Visual Theme

By Devin

Visual is a free theme designed to showcase photography, artwork and images in a neat masonry grid layout.

Standard Features

  • Masonry layout: Regardless of the featured image height and width (or even if no image is selected) the posts will look great in a nice dynamic grid.
  • Responsive Layout: Visual looks great on small screens, such as tablets and smartphones, as well as on laptops and desktops.
  • Typography: Uses Raleway, a beautiful webfont by Matt McInerney and served by Google Fonts
  • Icon Font: Pixel dense retina displays look great with this theme because of the icon gylphs from Entypo, by Daniel Bruce.
  • Solid code: Visual is built off of the Underscores starter theme and uses WordPress best practices.

Premium Features

If you’d like additional font options, color palettes, infinite scroll, or lightboxes- see Visual+. Purchases also help support the work that goes into the free version.

How to Use the Theme

  • Download the theme and activate
  • Set your menu in WordPress (under “Appearance” > “Menus”)
  • If images don’t show up by default, you may need to set the featured image. Edit your post and click “Set featured image”.
  • If you are making changes to the CSS or template files, consider using a child theme. You can download this one to start with.

If you’d like to display excerpts on the home page rather than full text, you can either use the more button or select the “excerpt” option in the theme customizer.

WordPress.com Users

A version of Visual has been built for WordPress.com. You can get it for free here. If you’re using Visual on WordPress.com you won’t be able to alter the template code or use third-party plugins, but you can still make some css changes with custom design upgrade. If you need support for Visual on WordPress.com, you’ll need to contact their support team as they run a slightly customized version of the theme.

Theme Demo

View the Demo

Get the Theme

Download from WordPress.org

Upgrade

For additional options, features, and support, check out Visual+. Purchases help to support both the free and paid versions. Read more.

About Devin

I am a developer based in Austin, Texas. I run a little theme shop called DevPress and help manage a WooCommerce shop with Universal Yums. Find me on twitter @devinsays.

246 Responses

  2. The Frosty

    Looks nice, but you didn’t look into names very well did you? While not in the WordPress theme repo, “Visual” already exists from DevPress.

    I’ve got it running on a site and thought it was strange I got an update notification. I know some of Tung’s themes are in the repo but I was sure this one was not.

    Anyway, just though I let you know. Hope all is well, it’s been a while.

    1. Devin

      I did find that after I had submitted it. I was hoping the version number was low enough that it wouldn’t have caused problems (0.2.2)- but I guess not. I let Tung know, he’s working on a fix.

  4. John T

    Great theme for visual sites. It looks clean, and it’s well-behaved. I like the fact that it has several great features and is simple for us non-coders.

    Would be even better with just a few added tweaks. These would include a little more flexibility to allow a featured or sticky post to show all content rather than just an excerpt….Also if one uses a Static Page for homepage, it seems locked into having a very large image, regardless of the size in the post editing. (Perhaps a more literal translation of the page would be helpful.)

    Otherwise great theme.

    1. Devin

      Thanks for the suggestions John.

      I’m not quite sure what you’re describing on the static home page. It should look exactly like a regular page, and images should be the size that you inserted them at. Do you mean that you’d like for pages to behave the same as posts in terms of the featured image?

      1. John

        I am using a Static Home Page that is is a page with an image placed within the text area in the “edit” window. …I have tried to make the image smaller in the “edit” page but is still comes the same in the theme. (If you take a look at my site, the large picture of the tree is what I am referring to.)

        With other themes the image and layout are more like what is in my editing window, and can be varied. I’m not sure why that doesn’t happen in this one.

      2. Devin

        When you insert the image into the post, try inserting a smaller size. The theme shouldn’t change the size that it is outputted, unless it is too large for the post width.

  6. Mike Cottam

    Hi Devin

    I love this theme and will be using for my photo blog site. Just one quick question, how do I change the number of characters on the post excerpts?

    Best wishes

    Mike

  8. Tony

    Great theme, I love it! I’m looking forward to the next version. But I got a problem, images won’t show previews in the index page.

    1. Devin

      You should. Check the right sidebar under the publish button. If it’s not there, check your “Screen Options” tab in the upper right to make sure the meta box isn’t hidden.

