Trophy

Trophy is a Jekyll blog theme built with HTML, Sass, and vanilla JavaScript that turns Jekyll posts into a picture-heavy blog with pagination, category pages, profile cards, and an archive view.

What is Trophy?

Trophy is a blog theme for Jekyll that transforms standard Jekyll posts into a visually driven blog site with a homepage listing, category pages, a post template, and an archive page. It accepts Jekyll posts written in Markdown with YAML front matter and outputs static HTML pages styled with Sass and enhanced with small JavaScript libraries. The theme is maintained by Thomas Vaeth, distributed under the MIT License, and also offered as a separate Ghost theme.

Key Features

• No-jQuery JavaScript — Built with vanilla JavaScript plus Rellax for parallax and WOW.js for scroll animations, keeping dependencies minimal.
• Sass styling system — All styles compile from Sass; global variables live in _sass/_base.scss for easy customization.
• Configurable via one file — Site, SEO, profile, and build settings are all edited in _config.yml, from email and baseurl to paginate (default 5) and paginate_path (/blog/page-:num).
• Post front matter fields — Each post can define categories, an SEO description, a 2000x1200px hero image, and an optional 500x300px image-sm thumbnail for card layouts.
• Google Analytics ready — Add your tracking ID in the google_analytics site setting.
• Profile card with social icons — Display a profile photo, short bio, and Font Awesome social icons (configured in the social block).
• Ghost port available — The same design is published separately for Ghost users.

Who is it for?

• Jekyll bloggers who want a refined, image-forward theme without hand-coding templates; they edit _config.yml and post front matter.
• Visual creators (photographers, designers, illustrators) who publish picture-heavy posts and want a hero-image layout with archive and category navigation.
• Developers building a personal blog or landing page on Jekyll who need pagination, SEO meta tags, and a profile card delivered in a clean codebase.

What can you do with Trophy?

• Publish a blog with pagination — Set paginate in _config.yml and Trophy generates a paginated listing at the configured path, defaulting to five posts per page.
• Organize posts by category — Add categories to post front matter and the theme surfaces category views alongside the main blog feed.
• Showcase a personal profile — Populate the name, profile_img (2000x1200px), profile, and social settings to display a contact card on posts and in the footer.
• Prepare social sharing previews — Provide default_img for link previews and per-post image fields so shared links display the intended visual.

FAQ

Is Trophy free?

Yes, Trophy is open source and released under the MIT License, so you can use and modify it freely, including for commercial projects.

How do I install Trophy?

Clone the repository from GitHub, make sure Bundler is installed, and run bundle install to fetch all dependencies listed in the Gemfile. Then build the site with Jekyll.

Does Trophy include category and archive pages?

Yes, the theme ships with a categories blog page and an archive page layout, both visible in the included screenshots.

What image sizes should I use?

The theme is designed for 2000x1200px hero images. Optionally, set image-sm to 500x300px thumbnails for optimized card layouts and faster page loads.

Can I use Trophy with Ghost?

Trophy is primarily a Jekyll theme, but the author publishes a separate Ghost port in the thomasvaeth/trophy-ghost repository.