The last time that 8BIT released a theme, it was in June of 2012. We had just dropped Standard 3 and although we’ve done iterations on the product almost every quarter, we’ve generally stayed hyper-focused on that single product in order to make it the absolute best that it can be.

As of of right now, 3.4 is in development and the theme is in a really good place.

But one of the things that we, as a team, wanted to do for the WordPress space was to give something back, and do so with the highest level of quality we could given a tight set of constraints.

Yesterday, we officially launched Required.

What’s Required?

In short, Required is a theme for the modern blogger.

Required

Required on Jared’s site

The theme is completely free, and though you can grab a copy from the WordPress Theme Repository, the most important aspect of the theme is to understand our mission behind building it:

Our ultimate goal was to provide a elegant solution for digital publishers who aren’t quite ready to make the jump to a premium theme, but are looking for a theme that they can trust to help them convey their message.

The theme is seriously no-frills as it’s primary goal is to facilitate drafting and publishing content. It supports a custom header image in the sidebar, it’s fully responsive, and it’s obviously been reviewed by the WordPress.org theme review team.

Want More Info?

If you’re interested, you can also check out screenshots, the full list of features, and plans for the future of the theme on our announcement post on the 8BIT blog.

Of course, it’s also available for download in the repository right now so have at it!