The Altruist theme is live and done on this site

I am very proud to announce that new theme on this site — which has been “in development” for the past seven months — is now officially done.

I am greatly indebted to Olivia Hu, former student and WordPress designer extraordinaire, for creating this theme for me. She has had it 99.9% done for about six months now, and has been patiently waiting while I figured out what last-minute tweaks I would need. She created the entire theme after a very careful consultation with me, and considered the goals and aspirations of this site very carefully when creating this theme. She pushed me at times to confront what I did and did not need on each of my pages (I am a bit too much a fan of clutter, it seems) and came up with a much more readable presentation of my hard-earned content.

Olivia also taught me a great bit about web design in the process. I am sure she laughs at the basic nature of what she has taught me, but I now am much better with using CSS and HTML to make my site look like the way I want it to. As such, Olivia has left me not only with a beautiful custom theme but also with some know-how that empowers me to really control how it looks. I am not even close to the point of “taking the reins” on the overall design of my site, but I have much better control of small stuff that often matters a lot.

I would like to repay Olivia for her generosity in creating this theme by recommending her services heartily to everyone out there in WordPressLand. But like a lot of other highly-talented people, Olivia is already too in demand to need my recommendation. She is currently gainfully-employed at a web design firm and going to graduate school at New York University, so for the time being she is not looking for freelance work.

Olivia was a bit unsure about what to name the theme, so I decided that it should be called Altruist, after Olivia. Thanks for all your work on this and for all that you have taught me Olivia!