      1. Joya

        Hey Devin
        I am having almost the same problem, if I set an image as a featured image, it appears twice within the same post. If I don’t set it as a featured image, it doesn’t appear on the homepage…
        Thanks :)

  10. Joe

    Hi,

    Love the theme. Simple and elegant. One question. Is it possible to have the sidebar visible on the posts pages? Not the single post page. Sidebar is already on that. I am looking to replace the 3rd column of the posts with the sidebar on the right so that the sidebar is on all page on the site?

    Thank you so much.

  11. David

    Trying out your theme and really like it. But I got a little problem: the featured image is way blurry, not as sharp as the original image. Can you (or maybe I) fix that?

  12. Stephanie Coffman

    I just started using your theme on my website. Great theme! Is there a way that I can add the sidebar to the right of the home page?

    I tried pasting the code on the main index template just above the footer, but the sidebar then just displays below my posts.

    Thanks!

  15. Primo

    DId the child is updated? I’ve see that you have uploaded the 0.3 on cvn.
    There is a child 0.3 version?
    Thanks a lot, i really like your theme!

  16. John

    I noticed on the update that the newest version automatically places the featured image on open posts. The original version didn’t do that.

    It might be a good idea to make that optional.

  17. Louie

    Hey Dev,

    I am using this for a blog for our magazine, COcentricmedia.com, and I love it. However, for a lot of people, when they click on the first post (Hitting a Home Run….) at collaborate.cocentricmedia.com, the mobile version is popping up on the computer screen and making it look really out of whack. I deactivated the mobile in jetpack but some say it is still doing it. Any suggestions?

  18. Louie

    its only with jetpack connected, its showing the mobile site on a regular computer, and we need jetpack to share on social media

  19. sam

    I’ve been looking high and low for a nice photography website. A friend (Alex) used your other theme (portfolio) for his site, and loves. However, I think this one fits my needs much better. IMO, Visual is the best Photography Theme for WordPress ;-)
    Downloaded the 0.4 version, however after trying to install the child theme, WordPress automatically went and got back the 0.2 ;-)

    A couple of questions;
    – Is it possible to completely remove the side bar on posts?
    – Is it possible to put widgets in the footer ?

      1. Sam

        Thanks.
        Got it installed on http://shadzee.com

        One important issue is when you add the image as “set featured image”, it re-sizes the image to match the format, and some quality is lost. Also, you can Not click on the image to see the actual uploaded size (the better quality image). You can do that if the image is added in the main content of the post.

        Never the less, it’s a great theme. And, I will grow with it ;-)

  20. sam

    one more suggestion;
    – it would be nice to have a widget in the sidebar showing a matching Google Map location of the image, if the image has imbedded GEO tag.

  21. Bohuslav Jonathan Tóth

    I like the update of this theme, however I was hoping to fing fixed header menu option. But thats just me. Only problem is with gaps on categories pages. If You have 9 posts per page with featured image, last 3 posts at the bottom have too big gaps between. Could You fix this in updated release? Thanx, John.

    1. Devin

      An option to affix the header to the top of the screen will be in Visual+ (releasing soon). Masonry can be a bit sticky with the layout- I’ll try to trace down those issues for you.

      1. Bohuslav Jonathan Tóth

        Thank You very much. Its much appreciated. Also, one of my suggestions for next release, would be home page animation after new post publish, or delete. It could be smooth animation from left to right, when last one would be pushed out. When we are talking about JETPACK integration, it would be very nice to have a checker integrated straight into theme. As probably Im not the only one having trouble with these two working together. Especially social networks push. Its just slowing down after updates, even when I have hundreds of post a day, less then 50 are pushed. Thank You for Your help. John.

      2. Bohuslav Jonathan Tóth

        I also noticed, that when there is one featured image in vertical position at the last 3 positions on the home page, foter text, image, banner, or whatever You have in the footer is covered by this post. How could this be fixed?

      3. Bohuslav Jonathan Tóth

        And one more suggestion, if i may. There could be an option within theme admin area to save changes in the theme, manual changes, view the log, compoare and many others for us, who are updating the theme files too many times, but also trying to update the files to official realeses. Just like option to show featured photo at the top of the post, or not, saving logs, vie logs within theme, saving changes …

  22. Harish

    Hey Devin,
    First of all congratulations for this wonderful theme. I was looking for some great theme for last few days but was not liking anything for my blog. but the moment I saw this theme just jumped on it.
    My blog is looking very good the way I thought about it.
    You may have look whenever you have time.
    http://arjungabriel.wordpress.com/
    Thank you

  24. Dmytro

    Hi Devin!
    Liked your theme much… really cool design and usability.

