Come my friend let’s sit awhile
We’ll share a joke; We’ll share a smile
And before our visit is marked through
We’ll share what’s new with me; what’s new with you.
Best of the Best Wordpress Themes
Posted By ê¿ê on May 2nd, 2009
I think by now you know how picky I am about the theme used on my sites. I have downloaded and tried out literally hundreds of them over the course of the last year or so.
Different blogs are going to want and need different themes. That pretty much goes without saying. I don’t use the same theme on any of my blogs and it’s simply because I don’t believe there is one single theme that would be perfect for all 3 of them.
For example, my photo blog has very specific requirements — it needs a really wide space for the photos themselves. I’m using the Polariod Plugin on Windows Live Writer to get them tilted the way they are. I upload the photos in a 500×350 pixel size so the space needed to be 550 pixels. I wanted a side bar so I could have a few ads.
The book review blog has changed quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. I was using one theme for quite some time, but it was blah color-wise and I wanted something with more interesting graphics. I hunted around until I found two themes that I downloaded. One I tried for a couple of weeks, and now the second one is getting a trial.
Of course here at Eyespi20.com, I’ve been using Versatility Lite for nearly a full year now. I still tweak on it from time to time — the most recent tweaks were threading the comments and taking my replies to comments out of the comment count. But again, I wanted the theme to have wide area for posts, but I wanted the sidebar to be wide enough to accommodate two 125×125 ads without them looking crowded.It came together nicely and I thank the designer for releasing it to the general public.
Knowing what you want in how your content displays is going to drive the theme you think works best for your blog, so you will probably disagree on some of my choices, but these are themes I think are well done, easily customized to fit your needs and also have good code behind them.
Very popular these days is the Newspaper or Magazine style blog. This works well for a site that posts often, or has varying subjects. Eyespi20 might do well with this style template since it fits both criteria, but it’s just not “me”. I like a warmer and more personal look.
Top 3 picks of Magazine Style templates
- Red Carpet by Deluxe Themes
- Hamaski by Nurudin Jauhari
- Coldstone by Ericulous
Top 3 picks suitable for photo blogs – main feature being a wider than average post area for photos
- Shades of Blue by Brian Gardner
- Lyndi1 by Nice2all
- Reflection by David Moxley
Top 3 picks for personal diary blogs – these have more color and features compatible with a personalized site
- Oriental by Pure Essence
- Barbie Gone Bad by CodeScheme
- Maple Leaf by Templatelite
What are some of your favorite templates? Whether you use them or not, what features attracted you to them?
ê¿ê
Tags: free blog themes, top picks of wordpress themes, wordpress themes
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Comments 9
Somehow I missed the fact that you are using my little theme on your photo-blog. Thanks so much, I am honored. I must say that I love the colors used on the theme you use for your book review blog. I have to mention though that I find this theme a tad too slow when it comes to download times.
You have been using Versatility Lite for a year – this has got to be some sort of record for you. It is a lovely theme though.
Lyndi´s last blog post..Weekend Round-Up – 1 May 2009
Lyndi — Your theme was perfect for Travelin’ Show. I’m tickled that I could use it!
I don’t think it’s the theme that’s slow on MRN but the Amazon stuff. All the other themes I’ve tried have had the same issue. I may have to dump Amazon which would be no great loss since I haven’t earned anything from it anyway.
Yeah — it IS a record for me to use a theme for this long, but it’s so easy to customize and between you and the theme’s author, I’ve been able to keep it up to date with the latest from WP. I like the textures incorporated in the graphics and the layout, so it’s likely to stay awhile longer.
I use Coogee for my blog. I don’t know what I am doing so my selection was entirely on how it looks. I like the clean white sheet with the color accents. I suppose what I am doing right now is personal but if I understood and valued the magazine style, I would go with Hamasaki. How does a newby understand what features he needs or would help?
Ralph´s last blog post..Productivity Tool – The Hipster PDA
Hi Ralph! Your template is very nice! I like the clean look and it loads VERY fast! It’s not using the nested comments that are new with Wordpress 2.7 and that make following conversational threads much easier. It seems well suited to your style of blogging.
