Of course, Ode is intended to be a dynamic personal publishing platform for the web. However, it's also a great tool for general web design work, at least on a small scale. (It probably isn't ideal for teams of people working collaboratively on big sites). Why?

Ode allows you to work directly with HTML and CSS using your preferred editor or development environment. Theme files aren't fragments, they're fully formed documents and will be recognized as such by the apps you use.

As you work through the process of creating your theme, Ode allows you to see the site as it will look when it's deployed, complete with content, which Ode takes care of pulling together with your theme without any additional work on your part.

For example, you could create directories full of posts representative of the type of content you expect to have on your finished site. Because this content is entirely separate from your themes, you can use the same collection of post files to design any number of different themes at the same time, and carry that content through to your next design project. Finally, when you're done with your design, you can deploy it just about anywhere.

I like to say that the most remarkable thing about Ode's themes is that they are almost completely unremarkable. The theme you are creating is standard HTML, CSS, Javascript, etc., assembled together in a neat little package. There is very little Ode specific about it. So, although Ode makes a nice platform for your site, it's a useful general purpose design tool too. That's the value of simple.

Themes are just one example of the simple design philosophy that underlies Ode. So, if you like themes, I suggest you explore Ode more. You might like what you find.