Okay that title might be a little ambitious but I truly believe that 281 is different from most WordPress themes. 281 is a joint project between myself and Neil Patel of Pronet Advertising. Neil approached me a while back and we started talking about how there was really no strong WordPress theme that combined slick minimalist aesthetics, speed and search engine optimization. That's exactly what 281 promises to be.
The point of today's beta release is to get feedback and lots of it. We want to know what plugins you want to use with 281, what additions you would like to see, adjustments to the design - anything really. You will quickly notice that 281 is very similar to my current theme. Many people have asked me about my theme and if they could use it, so I decided to incorporate it into 281. Next up, what's with the theme's name.. 281? Well nothing really, 281 is a favorite number of mine and also happens to be the cubic displacement of modern 4.6 Liter V8 Mustangs.
281 does not use any images or JavaScript. CSS and other files are compressed and PHP has been tinkered with to reduce queries. 281 is based on an older release of K2, so 281 might be easy to play around with if you are familiar with the K2 structure.
Download 281 v0.3 beta (24kB) and extract it to your wp-content/themes folder. Head over to the WordPress admin panel and select 281 from the Presentation » Themes tab. You may also configure some settings from the 281 Options tab.
As Neil and I progress towards a final release we will likely be bundling 281 with documents showing you how to make your WordPress install even more search engine friendly as well as easy ways to tweak 281 to your liking.
Requested Feedback: Please give us your thoughts! Also as a note, this theme has NOT been tested in IE6 or IE7 yet so please keep that in mind.