At first glance, you would probably question why you need a theme like Flood in your collection. After all, it looks rather bland and boring on the surface; not exactly a design that shouts at you. One word - minimalist. This is a design concept web designers all over the world are engaging with right now. Minimalist design is all about doing-away with unnecessary clutter. So rather than the website design taking precedence, minimalist design is all about reversing things and returning emphasis back to your content. Bottom-line; designers who understand the concept of minimalist design and can make it work in their projects are succeeding.
Flood is very much a minimalist RapidWeaver theme. A simple header region, horizontal navigation, two-column content region and a horizontal footer bar form the basic structure of this theme. Using provided theme settings, you can then go ahead and introduce up to four ExtraContent horizontal content containers, which slice the design up and span from edge-to-edge of the screen. Built-in column settings, the Stacks plugin or the Bootstrap grid then provide three other possible methods of slicing written content up into smaller bite-sized sections.
For websites with a heavy reliance on image content (like showcases, portfolios or e-commerce websites), Flood can work brilliantly. Once again you can choose to use virtually any page layout or slideshow plugin, to build sophisticated page designs. Or keep things simple using the normal content and sidebar regions.
As you would expect, Flood is fully responsive. This theme displays content beautifully on large, cinematic monitors. On tablet devices (like the iPad and Nexus 7) the page layout scales smoothly to fit smaller screen sizes. Aspects of the design like the horizontal navigation (which would traditionally start to break on smaller screen sizes) reverts to a user-friendly toggle menu. The theme continues to scale down on smaller devices like smart phones, whereby stacks, columns and grids dissolve into a single column. Flood makes use of my RAFT plugin, so you have the option to adjust how aspects of the page behave at different screen sizes. Everything you need to build a cross-device-compatible website is there.
Flood does not skimp on useful theme settings. Options exist to change just about every colour you see on screen using colour pickers, so you can devise custom colour schemes and match existing corporate branding. Settings are also provided to adjust font styling, theme width, sidebar width and placement, search bar placement and columns. Plus we also provide the option to easily toggle between a drop-down menu, block and split navigation layouts. These navigation layouts are compatible with the Nimblehost Armadillo content management system, sold separately.
Social media plays a vital role in and promoting businesses organically via a virtual word-of-mouth. We now spend more time than ever online, and many people engage with social media and bookmarking platforms to improve their online experience. With this in mind, Flood incorporates an option tagline container at the top of the page. This container (ExtraContent1) allows you to place useful links, icons and short extracts of information like contact details. The tagline styling can be adjusted and you can have the tagline either fixed or static in the page.
For semi-expert RapidWeaver users, Flood provides a candy-shop of options to take your design skills to the next level. To start with, Flood incorporates complete support for the entire Twitter Bootstrap Toolkit. This instantly empowers you and opens up vast avenues to incorporate various embellishments and page functionality. Have a look through the Bootstrap website to see what's feasible, and then download the free Bootstrap snippets pack, to use in RapidWeaver. Flood also incorporates the complete Font Awesome More pack of icons, so you can spice-up your page designs with simple icons which compliment the theme harmoniously.
Arguably the shinning beacon in this theme is the option banner container. This banner utilises FreeStyle technology, so it is basically a blank canvas to do whatever you want with. Static images, sliders, carousels, slideshows and even video can be embedded into the banner region. Theme style settings are provided, enabling a choice of different banner borders to be applied. The banner is fully responsive and expands vertically to incorporate your content. As a bonus, a banner content container (ExtraContent5) provides a useful space to incorporate written content.
Flood has been engineered as a robust RapidWeaver theme. It will work reliably on all modern web browsers, like IE9, IE10, Safari, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. On older web browsers like IE7 and IE8, the theme displays just as well, with some graceful degradation to cosmetics like shadow effects and rounded corners (basically the stuff that doesn't really matter). This theme uses an HTML5 doctype and validates as HTML valid. Work has been done to optimise the theme for search engines - such as wrapping headings inside heading tags, logo's that link back to the homepage automatically and navigation structures which are easy for search engines to access.
Speed is an important factor in modern web design. Sluggish websites typically gravitate people away and search engines recognise this, from an SEO perspective. Currently Flood is one of the most optimised RapidWeaver themes currently available anywhere, with much emphasis on building streamlined pages which load quickly and with less bandwidth. Using speed testing tools like Chrome PageSpeed Insights, it is not uncommon for pages built with Flood to achieve scores into the 80's and beyond. Try the live demo site to see for yourself.
A free demo version of the theme is available for you to download using the button at the top right. This lets you install the theme in RapidWeaver and test it against real content, play around with all the different settings, throw the theme against different page styles and demonstrate the theme to clients. In the demo version, links between pages are disabled and some graphics may be watermarked. The theme is backed by expert customer support (you'll normally get an email response within 12 hours) and I can provide assistance with customising the theme, setup of banner containers and testing of your completed website in different web browsers and devices.
