I have been fascinated by the concept of Carolina Nymark’s Miniblock OOAK theme for a couple of weeks now. It has served as inspiration for a design idea I have been working on, and I am happy to see Nymark pushing boundaries in a space where few pioneers are left. Her design style always dares to take the road less traveled, a quality of which I am envious.
Despite loving the idea of the theme, I had yet to do a deep exploration of it until this week. It is geared toward small home businesses and hobbyists, allowing them to set up a simple landing page.
With a customized heading font and an on-brand color scheme, it seemed perfect for a family member who wants an online presence for an upcoming business. She is not ready to launch yet, but Miniblock OOAK would be an easy-to-use landing page to point people to her Etsy profile while having a point of contact for clients.
I often went with outside solutions for single-page websites in the classic era. WordPress always seemed like overkill for such projects. The software’s upkeep could be more resource-intensive than updating content. However, I have started coming around as of late. First, the prevalence of reasonably-priced managed hosting means there is less of a need to be a webmaster than even a decade ago. This has played a not-insignificant role in democratizing publishing for more and more people.
The second reason is WordPress 5.9’s introduction of the site editor and global styles. Small business owners can set up a single-page website without much fuss with the ideal block theme. Sure, there are still some kinks to smooth out in the user-experience department. Those are being actively worked on, and improvements have continued during the WordPress 6.0 development cycle.
We need more themes to create starting points for users to build their own homes on the web in this new system. Miniblock OOAK fits that mold for its niche. It is the first one-page block theme in the directory but will not be the last. With enough fellow pioneers clearing their own paths and redefining what themes are, the years to come could be a worthwhile adventure.
The theme is small enough that you can explore the entirety of its default design in about 10 seconds with a quick scroll down the page. It is set up for a fictional plush creator who is open for commissions and selling their wares via Etsy. It includes a quick-links menu for navigating to a bio, work showcase, and contact section.
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This article was written by Justin Tadlock and originally published on WP Tavern.