    I’m new in WP (about 2 month), and started using your theme about a month ago… I’ve started with v0.2.2…

    When I’ve installed v0.4 i saw that the highlighted links of topics become white in a dark version of the theme not the stylish green as before… Than I’ve installed 0.2.2 version …and saw the links and the theme become white….
    Help me please with my issue … how I can rollback to the original 0.2.2?

    And could You let me know where theme settings is stored?
    Thanks!

      1. Dmytro

        At the start I’ve used 2.2 and it’s worked perfectly, before I’ve installed 0.4, where hover become white. after that I have such minor problem.
        I’ve used 0.1, 0.2.1, 0.2.2, and hover color seems to be broken there too, I’ve even tried to reset to default wp options table via plugin in DB… but it did’nt helped:( I can’t reset the hoover color, manually via phpMyAdmin too..
        So, I’ll wait for the next version of a theme!

        Big Thanks for response and for a keeping developing & supporting favourite theme too!

  25. Lore

    Hi Devin, really great theme! I’m using it right now on my wordpress.com blog with custom design. I’ve been successfully changing the default color for the top menu into white through #masthead, but I can’t understand how to turn into white the color of all those “cards” as well (in order to leave in grey just the very background). Which css attributes should I use? Thanks!

  26. Johannes L.

    Hi Delvin,
    maybe I´m too stupid or too new in the area of WP, but I´m not able to manage to create new frames for the Masonry layout. And how can I put 3 frames side by side?
    Thank you,
    Johannes

  27. Chris

    Excellent theme. It is exactly what I was looking for. One thing, though: the tag-line below the blog title isn’t visible. Did I change some setting or other without realizing it? I’ve looked, but can’t seem to find a way to change it’s visibility.

  28. Diane Young

    Hi I really like the theme Visual it looks good for organising my art thumbnails. Just tried to sort out a problem I have had with the Gallery in the Square Tiles format. It selects the first image and makes that one an enlarged version at the top although i have repeatedly tried re creating the gallery and ensuring no featured image is selected still I cannot get it to all just be tilesize only.
    Only other comment for me it would have been nice to have a little space at the top for a small logo image. Nice clean design.
    Hope you can help thanks.

    1. Devin

      Hi Diane. Thanks. I’ll be adding better support for the Gallery format in the next version. The featured image will not display there by default.

      1. Diane Young

        Hi again Devin.I have noticed that there is no header text at all In mobile format just White space. I think you might have already commented on no enlargements/carousel issue also. How do we access updates for your theme? Thnx.

  29. yanoya

    Hey Devin,
    I really like this theme from the first I saw it, especially the masonry layout.
    I would like to use it, do some testing. My web is based on wordpress.org.

    Some questions and feedback:

    1) There is a problem with menu, which is the crucial.
    If I put the mouse on main menu and than try to scroll to sub-menu, it works only sometimes, usually when I leave the mouse longer time on the menu. One needs to try several times.
    To be sure, I installed and tested the original Visual theme, without customization. And for comparison with the Twenty Twelve default theme which was OK with this.
    Maybe (just an idea) it can be an issue with the widespread WPML plugin for multilingual web, which I use.
    Please, would you have any suggestion how to fix this problem?

    2) (footer) widgets:
    I would really welcome if there is some space for optional widgets under the main space, in the footer. I see in some themes 4 or 3 such areas in row (I can even imagine 2 rows, the upper with 1 widget :)). Can that be added into the theme and how, or do you plan that for next update?
    There is an interisting plugin”category slider“; something like this I would like to use perhaps within the Visual Theme (maybe some text could be shown as well..). I consider to test this more, probably at least for front-page, but would be welcome also in wide widget area… Have tried, but there might be a problem with WPML more generally, on the side of the plugin or some adjustments in the WPML.

    Thank you for your effort.
    Y.

      1. yanoya

        Hello again, sorry, I have not found out why there was the problem with the menu; it rarely still happens, maybe due to changes and cache memory. But it´s OK.

        I have updated into the version Visual 0.5. Did not recognize too much changes, but the problem with so called “featured image”. In the version 0.4., sharing on facebook was very smooth, i.e. FB or an application finding excerpt and the featured image and filtering other info (posted on, posted by, WPML text). With the version 0.5., it is completely opposite, according my experience (no matter if shared via application or directly putting post-address into FB. :(

        I would also suggest to enable bigger size of featured image – or would ask you, if/where it is possible to change the definition of size (I see it is probably 7009x width now; would suggest 900px). When bigger monitor, it seems, in the post it is shown in bigger size than it really is and seems blurred.