KB Firma Handlowa is a Fashion Agency operating in Poland as distributor/representative of italian premium brands on the polish market. "We have just finished implementing our new company website using Flood. Thank you very much for the Flood Theme, is great to work with" - Piotr.
EnDeRu - http://enderu.net
A translation agency specialising in quality translations for Russian, German and English. ENDeRu provides expert translation services, covering product descriptions, company presentations, manuals, contracts and marketing texts. In this example EnDeRu use the Flood RapidWeaver theme in their website, with minor modifications to the header region.
Driftwood Tea - http://driftwoodtea.com
Driftwood Tea is a small UK-based company selling a wonderful range of tea products, with emphasis on flavour and freshness first. Alongside harvest teas, organic teas and Gaiwans, Driftwood Tea also provide unusual tea gift boxes and other products. With a strong emphasis on customer service, Driftwood Tea have used a combination of the Flood theme and several RapidWeaver addons to develop a complete website and store.
StoneBridge Community Church - www.stonebridgesimi.com
StoneBridge Community Church is community of faith located in Southern California that is passionately committed to reaching out to people who don't yet know God, coaching believers as they grow in God's grace, and positively impacting the world with the good news of God's love. The site uses a combination of the Flood theme, Stacks 2, and Bootstrap to inform as well as to provide tools and resources for both members and those who are visiting their site.
Whites Raised Beds - www.whitesraisedbeds.co.uk
Whites specialise in developing raised bed solutions for growing fruit, vegetables and herbs in at home. Raised beds have many advantages over traditional growing methods, and can increase yields as well as making gardening more accessible. Using the Flood theme, Whites have been able to build a basic website which effectively promotes their innovative products.
Flood is very much a minimalist RapidWeaver theme. A simple header region, horizontal navigation, two-column content region and a horizontal footer bar form the basic structure of this theme. Using provided theme settings, you can then go ahead and introduce up to four ExtraContent horizontal content containers, which slice the design up and span from edge-to-edge of the screen. Built-in column settings, the Stacks plugin or the Bootstrap grid then provide three other possible methods of slicing written content up into smaller bite-sized sections.
For websites with a heavy reliance on image content (like showcases, portfolios or e-commerce websites), Flood can work brilliantly. Once again you can choose to use virtually any page layout or slideshow plugin, to build sophisticated page designs. Or keep things simple using the normal content and sidebar regions.
As you would expect, Flood is fully responsive. This theme displays content beautifully on large, cinematic monitors. On tablet devices (like the iPad and Nexus 7) the page layout scales smoothly to fit smaller screen sizes. Aspects of the design like the horizontal navigation (which would traditionally start to break on smaller screen sizes) reverts to a user-friendly toggle menu. The theme continues to scale down on smaller devices like smart phones, whereby stacks, columns and grids dissolve into a single column. Flood makes use of my RAFT plugin, so you have the option to adjust how aspects of the page behave at different screen sizes. Everything you need to build a cross-device-compatible website is there.
Flood does not skimp on useful theme settings. Options exist to change just about every colour you see on screen using colour pickers, so you can devise custom colour schemes and match existing corporate branding. Settings are also provided to adjust font styling, theme width, sidebar width and placement, search bar placement and columns. Plus we also provide the option to easily toggle between a drop-down menu, block and split navigation layouts. These navigation layouts are compatible with the Nimblehost Armadillo content management system, sold separately.
Social media plays a vital role in and promoting businesses organically via a virtual word-of-mouth. We now spend more time than ever online, and many people engage with social media and bookmarking platforms to improve their online experience. With this in mind, Flood incorporates an option tagline container at the top of the page. This container (ExtraContent1) allows you to place useful links, icons and short extracts of information like contact details. The tagline styling can be adjusted and you can have the tagline either fixed or static in the page.
For semi-expert RapidWeaver users, Flood provides a candy-shop of options to take your design skills to the next level. To start with, Flood incorporates complete support for the entire Twitter Bootstrap Toolkit. This instantly empowers you and opens up vast avenues to incorporate various embellishments and page functionality. Have a look through the Bootstrap website to see what's feasible, and then download the free Bootstrap snippets pack, to use in RapidWeaver. Flood also incorporates the complete Font Awesome More pack of icons, so you can spice-up your page designs with simple icons which compliment the theme harmoniously.
Arguably the shinning beacon in this theme is the option banner container. This banner utilises FreeStyle technology, so it is basically a blank canvas to do whatever you want with. Static images, sliders, carousels, slideshows and even video can be embedded into the banner region. Theme style settings are provided, enabling a choice of different banner borders to be applied. The banner is fully responsive and expands vertically to incorporate your content. As a bonus, a banner content container (ExtraContent5) provides a useful space to incorporate written content.
