Polar Bear is an open source, minimal Jekyll theme created by Camille Diez for personal blogging, distributed under the MIT license.
What is Polar Bear?
Polar Bear is a lightweight Jekyll theme that helps you turn a Jekyll site into a simple blog. It takes your existing Jekyll setup—with its standard layouts, includes, and static site generation—and applies a minimal, text-focused design. The theme was released in 2015 and is hosted on GitHub, where the repository has collected 48 stars.
Key Features
Polar Bear's features center on minimalism and open source usability. Here are the specifics:
- Minimal design — A bare layout that puts article text first, with no extra widgets or visual clutter.
- Lightweight — The repository description calls the theme lightweight, meaning the template files and styles stay small.
- Open source — The full source code is on GitHub, and the project invites issues and pull requests for bugs and new features.
- MIT licensed — You can freely use, modify, and redistribute the theme as long as the copyright notice is kept.
- Live demo — A working example is hosted at http://diezcami.github.io/polar-bear-theme, letting you preview the theme before installation.
- Jekyll based — Designed for Jekyll, so it works within standard Jekyll environments like GitHub Pages.
Who is it for?
Polar Bear suits anyone who wants a plain, fast-loading Jekyll blog without extra design overhead. Specific audiences include:
- Personal bloggers — Publish a straightforward, text-centered blog where written content drives the page.
- Jekyll users — Replace a default or heavy theme with a minimal starting point that is easy to edit and extend.
- Minimalism-minded developers — Work with a small codebase that you can read completely and customize without a steeper learning curve.
Use cases
Polar Bear's most direct use is running a Jekyll blog, but the open source nature expands its possibilities. Common scenarios include:
- Personal blogging: Write Markdown posts and get a clean, static blog page that focuses on the article text.
- Open source contribution: Fork the repository on GitHub, add a feature, and submit a pull request to improve the theme for other users.
Pricing
Polar Bear is free. The MIT license places no cost on use, modification, or distribution, and there is no paid version or subscription.
FAQ
Here are answers to common questions about Polar Bear.
Is Polar Bear free?
Yes. Polar Bear is released under the MIT License, so you can use, copy, modify, and distribute it without paying. You only need to keep the original copyright notice in copies or substantial portions of the software.
What is Polar Bear?
Polar Bear is a minimal, open source theme for Jekyll, ideal for blogging. It was created by Camille Diez in 2015 and provides a clean, text-focused design for personal websites.
Who created Polar Bear?
Camille Diez created the theme, as shown in the copyright notice on the repository. The project is hosted on the diezcami GitHub account.
What license does Polar Bear use?
It uses the MIT License, a permissive open source license that allows commercial use, modification, distribution, and private use with the condition that the copyright notice is included.
