You’re off to a powerful inventive begin in 2017! Listed here are a couple of latest updates and tales from the WordPress.com group in April that we wished to share with you.
What’s new
This Year’s WordPress Default Theme, Twenty Seventeen, Is Now Available
“Nice wanting theme!” – Jason Thornberry
Independent Publisher 2 Is Here
The Unbiased Writer theme has lengthy been beloved for its simplicity and legibility, and we’re glad to announce that it has been improved, ever so barely. Read our interview with the designers, Caroline Moore and Kjell Reigstad.
Check Out the New Look, Products, and Features of the WordPress Swag Store
For an opportunity to be featured on the web site, put up WordPress swag pics to Twitter and Instagram utilizing #WPSWAG. Use code WPSWAG for 20% off all items. (Provide ends Might 12.)
Longreads Just Turned 8 Years Old. Here’s What the Next Eight Years Look Like
Longreads is quickly turning into the very best place on the web for private essays, and there are bold plans to do much more. Read more on our plans, and contribute to the Longreads story fund — WordPress.com will even match your contributions.
Designing for [X]: inclusion
Higher conceptualizing, designing, constructing, and enhancing easy methods to meet the wants of underserved customers is a core a part of how we work at WordPress.com, and that was the main focus of April’s Design and Exclusion (#DesignX) convention (check out the complete video and transcript at x.design.blog).
How can we assist entrepreneurs working in cities all over the world? That’s the challenge Hajj Flemings explored in an April essay for Design.weblog. He shares among the insights which got here out of the 100 Venture Hackathon — a undertaking tasked to construct 9 small enterprise websites in a 48-hour interval in Detroit.
Views: ‘But Wait, Is Your Last Name Filipino?’ (Samantha Hankins)
In your toolbox: inspiration + insights
10,000 Kilometers: Quintin Lake on Walking and Photographing Britain’s Coastline
Two Aprils in the past, Quintin Lake set off from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The journey? To stroll 10,000 kilometers across the coast of Britain. We caught Quintin simply earlier than he launched into a 15-day journey across the fringe of Snowdonia, North Wales. Examine Quintin’s epic walk along the sea.
Quotables: “In the event you actually love writing, it’s like consuming. You may’t reside with out doing it.” – The writing life of Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore (Harvard Gazette).
Case Research: A collection of portraits, street scenes, and details from Bangkok.
Attempt it out: Importing Google Docs → WordPress.com.
Now following
“WordPress was the very best… I’m very glad to be again.” — welcome back, Leo Laporte!
Try Amazon CTO Werner Vogels’s new website, Werner.blog.
Hang out with us on Instagram and tag your ‘grams with #DiscoverWP.
That’s all for now!
What did you’re keen on about your individual work in April? Remark with a hyperlink to a put up you’re pleased with, or one thing new you realized about designing your website. Feeling motivated? Obtain the WordPress app on iOS and Android.
Filed below: Design, Discover, Themes, WordPress.com 
