Santone is a clean, responsive portfolio theme for WordPress, sold on ThemeForest by the developer BruteCreative for $9. It provides a set of pre-built portfolio layouts, four homepage variations and the usual supporting pages for a creative business site, and it is aimed at photographers, designers and small studios that want a finished-looking gallery site without building one from scratch. The theme has sold 336 copies since release, which is a modest but real signal that it has been used in production.
What the Santone creative theme actually gives a site owner
The core of the package is the portfolio itself. Santone ships with two distinct portfolio arrangements, one vertical and one horizontal, plus a separate project details template. That matters more than it sounds: a horizontal gallery changes how a visitor moves through work, scrolling sideways rather than down, and it suits wide-format photography or design mockups better than a standard grid. Having both options in one purchase means the layout decision can be made after seeing the content, not before.
Four homepage variations are included, which is unusual at this price point. Each one can be assembled from the same underlying components, so a site owner is effectively choosing a different arrangement of the same blocks rather than committing to four separate designs. Combined with an unlimited colour picker, the practical result is that two Santone sites need not look alike.
On the technical side, the theme is built on HTML5 and CSS3 with Twitter Bootstrap 3 as the layout framework. Bootstrap is a widely used front-end toolkit, and building on it means the grid behaves predictably across browsers and screen sizes. The responsive behaviour is not an afterthought bolted onto a desktop layout. Retina-ready Font Awesome 4 icons and Google Web Fonts are included, so typography and iconography stay sharp on high-density displays without extra work.
The contact page uses a PHP and Ajax form, meaning the message sends without a full page reload. There is also a working Google Maps integration through gmaps.js. Both are the kind of detail that separates a theme that looks finished from one that is.
Social sharing for Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest is wired in, and the markup is described as W3C valid and SEO friendly. The code is commented throughout, which matters to anyone who intends to modify it later or hand the site to another developer.
Where Santone creative fits, and where it does not
The strongest fit is a working photographer or a small design studio that needs a portfolio site live quickly and does not want to commission custom development. The horizontal gallery layout in particular serves image-heavy work where each piece deserves space rather than a thumbnail in a dense grid. Freelance illustrators, architects and videographers with a modest number of high-quality projects fall into the same category.
A second good fit is an agency building a low-budget client site where the brief is essentially “clean portfolio with a blog”. Santone includes blog list and blog detail templates, shortcodes, typography samples and column layouts, so the non-portfolio pages are already accounted for. At $9, the theme cost is negligible against the build time it saves.
It is the wrong choice for a content-heavy publication, an e-commerce store, or any project that needs membership, booking or complex custom post types out of the box. It is also a poor fit for a business that needs ongoing feature development, because the theme has not been updated since December 2014. Anyone building on it should expect to handle their own maintenance and compatibility testing.
Setting up a Santone site in practice
The prerequisites are standard for a ThemeForest WordPress theme. A working WordPress installation is needed, along with FTP or file manager access for uploading the theme package, and a host running a PHP version compatible with the theme’s era. Because the last vendor update was in 2014, the realistic starting point is a host where PHP can be pinned to a version from that period, or a willingness to test carefully on a modern stack before going live.
Installation itself is quick. The theme folder is uploaded and activated from the WordPress dashboard, after which the bundled demo content can be imported to see the layouts in context. Importing demo content is the fastest way to understand how the homepage variations and portfolio templates are structured, and it can be removed afterwards.
Customisation is where the time goes. Swapping demo images for real work, setting the colour scheme, choosing between the vertical and horizontal portfolio, and configuring the contact form recipient address are the main tasks. For someone comfortable in the WordPress customiser, a presentable site is realistic in an afternoon. For someone who has never touched a theme before, a day or two is more honest, largely because of the portfolio setup rather than the theme itself.
Strengths and limitations of Santone
Strengths
- Two genuinely different portfolio layouts, vertical and horizontal, in a single $9 purchase.
- Four homepage variations give real flexibility without buying add-ons.
- Built on Bootstrap 3 with HTML5 and CSS3, so the responsive grid is dependable.
- Retina-ready icons and Google Web Fonts included as standard.
- Working Ajax contact form and Google Maps integration, not just placeholders.
- Commented, W3C valid code that is reasonable to hand to another developer.
- 336 sales indicate the theme has been used and tested by real buyers.
Limitations
- The last vendor update was December 2014, so there is no evidence of compatibility work with current WordPress or PHP releases. Buyers should assume they are maintaining it themselves.
- The version history in the listing is short and marked “update in progress”, which suggests limited ongoing support activity.
- Google+ is still listed as a sharing target, a sign of how dated the feature set is.
- There is no page builder, so layout changes mean working with the theme’s own templates and shortcodes rather than dragging blocks.
- The vendor does not state whether the theme is translation-ready or ships with a .pot file, so multilingual projects may need extra work.
How Santone compares with the wider portfolio theme category
Portfolio themes generally split into two groups: lightweight, design-led themes like Santone, and heavier multipurpose themes that bundle a page builder, dozens of demo sites and plugin integrations. The multipurpose option wins on flexibility and on the assumption of ongoing updates. It loses on weight, on the learning curve, and often on price.
Santone sits firmly in the lightweight group. Its advantage is that the design decisions are already made and the codebase is small enough to understand in an afternoon. Its disadvantage is that anything the theme does not do has to be added manually, and the age of the codebase means plugins and WordPress core have moved on. A buyer comparing options should weigh whether the lower price and simpler structure are worth taking on that maintenance burden. For a small portfolio site that will not change much, the trade is often acceptable. For anything expected to grow, a newer theme is the safer route.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Santone compatible with the latest version of WordPress?
The vendor does not confirm compatibility with current WordPress releases. The last update was December 2014, and the theme was built for the PHP and WordPress versions of that period. It may still function, but buyers should test on a staging site first and be prepared to fix any warnings or broken features themselves.
Does Santone include a page builder?
No. Santone relies on its own templates, shortcodes and column layouts rather than a drag-and-drop page builder. Layout changes are made through the theme’s built-in options and shortcode system. That keeps the codebase lean, but it means anyone expecting visual editing will need to work within the theme’s structure instead.
Can the Santone portfolio layout be switched after launch?
Yes. The theme ships with both vertical and horizontal portfolio arrangements, and the choice is a theme setting rather than a structural decision. A site can launch with one and switch to the other later, though image sizes and captions may need adjusting so the work looks right in the new format.
Is Santone suitable for a photography business site?
Yes, it is a reasonable fit for a photography portfolio, particularly because the horizontal gallery gives wide images room to breathe. It also covers the supporting pages a photography business needs, including about, services, blog and contact. The main caveat is the theme’s age, which means ongoing maintenance falls to the site owner.
Verdict on the Santone creative portfolio theme
Santone is worth buying for a photographer, designer or small studio that needs a clean portfolio site live quickly and is comfortable handling their own updates. The combination of two portfolio layouts, four homepages and a $9 price is genuinely good value, and the Bootstrap foundation means the responsive behaviour holds up. It is not the right choice for anyone who needs a page builder, regular vendor updates, or a theme that will grow with a complex site. Buyers should go in expecting to maintain it themselves, and should test it on a staging install before committing. For a modest, mostly static portfolio, that trade is a fair one.
