Figure 15-1: Try the designPile Theme by Smashing Magazine.
Chapter 15
Ten Free WordPress Themes
In This Chapter
Finding good WordPress themes
Using popular WordPress themes to style your blog
The list I present here isn’t exhaustive by any means. Chapters 11, 12, and 13 give you a few more resources to find a theme that suits your needs.
All the themes in this chapter meet the following criteria:
They’re user friendly, which means you don’t have to tinker with anything to get things to look the way you want them to.
They’re compatible with widgets. In a word, widgets are wonderful. I cover widgets completely in Chapter 5.
They’re free. Some very nice premium themes are out there, but why pay if you don’t have to?
They use valid code. Although you may not notice it, valid code that meets W3C (www.w3c.org
) standards won’t cause errors in browsers.
Hybrid
Theme designer: Justin Tadlock
Hybrid is more of a theme framework, or parent theme that can be modified endlessly to create the perfect child theme, than a theme to use straight out of the box, but don’t let that intimidate you! It’s crazy easy to use, and Hybrid is very user-friendly.
By default, the Hybrid theme is very plain and simple, but it encompasses any and all of the WordPress features and functions that you would want:
It’s SEO-ready: Hybrid comes completely optimized for SEO (search engine optimization).
It’s highly customizable: Hybrid has 15 custom page templates for you to choose from. Each custom page is set up slightly differently, giving you an array of options.
It’s widget-ready: Hybrid has multiple widgetized areas for you to easily drop content into, making your WordPress theme experience easy and efficient.
You can read about the Hybrid theme at the developer’s (Justin Tadlock) website at www.themehybrid.com
. You can also download and install the theme directly into your WordPress website by using the automatic theme installer built in to your WordPress Dashboard.
designPile
Theme designer: Smashing Magazine
http://wordpress.site5.net/designpile/
The highlights of this theme are the following:
Three different color schemes: black and pink, black and green, and black and blue
Sidebar and footer widgets
Post thumbnails: supports the WordPress post thumbnails/featured image feature
Space for monetization with ads
Built-in social networking links and sharing
The designPile theme, shown in Figure 15-1, is a sharp design and an easy-to-use free WordPress theme for any new user.
Figure 15-1: Try the designPile Theme by Smashing Magazine.
Responsive
Theme designer: Emil Uzelac
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/responsive
Responsive design is all the rage right now because of the emergence of mobile and tablet browsing. Responsive design ensures that a website looks perfect, no matter which device a reader is using to view it. The Responsive theme by Emil Uzelac features nine page templates including the Blog, Blog Summary, and other static page templates built on a fluid grid system that adapts to the user’s browsing environment.
Theme options in this responsive design include webmaster tools, logo management, social icons, and navigation menus as well as multilingual support.
P2
Theme designer: Automattic
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/p2
You can easily see the Twitter-esque inspiration behind P2 by looking at the post text box displayed at the top of the theme. As with Twitter, users can post quick updates, and logged-in visitors can leave feedback on the updates. All this happens from the convenience of the front page of your site — without requiring anyone to click through to a different page on your site, locate the comment form, type, and submit the comment. The P2 theme also features the following:
Live tag suggestions for your posts and updates
Threaded comment display
A show/hide feature for comments
Real-time notification for posts, updates, and comments
Keyboard shortcuts
Annotum Base
Theme designer: Crowd Favorite
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/annotum-base
Annotum Base is a scholar’s blog theme providing a complete open-access journaling system including peer review, workflow, and advanced editing and formatting for blog posts and pages. The most interesting features in this theme include structured figures, equations, and cross referencing from PubMed and CrossRef (including reference importing).
Other theme options include
Customized color options
Custom header image
Custom background image/colors
Navigation menus
Featured images
Microformats
Multilingual support
Blackbird
Theme designer: InkThemes
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/blackbird
Blackbird, shown in Figure 15-2, is a responsive theme (mobile ready) with extensive customization options including the ability to:
Use your own logo
Include your analytics code
Customize featured text using an easy widget
Customize background colors and/or images
Incorporate post thumbnails using the WordPress featured image feature
Customize the header image
Use the navigation menu feature in WordPress
Figure 15-2: Blackbird by InkThemes.
iTheme
Theme designer: Nick La
http://ndesign-studio.com/demo/wordpress/index.php?wptheme=iTheme
iTheme is a WordPress theme designed with Macintosh lovers in mind. The theme emulates the design elements and features of the Macintosh operating system, with beautiful blue gradients and Mac-like menu headers and icons. This theme has a fully configurable sidebar that allows you to use WordPress widgets, and when they’re in your blog, you can drag those widgets around in the sidebar.
Esquire
Theme designer: Automattic
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/esquire
Esquire is a free WordPress theme created by Automattic, the company behind the WordPress.com hosted service. It has a distinct visual design with creative typography (fonts), a two-column layout, and visually creative design elements that make it unique (such as the date format and content styling).
Esquire supports all of the expected default WordPress features such as featured images, custom background, custom header, navigation menus, and post formats. The theme design is inspired by the art direction of Esquire Magazine.
WP-Creativix
Theme designer: IWEBIX
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/wp-creativix
The WP-Creativix theme by IWEBIX is a very clean, professional-looking free theme for WordPress that you can begin using immediately after you install and activate it. This elegantly designed theme is well suited for a business, portfolio, or photoblogging website.
The WP-Creativix theme provides users with custom page templates (such as no-sidebar templates, portfolio, and blog) and allows you to use default WordPress features such as custom header, custom background, navigation menu, featured images, and threaded comments.
Gridline
Theme designer: Thad Allender
http://graphpaperpress.com/themes/gridline/
Gridline is a minimalist WordPress theme featuring a clean grid layout. The theme has clean, simple, light elements, which lets your design focus mainly on content rather than appearance. The theme uses black, white, and gray tones and a two-column layout, with content on the left and sidebar on the right.
This is a free theme offered by a commercial theme company: Graph Paper Press — and while it is free, to be able to download it, you need to register for a free account on the Graph Paper Press website.