Maker is designed to work out-of-the-box as a blogging theme and doesn’t force you to install any plugins.
Plugins listed below extend the functionality of your website but aren’t required.
Portfolio Toolkit — adds portfolio functionality to your website. Maker is designed to work with this plugin.
Jetpack — Adds many useful features that were previously available only for WordPress.com users. Maker uses Tiled Galleries, Carousel, and Infinite Scroll. Keep in mind that in order to use Jetpack, you’ll need to connect it to your WordPress.com account. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do it.
Contact Form 7 — allows you to create contact forms that can be easily added to posts, pages, and widgets.
Regenerate Thumbnails — allows you to regenerate thumbnails for your image attachments. Very useful if you’ve changed thumbnail dimensions via Settings → Media or switched the theme.
Intuitive Custom Post Order — allows you to reorder projects on the front page.
Pageviews — allows you to show the number of times users viewed your posts in a post meta section.