Joomla Zen (Naked) Theme
I kind of left this project on the shelf for a bit. Tonight I worked up a bit of a stripped-down version of what I had in mind. This I think will be useful as a bare-bones framework for building a theme. It's fixed-width (960 pixels wide) but with a little adjustment it can be any width.
The main divs inside the fixed wrapper include a header, footer, left column, and a main column with an optional right column. The main column ID name depends on whether any modules are positioned in the right column.
I'd like to push this a bit further with the next version. It would be great to make it so the user can select in the Joomla template manager whether to make this a fixed or fluid-width layout. I'm looking at how the ja_purity template handles this. I would draw some inspiration from how the Wordpress theme Thesis works. That idea could possibly take me into an entirely different direction.
So at any rate, you can download the current version (1.0.0) here.
EDIT: 1/02/10...
Completely reworked this theme. Made a few improvements and adhered more closely to Joomla's stock template's module positions. I think this gives you an even better starting point.
Download it here.
That link is now working as it should.