Everything we create here at <em>press is truly a labor of love (you should see a list of our pre-launch tweaks to get our products juuust right!). We know we're not supposed to play favorites, but today, we're making an exception for our brand new theme (shhh, don't tell the others!).
Meet… Presidio!
When we launched <em>press six months ago (time flies, right?!), we wanted to bring our most requested custom blog design features to all bloggers. And since October, we've been taking note of the features you love about our themes and the features you'd love to see more of. So we've combined the modern qualities of our most popular theme, Miramar, with the familiar traditional blog elements you love. The end result is Presidio, our most versatile theme yet, and the perfect blend of editorial and traditional.
If you've been looking at our other themes and find yourself wishing it had just one more element, Presidio is your theme. Love Miramar, but want a sidebar? Presidio can do that. Love Brevier or Archer, but want interstitials? Presidio can do that, too. Here's a look at our favorite features!
1. Two optional, flexible interstitials.
Our primary goal with Presidio is to give you more options for displaying your content — which keeps readers exploring! We love interstitials for highlighting blog categories, sharing most popular content, and encouraging readers to connect on other platforms. Use both of Presidio's interstitials to give your blog a magazine-style layout, or keep it simple with one interstitial. You can even stack widgets for a content-rich layout! We love pairing the Instagram widget with our custom Topics Widget linking to other social media platforms for a dedicated social media section. Or try stacking two of our custom Featured Post widgets to create a highlighted post grid.
View examples of interstitials, and how they can be mixed and matched here, here and here.
2. Add a sidebar — or not!
Our most common feedback from customers since our launch is that many of you love the interstitial feature of Miramar but can't imagine your blog without a sidebar. We're giving you the best of both with Presidio! Presidio allows you to display a sidebar on the right or left side of your blog, and you have full control over which widgets display before or after interstitials. Prefer to keep it simple? No problem! Hide the sidebar site-wide, and you can still take advantage of Presidio's interstitials. You can even display the sidebar on your home page, then hide it on your single posts.
Watch the sidebar on/off feature in action
3. Feature your latest post or a specific post
The other feature customers love about our Miramar theme is the ability to feature content at the top of the home page, so new readers can always find your best posts and favorite products. We've expanded this feature in Presidio, where you can automatically feature your latest post at the top. Prefer to feature specific content? You can do that, too. Like Miramar, you can automatically feature the latest post from a specific category, or choose a specific post to highlight. Purchase our Shop the Post plugin, and the featured post automatically includes your shop widget in a fun flyout! And of course, we've included an optional space below the featured post to accommodate a shopping widget or shoppable Instagram widget from rewardStyle or ShopStyle.
See Presidio's featured post in action
4. Flexible custom widgets
We admit, we went a little crazy with this one. Presidio comes with seven different custom widgets that blend perfectly with your site and give you more options for showcasing your content. Any can be used in your sidebar or footer, and most adapt beautifully in interstitials as well! We love stacking multiple highlight widgets in the sidebar to link to different blog categories. Similarly, the topics widget allows you to create image buttons to link to categories, posts, or external sites — anything you want! It groups the buttons in one widget which can either be stacked in the sidebar, or displayed in a row in an interstitial.
Want to link to your favorite products? Our shopping widget allows you to highlight a number of products, and works well within the sidebar or an interstitial. Want to feature posts? There's a widget for that, too. Our featured posts widget will pull the latest posts from a specific category. Want to introduce yourself? Our about widget is the perfect space for an image, bio, and links to your about and contact pages.
Our custom social media widget magically displays the appropriate icon and platform name from the social media links you add in the Customizer. And our new subscription widget gives you a place to add an image with your opt-in form and styles your MailChimp form to blend with your theme.
View examples of Presidio's widgets in the sidebar, interstitials, and footer, here, here and here.
5. Expanded footer
We couldn't resist giving you one more area to showcase your content — the footer! Presidio includes space for that Instagram feed we all love, with a few other surprises. An additional widget area looks great with just one widget, or up to four — use it to share your social media links, include a bio, add a subscription form, or highlight a blog category. It even works with an Instagram widget, if you prefer that layout instead.
But our favorite part is the footer feature box — a spot made specifically for the home page to highlight anything you want. Upload a special image, add a link, and customize the title and optional button. Use it to feature a post, page, or even an external link to another website — a portfolio, shop you own, anything!
View a few ways you could set up Presidio's footer here, here and here.
#bloginitalics
There's a lot to love about Presidio, and we hope you enjoy creating with it as much as we enjoyed creating it for you! We hope that you'll use your imagination as you customize its features. Customize as much or as little as you like — we've made sure that no matter which options you enable (or don't!), everything still works together beautifully to help you create something truly unique for your blog. And don't forget to show us how you #bloginitalics with our new Presidio theme — we can't wait to see what you do!
xx,
