In this episode, John James Jacoby and I are joined by Brian Gardner, founder of Frost. The show starts off with a blast to the past as we discuss the early days of WordPress themes beginning with the Revolution Theme that ultimately catapulted Brian’s career. We talk about the GPL era throughout 2009-2011 and the impact it had on him and his business. We then learn a bit more about his decision to sell StudioPress to WP Engine in 2018 and why it was the right partner at the right time.

Last but not least, we discuss the future of WordPress themes and how Frost takes advantage of what Gutenberg brings to the table. It’s clear that Brian is excited about where WordPress themes are at right now and what the future holds with Full-site Editing on the horizon. It was cool to hear him express how easy it is to accomplish certain ideas through blocks and block patterns versus coding blocks of PHP inside of Page Templates.

To see Frost in action, check out Bob Dunn’s website and John’s blog linked above. You can also view a live demo of the theme on the Frost website.

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Speaker 1 00:00:19 Welcome everybody to episode 10 of the WP mainline podcast for Thursday, September 2nd, 2021. I am your host, Jeff chiller and joined by John James. I just want to pinch your cheeks. Jacoby.Speaker 2 00:00:33 My cheeks of the red dinosaur cheese.Speaker 1 00:00:35 No, no, no. Your, your cheeks don’t mention the right dentist. So I’m here. Come on, man. Well, I’m bro, that stuff’s supposed to be a NDA. You signed about the red daySpeaker 2 00:00:43 As well. That’s out the window now,Speaker 1 00:00:46 I suppose, but John’s referencing, uh, before the show I was telling him about, I have a stuffy little red dinosaur on here and if it wasn’t for Twitter, which is my gateway to the outside world. And I just sit here and I talked to the red Dennis, and I say, John, John, talk to me, John, what do you think I should do? And he just looks at me with these big googly eyes. He never says anything, but I love him anyways. So there you go. If anything ever happens to you, you live on as this stuff for a Dennis on Jeff Smith. Good to know. Well, how’s your week going, sir?Speaker 2 00:01:20 Uh, it was good. We, uh, Carrie and I went camping last weekend. We were in,Speaker 1 00:01:25 You had to take, now you want to go againSpeaker 2 00:01:27 To, we did go again and it would, if it was hot, hot and soupy and it was humid and everything was just bugs galore. There was tons of bugs and full of flies. Very bad boat. We survived. It was fine. It was a lot of fun. And, uh, here we areSpeaker 1 00:01:46 Good, good to go. That’s why you went to experience all of that and then come home and here’s penny there’s Paul, and then there’s no bugs. We broughtSpeaker 2 00:01:54 The dogs with us, which was a whole other experience because they’re there in door dogs for sure. Oh man. Did, were they scared or they were scared in the tent when it was raining. Uh, penny does not like thunderstorms and uh, so we, uh, I didn’t get much sleep the first night. That’s okay.Speaker 1 00:02:18 Yeah, I’ve actually been struggling, sleeping myself, just tossing and turning. I don’t know what it is. I can’t get me a good night’s sleep. Um, uh, by the way, before we get into today’s episode, we have an awesome guest lined up and we’re going to probably go back in time. It’s going to be like a WordPress time capsule. So