Rejected! Theme feedback needed please

Hey folks,

I could really do with your feedback on our most recently submitted theme, after spending quite a few weeks working on our first WordPress theme it was ready for submittal. Unfortunately it was rejected;

First Rejection:
Visual – Project Drawer Closed
Visual – Project Drawer Open

Reasons for rejection: Your template does not provide a unique enough design with the necessary design quality, features and options to compete in the marketplace at this time. It requires improvements in term of design, visual hierarchy, typography, layout and its aesthetic quality but most importantly, its uniqueness and how the design is executed.

We then looked at what was suggested and made changes to all areas mentioned, we then resubmitted the theme to be rejected a second time. This time the email contained even less information than before.

Second Rejection Demo: http://themes.sukkapunchmedia.com/semplice/

Reasons for rejection: Your template does not provide the necessary design quality to compete in the marketplace at this time and it will need significant improvements before it’ll be ready for review again. As higher quality designs become available in the marketplace, approval requirements will increase to maintain appropriate marketplace quality.

You might consider taking a look at some of our popular premium items to get a better idea for the quality level of graphics, typography and general design that we require for approval.

At this stage in the design I am, unfortunately, not able to provide more specific feedback other than what I’ve stated above.

So the file after 6 or so weeks of work (research, design development, support forums and materials) it has been rejected twice in as many weeks. The rejections are not the issue it’s the lack of real guidance on exactly what the issues are.

Any feedback what-so-ever you guys could give us would be a massively appreciated and we look forward to having some fresh eyes over the design.

Thanks in advance for any help no matter how small.

For me this looks clean and nice, but the menu looks like it needs more design.

In the blog page, the images when hovered turns to almost pure pink, was that the intended design? I think it needs to be just 50-70% opacity on hover. (I’m using Chrome)

In the blog page still, personally I’d prefer the entries to be horizontally aligned. The 1st entry was a bit shorter and this made the 2nd row go up a bit. Maybe try and equalize the boxes to that they all have the same height.

These both seem to affect the portfolio page also.

I’m not a fan of the greater than sign ”>” as a list symbol. The gray dot in your archive page looks nice, how about using that for the sidebar too?

Mind peer reviewing my rejected theme also? I got the exact same rejection note. “Did not meet criteria”

Ive spent a little time playing around in Photoshop adjusting items in the visual however it does seem like im stabbing in the dark and could potentially be destroying good solid elements from the design.

Latest version – http://sukkapunchmedia.com/envato/newdesign.jpg

You comments would me much appreciated

@bfintal thank you ever so much for your comments, you are right the opacity is supposed to be set a little lower that its current level. Im also going to look into the content of my demo along with the sizes of displayed blog posts etc. I actually added the > symbol as the list symbol ot be in keeping with the bespoke carousel.

Anybody else fancy passing a little judgement?

Many thanks to Ivor for the support email response. Its much appreciated. Its a shame that we don’t receive a response like that by default.

Hey Sukka

I’m really liking the new layout and I think it will work better, seems much more balanced.

The main thing that i’m not sure about on the design is the feature / slider image, it just a personal thing but I think the large image should be above the scrolling carousel images. Just from a first impression visual point of view.

Love the new menu drop down, very classy.

As I say the new layout is really nice and balanced, I would definitely go ahead with making the changes, but that’s just my point of view.

I’m also trying to get my first submission approved, I’ve posted a thread if you could return the favour

most importantly, its uniqueness and how the design is executed.

You can see how crowded is wp-themes section. You shoukd make your design unique to get it approved; I’ve seen alot simple themes around there, and to be honest, they are just perfectly designed, and yours is nice, but not perfect.

What I dont liked

• Font
• Using biggered icons in content (those help, talk, stat) – boring
• Links should be more fancy
• Hover color is somehow to strong and don’t fit overally
• I like those big scrolling buttons, but side ones (i guess views of single item?) don’t match to them
• New background color is worse than initial one

That’s obviously only my opinion

Good luck!

Hey Guys, thanks for the comments. We had already spent a huge amount of time on this theme and decided that it was time to move on.

If any one is interested the theme can be purchased on mojo themes