        Thanx.

      2. Devin

        Hi Yanoya. There shouldn’t have been any changes that effected how Facebook sharing works. But, I think installing an open graph plugin would solve that issue for you: http://wordpress.org/plugins/ogp/

        The featured image size on a post should be 700px, which is the width of the content area. You wouldn’t want to load a larger image there. Perhaps you images are being scaled down incorrectly. I’d suggest regenerating them: http://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails/

  30. Emily

    This is a lovely theme and was thrilled to find it. However, when I applied it, it looked quite different from the demo version. The main, and most problematic, difference is there is a slightly lighter gray border around images, rather than the much cleaner looking layout in the demo. I’ve tried posting photos in different ways and it keeps coming up with the same confounded borders. Please let me know if there’s a way I can make it look like the demo.

    Thanks,

    Emily

      3. Emily

        Will do. I’ll also see what it looks like in other browsers. I use Chrome, so maybe it’s an issue with that. Thanks!

  31. Mihail

    Hi!

    Can I change the number of columns and to fix the width (in compression to the screen immediately jumped down without changing the width).

    Sorry for my english.

  32. Andrew Russell

    Hi Devin,

    I love this theme, and it’s definitely the best fit for what I want my site to look like. I am having a problem, however. I’m running Chrome 27.0.1453.93 on an Intel macbook, and whenever new posts load on the main page (I haven’t checked the archive pages), they load at the top of the page underneath the existing ones, making them impossible to access. This seems to happen whether or not infinite scroll is loaded, as long as I have the “load # of posts” set below the total number. I haven’t seen any other comments regarding this problem, so maybe it is my system. Are there any settings that could be causing this to happen? Thank you for the great work and for sharing this awesome theme!

    -Andrew

    1. Devin

      It appears to be loading correctly for me (Chrome, MacBook). If you continue to have issues, file a ticket with WordPress.com since it is hosted through them.

  33. mafalda

    Hi, I really like your theme! However, I’m having troubles to set how much of each post to show on home.
    I would like it to show just the featured picture and the title, but no other pictures or text. Is this possible?
    Thanks!

  34. Jess

    Hi, love the theme

    How can I remove the Archives, Site Admin. Log out from my site.

    Also how can I shorten the text at the home page…

    Do I need a special plug in

    Thanx

  35. Fashion Freestyler

    Love this theme but it seems to break with bbpress. Topics looks fine as so does a single forum view, but when you go out to a larger view of the forums it breaks.

    http://fashionfreestyler.com/community/

    I don’t know if this is a theme issue or a bbpress issue, but other themes seem to work fine.

    I also noticed that the footer floats on the index page, it doesn’t stay locked on the bottom of the screen. This is not really a big issue, just something I noticed.

    Lastly can I make a feature request? The ability to set a static box in the top left or top right of the index page. Something we can put links or a welcome message in. Or better yet, the ability to have the sidebar (left or right) on the index page as either a forth column or using the third column space.

    1. Devin

      Hi. I haven’t tested with the bbPress plugin. I assume it’s breaking because the masonry script is loaded on all archive pages, and bbPress creates a custom archive but uses different markup. I’ll create a ticket to see if it’s there’s a quick fix. https://github.com/devinsays/visual/issues/6

      Sticky footer is something I’ve been meaning to add: https://github.com/devinsays/visual/issues/2

      You can create a “Sticky” post, which will always be at the top of the page- but I don’t have plans at this time to add a sidebar to the home page.

  37. Kitty

    Hi, I am working with Visual theme and having some problems. The first was that selecting a post to view was taking me to the image only, no text. I just ended up copying and pasting new posts.
    Now, the entire post is viewed on the home page, I liked it the way it was with just short intro.
    Can you help me with what has happened?
    The site is birdhammer.com
    Thanks in advance

  38. matt

    Hi Devin,
    Lovely theme. One thing though – I notice that on your live preview of the theme at http://themes.wptheming.com/visual/ , clicking on the post title or the image takes you to the post itself. When I try it, I can only get to the post by clicking on the post title. Clicking on the post image does nothing (ie it isn’t a link). I’d really like to switch to using your theme for my photo blog and selecting the photo to link to the post is logical only I can’t get it to work. Is there an option that I’m missing?
    Cheers,
    — Matt

      1. matt

        The theme I’m currently running actually suffers the same so it’s clear that it’s not an issue with your theme. My current theme shows x number of images per page but at their original size (larger than visual shows) so there is no need to click the image to see the full size version. I feel somewhat silly at not realising this and that there is no a link associated to an image in the styling / page content. ! I’m trying to figure out why this is. I suspect it’s an issue with the photoq plugin which I use to upload and insert images. That hasn’t been updated in ages and isn’t maintained any more… :-( Once I fix this though, I’ll be installing your theme.

