Phantom Blog Hexo

Phantom is a free, responsive Hexo theme for photography and design portfolios, ported from the HTML5Up Phantom template by Jonathan Klughertz.

What is Phantom?

Phantom is a visual portfolio theme built on the Hexo static site generator. It takes a Hexo blog configured with the theme and generates a responsive site with a tile-based grid of cover images, individual post pages, image galleries, and social links. The theme is adapted from the HTML5Up Phantom template and requires the hexo-renderer-scss package because it processes styles with SCSS. Its external libraries include jQuery, FeatherLight.js for galleries, and Skel for responsive layouts.

Key Features

• Responsive image galleries — Posts and pages can embed photo galleries rendered with FeatherLight.js, with responsive image scaling.
• Cover images — Each post can define cover_index and cover_detail images for the index and detail pages, with fallback defaults of 450x450 and 1300x500.
• Comments integration — Both Disqus and Facebook comments are supported; you can enable either or both via disqus_shortname and facebook.appid settings.
• Google Analytics — Add your tracking ID once in the theme config to install analytics on all pages.
• Social accounts — Footer links for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Dribbble, GitHub, Google+, Behance, 500px, email, and RSS can be configured in _config.yml.
• Customizable menu — The header menu is defined as label/path pairs in the theme config.
• Pagination — Built-in support for paginated post listings on the index and archives pages.
• SCSS-based styling — Styles are written with SCSS and compiled via hexo-renderer-scss, so you can override variables and partials.

Who is it for?

Phantom is aimed at photographers and visual designers who want a clean, grid-based portfolio site generated from Hexo without hand-coding HTML. It also suits creative bloggers who want to emphasize imagery over text, and developers who want a minimal, configurable Hexo theme they can customize with SCSS.

What can you do with Phantom?

• Photographers: Showcase a portfolio with a tile grid of cover images and per-project detail pages with large hero images and lightbox galleries.
• Designers: Use the configurable menu and footer about section to present a personal brand and link to Behance, Dribbble, and other portfolio accounts.
• Hexo developers: Fork the theme and customize the SCSS, partials, and front-matter fields to create a bespoke portfolio site.

How does Phantom work?

Installation is done by cloning the repository into your Hexo blog's themes folder, e.g. git clone https://github.com/klugjo/hexo-theme-phantom themes/phantom, then setting theme: phantom in the main _config.yml. You must also install hexo-renderer-scss. Per-post configuration uses front matter: subtitle adds a tagline, cover_index sets the thumbnail, and cover_detail sets the post hero image.

Pros and cons

• Pros: Free and open source; responsive; lightweight dependencies (jQuery, Skel, FeatherLight); supports both Disqus and Facebook comments.
• Cons: Post categories are not displayed; dates are hidden by default unless show_dates is enabled; the theme's design is fixed to the HTML5Up grid unless you work in SCSS.

FAQ

Is Phantom free?

Yes. It is based on the free HTML5Up Phantom template and is released as an open-source Hexo theme on GitHub.

Does Phantom support post categories?

No. Categories are not displayed anywhere in the theme, though posts can still use tags.

How do I show dates on posts?

Set show_dates: true in the theme's _config.yml. By default dates are hidden.

What image sizes does Phantom use?

The default index cover is 450x450 pixels and the default detail cover is 1300x500 pixels, both configurable in _config.yml.

Can I use both Disqus and Facebook comments?

Yes, but the documentation says if you specify both a Disqus shortname and a Facebook app ID, each post will show two comment sections — so it is recommended to choose one provider.