Cindy Littlefield

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Contact: Tess Gadwa, Yes Exactly Web Design
413-223-6502, media@yesexactly.com

ART MEETS CODE: INTRODUCING THE THEMATIZER
New open-source tool is ‘Rosetta Stone’ for designers, developers

Greenfield, MA — Whether we’re working in code or in words, on paper or online, sooner or later we realize we work better together. That’s the driving force behind the creation of the Thematizer, an open-source collaboration tool for designers, developers, usability experts and other visual thinkers.

The Thematizer is a template-based, visual framework that helps nonprogrammers generate clean, editable CSS code while also helping graphic designers easily and quickly create original, custom themes for open-source platforms such as WordPress and Drupal. All templates are built to be responsive, enabling them to work on multiple mobile and traditional devices.

“We want to make it as easy to create a great website as it is to create a great concert poster,” says Tess Gadwa, CEO and founder of Yes Exactly Web Design, which developed the Thematizer. “The open-source community has been a real boon for developers and technical professionals. We wanted to build something that provides more ways for designers to collaborate directly with developers at an advanced and sophisticated level.”

The Thematizer will have designer and developer versions, both of which will be available for download at no charge. Future releases with multi-user functions – such as support for teams and versioning – may be priced differently. A prototype is currently available on Github.

Yes Exactly has formed a not-for-profit initiative in partnership with Gallery 119 of Lowell, Mass. to foster the Thematizer’s evolution. A crowdfunding campaign will launch this spring. “We welcome volunteers – particularly students and women pursuing web development and design – to help us test, expand and extend the Thematizer’s functionality,” says Gadwa. “We strongly believe that making good design accessible, affordable and ubiquitous enables everyone to communicate and create social change. We are excited to work with the open-source community to make the Thematizer a true bridge between techies and visual thinkers.”

Learn more about the Thematizer at artmeetscode.com. You can help spread the word via Twitter (@thematizer, #thematizer and #artmeetscode) and Facebook.

About the Thematizer

The Thematizer is an open-source collaboration software solution for graphic designers and web developers. It gives students, marketing professionals and beginning web developers and designers the ability to quickly and easily build true custom websites without any requirement to purchase expensive software. The Thematizer builds a bridge between disciplines and helps visual thinkers understand the world of code. Support our Kickstarter campaign at http://www.artmeetscode.com.

About Yes Exactly, Inc.
Founded in 2010, Yes Exactly, Inc. is a woman-owned company that provides turnkey web design, hosting and support services to make creating and maintaining high-performance, full-featured custom websites that are simple, fast and hassle-free. We developed the Thematizer. Find out more about us at www.yesexactly.com.

# # #

Thematizer Logo:

Screenshot:

Here’s a sneak preview of the newest “Art Meets Code” crowdfunding rewards poster for our upcoming open source Thematizer campaign:

Art Meets Code, Rewards Poster #4 by Eraklis Petmezas

Look for the campaign to launch in early April.