For years BuddyPress was tied to a specific theme and creating a custom theme had a steep learning curve. Many just used the default theme not pushing the boundaries of what could be done. BuddyPress now has theme independence and with this comes the chance to push ahead BuddyPress design. Lets ban the bland and start thinking about how we can innovate not just about how we create a theme. I’ll encourage in this talk to look beyond the default, to new UI’s, new possibilities, to design for the community not to the default. I’ll also give some consideration to what the ‘new default’ should be that BuddyPress offers up when you load it.