Why do most wordpress theme designers...

...think that everyone wants a huge image on the front page in between the menu and the content. It’s great in a few cases to have a rotating featured item slider but I’m having huge problems finding simple templates that can be used for small businesses that do not have a big 200px high rotator on the front page.

I’d love to see more options to toggle these big sliders on and off ans the front page designs are often great but ruined with a slider that is only of real use to certain industries or companies.

J

Completely agree. They’re like the Web 2.0 <marquee /> and <blink /> tags combined

I second this. Maybe it effects the price.

I think they include it in the screenshots and live previews to show that its an option (myself included). You can turn it on and off in the theme customisation part of the wordpress dashboard but its probably still a good idea to show thats its possible and included with the theme.

Hi Furto,

Unfortunately, most of the front-page sliders on the theme-forest themes are permanent, although, yes, a couple have the option to be turned off.

Its just tough looking for a theme for, say, a small recruitment firm – why would they want a huge rotating image. Just a little more consideration from the designers would be appreciated. Just because you can put a great big swooshy pic there doesn’t mean you have to every time :0)

I’m sure many authors even the ones that develop that style including me, are not very much proud with them but hey, you wanted them so the authors delivered them.

They sell good and that’s one of the new popular layout trends. Still if you dive a little deeper on the theme categories, you will see there are also plenty of amazing out of the box designs that are made by authors.

So no worries, all you need to do is take your eyes off the most seen

It all comes down to trends. I’m sure it’ll die out eventually in favor of something new.

And whoever will think of “something new” will make the big bucks.

Haha, I laughed at the original post

It’s an excellent point though. I don’t know if I’d call it a “trend” – its usually a request of most businesses/clients that the homepage have a high impact image on the front page – and template designers simply follow the money (these templates sell more than their image-less brethren. But the point that you make is well taken – there is a lack of simple, low-image front-pages built on Wordpress in the store. I happen to design my templates so that you can remove the entire “leaderboard” section and just have text if you’d like – I’ll see if I can’t include some text-exclusive themes to remedy that over the next month or two though. Good post kops.