On Day 3 you built a block. On Day 12, editorial-specific blocks. Today, you go bigger: describe your ideal editorial theme and have Telex build the whole thing.
When to use Telex vs. Studio Code for themes
Telex is better when you want to start from a clean description and get a downloadable theme quickly — especially for prototyping ideas or building something completely new. Studio Code is better when you’re iterating on an existing theme or need deep customization with performance optimization. They complement each other.
Build your editorial theme
Go to telex.automattic.ai. This time, instead of building a block, describe a full theme:
Build a modern news magazine WordPress theme for a digital publication. It should have:
HOMEPAGE:
- A prominent hero section featuring one main story with a large image, headline, and excerpt
- Below that, a 3-column grid of recent stories organized by category with thumbnails
- A sidebar widget area with "Trending" stories (by view count) and newsletter signup
- Category-based navigation in the header
ARTICLE PAGE:
- Clean, readable typography optimized for long-form reading (serif body, sans-serif headlines)
- Author bio card with photo at the top
- Estimated reading time
- Related stories at the bottom
- Social sharing buttons (floating on desktop, fixed bottom bar on mobile)
- A "Reporter's Notebook" section style for behind-the-scenes content
DESIGN:
- Color palette: deep navy header, white content area, warm gray backgrounds, accent color for links
- Professional and trustworthy — think modern broadsheet meets digital-first
- Generous whitespace, clear hierarchy
- Fully responsive with a mobile-first reading experience
- Dark mode toggle in the headerAfter the initial build, iterate with follow-ups:
- “Add an ‘Opinion’ section on the homepage with a different visual treatment — author photos and a slightly darker background”
- “Make the mobile navigation a slide-out drawer with category filters”
- “Add a ‘Breaking News’ ticker bar at the very top of the page”
Download the theme .zip and install it on your Studio CLI site to see it in action with real (or test) content.
KEY TAKEAWAY
A theme that used to take weeks of dev work can now be prototyped in minutes with Telex. The prototype isn’t production-ready — but it’s a conversation starter that lets editorial and product teams align on design before a single line of manual code is written.