Neo-Sapien Review: A hit with four columns

Thank you, thank you… for giving me a reason to get out of cricket. I was using this site to talk about the Cricket World Cup, but after India lost to Bangladesh, I couldn’t bear to say another word. The problem was that I didn’t have anything else to say. But now, with the Neo-Sapien theme… I finally do. Below are my reflections.

First impressions:

The wow-factor of this theme is amazing. Of course it’s dark theme may put some “happy” bloggers off… but it certainly has it’s appeal. At the risk of stereotyping, I have a feeling that “guys” will like this theme more than “girls”… not that girls have anything against dark colours… but I think, even with the default header… the goal is the “man”.

I like the reader as well. It shows the full text, not a sample. For an impact theme, however, maybe only a bit would be good, but I like it this way. However, I somehow don’t like the space between the header and the text. It’s a little too far… and thus a little disjointed. Not too bad though, just a little disconcerting.

Advantages… Using Side-bar widgets to the max!

But most importantly, I think Neo-Sapien offers the best use of side-bar widgets even more than Fjords (which was four-columns, but more like a newspaper). These four columns give the text primary importance, and yet offer a lot of flexibility to the user.

Of course it forces the ‘writer’ to put in a lot more in the side-bar widgets and if you haven’t done so already, you’ll have to try all the works… like text, rss… just to make it look interesting.

I must say that the text in the side-bar, especially the first column is not that (immediately) readable. I don’t like the underlines as well… they are too “noisy”. For a theme whose main goal seems to be to make an impact… I would think that underlining should have been avoided.

Header size, 480/250… This header size is not bad… not the biggest… but still quite good. However, I guess the white border around the picture has it’s uses… but I find it a little distracting… especially because we can’t get rid of it. However, I must say, that the header size is quite big once you use it.

Editing

Not all themes allow you to edit from the post itself. This one does, and believe me, that’s a blessing. Excellent. I think the “edit post” link at the end is too far for people with long posts. A beginning edit is helpful for writers… who know the context of the site and thus want to make a quick edit.

Quotes…For quotations, I’ve pasted a sample from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Again, I would say that it is ok… there are better quotations in some other themes.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

Summary

High in impact, and flexibility (FOUR COLUMNS!!!), this theme is excellent to make a strong statement. For a reader oriented blog though, many elements may be distracting and even frustrating. I would recommend this for anyone who has a lot of content in the side-bar… and likes to make a splash each and every time.

More of this review to follow as I continue work with this Neo-Sapien theme for a while (ps. while the theme is called Neo-Sapien… in the actual theme it’s called Neo-Sapian. Spelling error?)