Ipsum, the New WordPress 7.2 Default Theme: Features and Customization

WordPress 7.2 is set to launch in December with a new default theme called Ipsum. It breaks from tradition by dropping the calendar-year naming scheme in favor of a more meaningful name. Ipsum is a minimalist, lightweight, and modular block theme built for Full Site Editing (FSE) and aligned with modern Block Editor standards.

The theme works right out of the box the moment you start writing. Its design is understated down to the details: subtle dotted underlines, bundled typography, and a curated set of style variations focused on accessibility and readability. Minimalist as it looks, Ipsum is a good blank canvas for bloggers who want to build their own style.

A minimalist WordPress theme with accessibility first

Ipsum defines six shades of gray with high-contrast combinations, plus a single accent color. The default background (#fcfcfc) and body text (#000000bf) reach a contrast ratio of 10.26:1, easily earning a WCAG AAA rating.

Native WordPress keyboard navigation is fully supported. A Skip to content link appears on every page, so people using the Tab key can jump straight to the main content without cycling through the header links. Focused links are also highlighted with the accent color. On the typography side, there are five preset font sizes and support for fluid typography. One caveat: links are distinguished only by a subtle dotted underline. That fits the minimalist look, but it can be hard to spot depending on the page's colors. Fortunately, the accent-colored focus outline keeps links easy to identify during keyboard navigation.

Templates, patterns, and the Block Bindings API

Ipsum ships with a set of templates that hand page layouts over to internal patterns. For example, the page.html template needs just one line of code to call the hidden pattern hidden-page.php, which controls the layout and sets the required metadata. Custom template variants such as index-sidebar and archive-sidebar are registered through PHP, so you can pick them in the Site Editor. There are currently around 60 patterns. Some are hidden and reserved for the theme's core templates, but most are free to use on your own pages.

For developers, there is an interesting technical detail: Ipsum's patterns use the Block Bindings API. The archive-full.php pattern, for instance, attaches a binding to a paragraph using the ipsum/comments-cta source. That source is registered in the theme's functions.php and dynamically shows 'Join the conversation' if the post already has comments, or 'Be the first to comment' if it doesn't.

Local fonts and fluid typography

Ipsum's theme.json registers several font families as variable fonts in .woff2 format:

• Sans-serif: Manrope, Inter, Archivo, and Archivo Condensed
• Serif: Besley and STIX Two Text
• Monospace: JetBrains Mono

Inter is the default body typeface. All fonts are hosted locally, which removes third-party dependencies like Google Fonts and gives site owners more control over font loading. The theme.json also defines both fixed and fluid font sizes, which are automatically converted into dynamic CSS clamp() functions.

If you build WordPress sites, Ipsum is a practical example of how patterns, the Block Bindings API, and theme.json work together in a modern theme, and a clean starting point for customization.