Flood has been engineered as a robust RapidWeaver theme. It will work reliably on all modern web browsers, like IE9, IE10, Safari, Opera, Firefox and Chrome. On older web browsers like IE7 and IE8, the theme displays just as well, with some graceful degradation to cosmetics like shadow effects and rounded corners (basically the stuff that doesn't really matter). This theme uses an HTML5 doctype and validates as HTML valid. Work has been done to optimise the theme for search engines - such as wrapping headings inside heading tags, logo's that link back to the homepage automatically and navigation structures which are easy for search engines to access.
Speed is an important factor in modern web design. Sluggish websites typically gravitate people away and search engines recognise this, from an SEO perspective. Currently Flood is one of the most optimised RapidWeaver themes currently available anywhere, with much emphasis on building streamlined pages which load quickly and with less bandwidth. Using speed testing tools like Chrome PageSpeed Insights, it is not uncommon for pages built with Flood to achieve scores into the 80's and beyond. Try the live demo site to see for yourself.
A free demo version of the theme is available for you to download using the button at the top right. This lets you install the theme in RapidWeaver and test it against real content, play around with all the different settings, throw the theme against different page styles and demonstrate the theme to clients. In the demo version, links between pages are disabled and some graphics may be watermarked. The theme is backed by expert customer support (you'll normally get an email response within 12 hours) and I can provide assistance with customising the theme, setup of banner containers and testing of your completed website in different web browsers and devices.
Showcase
KB Firma Handlowa - www.kbhandlowa.comKB Firma Handlowa is a Fashion Agency operating in Poland as distributor/representative of italian premium brands on the polish market. "We have just finished implementing our new company website using Flood. Thank you very much for the Flood Theme, is great to work with" - Piotr.
EnDeRu - http://enderu.net
A translation agency specialising in quality translations for Russian, German and English. ENDeRu provides expert translation services, covering product descriptions, company presentations, manuals, contracts and marketing texts. In this example EnDeRu use the Flood RapidWeaver theme in their website, with minor modifications to the header region.
Driftwood Tea - http://driftwoodtea.com
Driftwood Tea is a small UK-based company selling a wonderful range of tea products, with emphasis on flavour and freshness first. Alongside harvest teas, organic teas and Gaiwans, Driftwood Tea also provide unusual tea gift boxes and other products. With a strong emphasis on customer service, Driftwood Tea have used a combination of the Flood theme and several RapidWeaver addons to develop a complete website and store.
StoneBridge Community Church - www.stonebridgesimi.com
StoneBridge Community Church is community of faith located in Southern California that is passionately committed to reaching out to people who don't yet know God, coaching believers as they grow in God's grace, and positively impacting the world with the good news of God's love. The site uses a combination of the Flood theme, Stacks 2, and Bootstrap to inform as well as to provide tools and resources for both members and those who are visiting their site.
Whites Raised Beds - www.whitesraisedbeds.co.uk
Whites specialise in developing raised bed solutions for growing fruit, vegetables and herbs in at home. Raised beds have many advantages over traditional growing methods, and can increase yields as well as making gardening more accessible. Using the Flood theme, Whites have been able to build a basic website which effectively promotes their innovative products.
Updates for the Flood RapidWeaver theme are free for all existing users. Theme updates are periodically released to introduce new features and maintain compatibility with the latest RapidWeaver addons and and web browsers. You can tell if an update is available for Flood, by comparing the number shown next to the theme name in RapidWeaver, compared with the version number shown on the right. Generally theme updates are not sent out automatically, because previously it was found many of the emails went missing in junk or spam mail filters. Instead you are invited to check for Flood updates yourself, and download them at a time convenient to you. Updates also get publicised via the RapidWeaver Addon website, the RapidWeaver Central newsletter and the free iCentral app.
Theme updates can be obtained using the original download link, emailed to you when you purchased Flood. If you no longer have this download link or you require an expired link to be reactivated, please send a quick email, and include the following information:
- Name of the theme you need an update for (in this case say that you need an update for Flood)
- The name and email address used when you purchased the theme
- The purchase method used (was it purchased through the website or as a direct order?)
- Any other useful information like the date, or invoice number
Once your purchase details have been located, you will be sent a new download link. Theme updates are recognised in RapidWeaver as new themes, so multiple versions of the same theme can be safely installed alongside each other. This means you can selectively update certain projects to use newer themes, and any customisations you've applied like custom code or images don't get deleted. For more information on updating themes, please see the theme user guide.
You can use this comment form to ask general questions about the theme, put forward ideas, submit feature requests and post links to websites you have created using the theme. Please be aware that comments are moderated. It may take a few days before your comments show on here. If you have an urgent question, it is advisable to contact me directly.
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