and beautiful. I’m recommending one to a client today.
very pretty. just installed it on http://blog.desk.pm/ … yikes.
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