  39. Johan

    According to the features, this theme has a two column option, is that true, if so, do I make use thereof and is it possible to adjust the width? All my photos are being cut in half…

    Thanks

  40. Chris

    This is really good and installed without problems (rare!!). One question for now – is it possible to have the images in posts on the front page link to the posts themselves, rather than to the original images? WordPress doesn’t appear to allow this but I’m new to it. As it stands, there’s little incentive for someone to visit the post pages if they just want to view the original, full size images; they can do that from the front page. So they’ll likely miss the sidebar and any widgets I want them to see on the post pages.

    I can set it so that the image links to the post in both the front page and the post, but that leaves the post linking back to itself and then there’s no way to view the original image. What I need is a way to make the link different on the front page. I hope that makes sense!

    Thanks for a great free theme.

    1. Devin

      Yes, when you insert the image, make sure it has a link on it. That options are in the media library when you insert it into the post- along with caption, alignment, etc.

      1. Chris

        Ah, no, sorry, I didn’t explain clearly. I’m looking for a way to have a different link associated with the small image on the front page, from the link associated with the full sized version in the postings page.

        I’m seeking a solution in which the front page version of the image links to the posting page (or nowhere), and the image in the posting page links to a larger version of itself. The latter, I can already do. So, two different locations, two different links (or one only, in the posting page). I hope that makes more sense this time!!

  41. Primate

    Hi devin,
    i’m working for a fixed menu option on my visual-child.
    I can’t find the top header selector. The menu element didn’t inherent the fixed property. How did u will act for this?

  42. Shelby Hailey

    Hi, I love the theme but I was wondering if there is a way I can put an image in the header so I can put my logo there instead of text.

  43. Nat

    Devin,
    Thanks for this theme! Really like how it looks on my site, but am confused by why the comments text (link to comments) on the home page is cutting off. I’m using Safari, MacBook, and it seems to do it in Chrome as well. Thoughts?

    (my site: http://www.anotherperfumeblog.com)

  44. Jess

    Hi Devin,

    I don’t know what you did or how you did it but this theme looks awesome on mobile devices.

    I’ve tried 17 other wordpress themes and although they looked great on desktop, when it came to mobile the difference was remarkable (couldn’t see the videos because they were not scaled or they simply did not appear, text would be one on top of the other, text was too small or too large ..ect..)

    Great job!!!!!

  46. Jonas

    Hey,

    i love this theme, but is there any chance to get rid of the masonry layout in archive pages? I want the masonry-grid only to appear at the home-page.
    I tried using the single.php as archive.php but it didn’t affect the grid.

    Thanks in advance!
    Jonas

      1. Jonas

        I found it in functions.php an replaced the !is_singular() with is_home() in two if-conditions and it works just fine with an edited single.php as archive.php
        Thanks a lot!

  47. Duncan

    Hi Devin!
    I’ve just found your theme! It’s awesome.
    I’d like to use it on my personal WP based website.
    I’m testing free version 0.8 with EasyPHP 13.1 and WP 3.5.2 and there is only light version (dark is the one I love) without options section to change theme’s look. Is it reserved only for premium version?

  48. Huh?

    This is my first WordPress site, and my first theme, so bear with me. I’m editing it directly on the online wordpress editor, not locally, on a free WP site.

    In your example for Visual at http://themes.wptheming.com/visual/ you show a drop-down menu at top right for “Categories” in between Home and About. I can’t for the life of me figure out how to do that. Where is this done?

  49. MB

    Hi Devin,

    I have been an absent, negligent blogger who decided a fresh start via theme change would be the way to go. I just found your Visual Theme today and love it but, is there a way to have the sidebar on the home page? Since Home is a page I don’t understand why it doesn’t load there.

    Thanks!

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