Slate+Simple

What is Slate+Simple?

Slate+Simple is a minimalistic, light-on-dark Jekyll theme for blogs that ships with featured post images, MathJax equation rendering, and Font Awesome icon support under the MIT license. It is based on the Clean+Simple theme by Nathan Rooy and is maintained by its contributors on GitHub. The theme accepts Markdown posts with YAML front matter and produces a static blog site with a dark aesthetic and crisp typography.

Key Features

• Light-on-dark design — The theme uses a dark background with light text, giving blog content a high contrast and reducing eye strain during long reading sessions.
• Featured images — Posts can set a featured-image in their YAML header, and the image is displayed prominently at the top of the post.
• MathJax support — LaTeX math wrapped in $$ automatically renders as formatted inline or block equations, making it suitable for technical and scientific writing.
• Font Awesome icons — Icons are added using the i tag, such as <i class='fa fa-github-alt'></i>, so you can easily include social or decorative icons.
• YAML front matter fields — The theme recognizes title, subtitle, author, featured-image, date-string, categories, and tags in post headers, giving writers control over metadata.
• MIT open source license — The theme is free to use, modify, and distribute, encouraging community contributions and custom forks.
• Based on a tested foundation — It builds on Nathan Rooy's Clean+Simple theme, which is a stable Jekyll starting point.

Who is it for?

• Bloggers who want a modern, minimal look with a dark theme and don't need a heavy design.
• Technical writers who need to publish posts containing LaTeX math and want automatic equation rendering.
• Developers who prefer a permissively licensed theme that they can easily fork and customize for personal or client projects.
• Academics who write math-heavy content and want a clean, long-form reading experience with featured images.

What can you do with it?

• Write math-rich posts: Enclose LaTeX in $$ to produce beautiful equations inline or as blocks, ideal for tutorials and research notes.
• Add visual interest to posts: Use the featured-image YAML field to give each article an eye-catching header image.
• Customize the theme: Take advantage of the MIT license to modify colors, typography, layout, and add your own sections without licensing restrictions.
• Include social icons: Use Font Awesome classes to place GitHub, Twitter, or other icons anywhere in your content.

Pricing

Slate+Simple is free — it is released under the MIT open source license, so there are no fees for personal or commercial use.

FAQ

Is Slate+Simple free?

Yes, Slate+Simple is completely free. It is licensed under the MIT open source license, which allows you to use, modify, and distribute the theme without charge, even for commercial projects.

Does Slate+Simple support mathematical equations?

Yes. The theme includes MathJax support. Any LaTeX math wrapped in double dollar signs ($$) will be automatically rendered as formatted inline or block equations on your blog.

What YAML front matter fields are supported?

Slate+Simple supports title, subtitle, author, featured-image, date-string, categories, and tags in each post's YAML header. These control the post's displayed metadata and categorization.

How do I add icons to my posts?

You can use Font Awesome icons with the i tag, like <i class='fa fa-github-alt'></i>. The theme includes Font Awesome icons, so no extra plugin is needed.

Can I customize Slate+Simple?

Absolutely. The theme is open source under the MIT license, so you can fork the repository, edit the HTML, CSS, and layouts, and tailor it to your own brand. The source code is designed to be easily modified.