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Synthesis is a fully responsive premium theme by Pixel Union. It’s our champion of balance: an alchemical marriage of unpretentious form and function.

Minimal yet refined, Synthesis’ razor-thin lines give your blog character without bloat. Facebook comments, a responsive layout, more features than you have fingers.

Documentation:

Responsive Layout: Image and Video Scaling (Togglable)

Synthesis comes hard-wired for flexibility. Whether you’re on a mobile device or just a fan of atypically-sized browser windows, Synthesis automatically rescales your post content to fit. Go ahead: turn back a page and twist/smoosh our test content any which way—Synthesis will accommodate any ratio and dimension.

Note: to take full advantage of the responsive layout feature, disable “Use optimized mobile layout” under the Advanced section of the customization sidebar.

J/K Scrolling

Synthesis features a uniquely user-friendly post navigation system. Simply tap the “J” and “K” keys to scroll backward or forward (respectively) through your blog’s content.

Scads of Sidebar Elements

Synthesis packs one of the girthiest sidebars ever made. Not only does it support the standard bio and (togglable) avatar fields, but Synthesis’s sidebar also features fittingly grayscale social media icons, a search box, and posts you’ve recently liked—all in a sleek, thinly-lined column to the right of your posts.

Collapsable Tags

Keeping in line with its obsessive cleanliness, Synthesis collapses your posts’ tags into a simple click-to-expand field beneath them titled—strangely enough—”Tags.”

Custom Photoset Controls

When enabled, Synthesis’ Photoset Slider is displayed as a fittingly minimal grayscale overlay at the bottom of your photosets. Best of all, it’s perfectly visible over any color, making it both obvious and unobtrusive.

(So Much) Social Media

We’ve designed Synthesis to effortlessly link to a wide array of social media. The customization sidebar includes fields for connecting to your: Twitter, Email, Vimeo, Flickr, LastFM, Dribbble, Skype, Facebook, Google+, Github, YouTube, LinkedIN, Svpply, Rdio, Gowalla, Foursquare, and Instagram.

Facebook or Disqus Comments

Facebook Platform functions allow you to enable Facebook as your blog’s commenting system. This process looks a little overwhelming, but it’s quite simple.

First, head to the Facebook Developer site, sign up and click on Set Up New App.

Input any name you’d like for your hypothetical app (you’re not actually making one, don’t worry), agree to the ToS and click Create. You’re almost done!

Input your Contact Email (in Basic Info) as well as your blog’s URL into the “Site URL” box (in the Website tab) and save your changes.

Copy the App ID located just below your app’s name and you’re all set.

Now head back to your blog and input your App ID into the “Facebook API ID” field in the customization sidebar, and make sure you’ve checked “Facebook Comments On.”

Disqus commenting is the same as it ever was. Grab your website shortname, found in the General Settings of your Disqus dashboard, and copy it into the appropriate sidebar field.

Google Analytics

Synthesis also supports Google Analytics.

Color Customization

Synthesis is designed to be mostly monochromatic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t fine-tune the flourishes: Link Hover and Social Icon Hover colors are totally customizable.

Premium Support

Each one of our themes comes fully backed by our dedicated support team. We’re good people, with real faces, and we like what we do. We’ve also created a help centre, so you can get help at any hour of the day. Send us an email or tweet, and we’ll respond as soon as we can (PST).