Balzac is a free, responsive Jekyll theme for blogs and portfolios, forked from Minimal Mistakes and designed by Cole Townsend.
What is Balzac?
Balzac is a Jekyll theme that converts Markdown posts and pages with YAML front matter into a static site with full-width feature images, a responsive dropdown menu, and retina image support. It was originally forked from Michael Rose's Minimal Mistakes theme and redesigned by Cole Townsend, and it is distributed under a license that permits free use and modification but forbids selling the design.
Key Features
- Responsive max-width layout — the theme uses max-width so it flexes across screen sizes without a fixed grid.
- Responsive dropdown menu — navigation collapses into a dropdown on smaller screens.
- Retina image support — images with an @2x suffix before the file extension are served automatically for high-DPI displays.
- Footer post loop — the footer displays your three most recent posts.
- Custom portfolio page — a dedicated layout for case studies and project showcases.
- Feature image layouts — post.html and page.html support full-width feature images; post-no-feature.html is available when you don't want one.
- Flexible front matter — categories and feature images are set per post in YAML front matter.
- Preprocessed LESS CSS — assets are built from LESS files in assets/css, and the theme ships with jQuery plugins in assets/js/main.js.
Who is it for?
- Bloggers who want a clean, responsive Jekyll site with large feature images and little setup.
- Designers and developers who need a portfolio page to display case studies alongside their writing.
- GitHub Pages users who want a free theme that works out of the box after forking the repository.
What can you do with Balzac?
- Publish a personal blog — add posts with the post layout, set a feature image, and the home page lists your five most recent posts.
- Showcase a portfolio — use the custom portfolio page layout to present case studies with full-width imagery.
- Organize posts by category — group posts under folders like articles or blog and adjust the permalink in articles.md to match.
- Customize navigation and author info — edit _config.yml to set the title, tagline, description, owner bio, Twitter URL, and navigation links, including external links.
How does Balzac work?
- Install Jekyll on your machine.
- Fork the Balzac repository from GitHub.
- Edit _config.yml with your site title, tagline, URL, author details, and navigation links.
- Add posts as Markdown files in the _posts folder with YAML front matter for layout, title, feature image, and category.
- Build the site with Jekyll and deploy to GitHub Pages or any static host.
FAQ
Is Balzac free to use?
Yes, Balzac is free to use, fork, and modify. The only restriction is that you cannot sell the design or tweak it for resale; you are also asked to credit the designer, Cole Townsend, and consider donating if you find it useful.
Can I use Balzac on GitHub Pages?
Yes. Because it is a standard Jekyll theme, you can host it on GitHub Pages. When deploying, make sure to uncomment the URL setting in _config.yml so absolute links work correctly; comment it out for local development to avoid broken links.
Does Balzac support retina displays?
Yes. The theme includes retina.js support. To have an image served at high resolution, place a version with @2x before the file extension (for example, [email protected]) in the images folder, and the theme handles the rest automatically.
How do I remove the feature image from a post?
Set the post's layout to post-no-feature in the YAML front matter. This layout omits the full-width feature image while keeping the rest of the post layout intact.
Can I create custom categories in Balzac?
Yes. Add a category value in each post's front matter, then create or rename a listing page (like articles.md) and set its permalink to match, such as /blog/index.html for a blog category.
