FUKUO started in 2012 as a personal project;
a Tumblr blog where a self-taught developer shared free themes with anyone who wanted them.

Over a decade later, it’s grown into one of the more recognizable names in the Tumblr theme-making community, with 100,000+ total installations across themes

Each theme is built from scratch using HTML, CSS/SCSS, and JavaScript, tailored to Tumblr’s own template API. The themes cover a range of use cases — from minimal writing-focused layouts to grid-based photoblogs — and are designed to be highly customizable without requiring the user to touch any code.

Beyond theme releases, FUKUO has served as a learning journal: a place to share tutorials, programming tips, and the occasional UI concept, including a Figma mockup exploring what a creator monetization feature on Tumblr might look like. Commissions for custom themes are occasionally taken for users who need something more tailored.

What started as trial-and-error became a long-running side project that helped shape the skills I now use professionally — translating design into code, building with reusability in mind, and making interfaces that work for people regardless of their technical background.

FUKUO wasn’t built around a client brief or product roadmap — the goals evolved organically over time, but a few consistent ones drove the work:

• To design and release free, polished Tumblr themes accessible to anyone, regardless of technical ability.
• To build themes that are deeply customizable through Tumblr’s built-in settings, without users needing to edit code directly.
• To cover a wide range of blog types — writing-heavy, photo-heavy, portfolio-style — so there’s a theme for most use cases.
• To document the process: sharing tutorials, tips, and resources as both a contribution to the community and a personal learning record.
• To improve as a frontend developer through real, shipped, publicly used work — outside of any professional obligation.

Platform constraints

Tumblr themes are built within the boundaries of Tumblr’s own template language and API, which limits what’s possible compared to standard web development. Features that would be straightforward in a normal frontend environment often required creative workarounds within Tumblr’s system.

Long-term maintenance

Themes released in 2012 still have active users today. Keeping them functional through Tumblr’s own platform updates — including the shift to its New Post Format (NPF) — meant revisiting and sometimes fully re-coding older themes years after their initial release.

No roadmap, no deadline

As a solo side project, the hardest challenge was self-direction: deciding what to build next, when to refactor vs. release something new, and how to balance FUKUO with professional work and freelance commitments over 10+ years.