WordPress is changing how it picks the theme that ships with every new install, and dropping a decade-old naming tradition in the process.
What happened
WordPress.org announced Ipsum, the proposed default theme for WordPress 7.2. It’s a deliberately minimal blog theme built around a blank canvas, with quiet typography and dotted editor underlines, and it meets WCAG AA accessibility standards across all its style variations. Carolina Nymark, Maggie Cabrera, and Juanfra Aidasoro are leading development, with Henrique Iamarino leading design.
The bigger change is the naming. Since Twenty Ten, WordPress has shipped a new default theme named after the year, one every year. WordPress.org says that pattern is ending. Future default themes will get their own names and ship whenever the design calls for a change, not on a fixed yearly schedule.
Ipsum wasn’t the team’s first idea. They had been developing a more expressive theme called Mētis, aimed at writers and makers and built to show off what the block editor can do. After review, WordPress leadership redirected the project toward a simpler starting point instead. Mētis will still be released, just not as the bundled default.
Why it matters
The default theme is what a huge share of new WordPress sites see the moment they install the software. A blank-canvas approach means less built-in opinion to fight against or strip out if you’re starting a new site from scratch. Ending year-based naming also means WordPress isn’t committed to shipping a brand-new default every single year whether or not there’s a good design reason to.
What to do
If you build sites or just like to stay ahead of core changes, you can download and test Ipsum on GitHub now. The team is actively collecting feedback before WordPress 7.2 locks in its release scope, so input given now has a real chance of shaping the final theme. If you’re not testing pre-release software, there’s nothing to do yet. Ipsum won’t reach your site until WordPress 7.2 ships.
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