I don’t know but I tend to look at the newspaper/magazine themes on more business related sites than personal logs. Maybe that’s the “old school” in me. I look at those templates and admire the organization and functionality of them, but can’t make the leap to see them working for myself and the what and why I blog.
Perhaps for your new undertaking, that style would be more suited.
As for what features to choose, where do you want to go with your blog? Are you going to monetize it in any way? If so having ad space that is well organized and easily administered is an important feature. If not then perhaps a template that has minimal sidebars is going to be the right one. Your first step in determining what is the right one is going to be making use of your Franklin to organize your needs, wants and priorities.
Long term objective – or maybe not so long term – is monitization, although maybe not from RalphCarlsonBlog. This is a work in progress. Thanks for you help.
Ralph´s last blog post..Productivity Tool – The Hipster PDA
Ralph — there are some really awesome themes out there that really get your monetization efforts going. Try http://www.nice2all.com as Lyndi has a couple of very nice themes that I think would work very well for your goal. She’s also GREAT to work with in regards to support and that’s worth it’s weight in gold!
There are also a couple of plugins that will help you in that regard as well — WP125 creates ad space for you on your blog in a widget area and whydoworkadsense organizes more than just adsense ads on your site. Be sure to have a site map so the bots have that available to crawl –you should have Google XML sitemaps for that and Platinum SEO also helps with getting that much needed SEO.
TMI I need to keep this comment. Maybe I will be better able to use it later on. I am really winging it.
And it is so easy for me to get snagged on technology. I have to learn that something is worth the time it will take me to make it happen and how it relates to actually getting the communication going.
Ralph´s last blog post..Productivity Tool – The Hipster PDA
Your bang on with the article on finding wordpress themes! I think I burned an entire evening of work the other day trying to find 1 – One that I liked the looks of and 2- Had the functionality I desired without much PhP code monkeying! My current one, UDP Money Maker, was free at the cost of another blog description, but won the contest for now!
Still not 100% happy with it though so maybe I’ll finally put that copy of Artisteer to work to see if I can do a decent one! Have you tried doing your own much?
Cheers,
James
James´s last blog post..SEO Software – Five Cool, Free Wordress Themes
James — Alas, I don’t know enough php to make my own theme. If I DID know enough, I probably wouldn’t have the time — you should see how neglected my website is! On second thought — no — there is no need to send you there
I feel VERY fortunate if I can find one that has the general look I want along with functionality. I know I can whip up graphics pretty easily, so changing those is much easier for me than monkeying with code.
I do feel fortunate in having some friends who code, so I do have resources to ask the occasional favor of, but don’t want to wear out a welcome if you know what I mean
Oh… the queen of wordpress. I’ve been checking out the 31DBBB sites for list posts trying to find one that looks as great as yours.
Can you help me? I’m so new I’m not even a new-born yet. The themes I found on wordpress were pretty limited. If/when I upgrade, what so I upgrade to?
km
Ha ha! Karen — thanks, but I’m no queen of Wordpress! Just opinionated
Ok I signed up at wordpress.com (again) just so I could figure out an answer to your question.
And looking through what’s available, there appears to be plenty to choose from! You will need to have some idea of what you want your layout to be. You’re currently using a two column fixed width theme named “Albeo” that has lots of color to it. I don’t know what look you would like to have, but if you’ll go to your admin page and click on appearance, then available themes, you’ll be given a drop down with some filtering available. When I chose 2 column fixed width, there were 48 different themes to choose from! Honestly, it looks like you just chose the first one
. Take a bit of time to look through what’s on offer through the interface. You be surprised at the number of selections!
Oh another question… how do I get rid of the automically generated suggested articles. I’d prefer to suggest ones of my own.
km
Karen´s last blog post..KICKING DEPRESSION’S BUTT – PART 5
Karen — Usually those are the result of a plugin. I haven’t used the Wordpress.com site in some time, so don’t remember exactly how to do it, but you should go to your admin panel and look through your plugins for one like “related posts” or “yarrp” I think are two of the most often used. Disable those and the auto suggested articles go away. If they’re coming from some default of wordpress.com, you may have to contact support there for help.
I’m using self-hosted wordpress here.
Hi,
So here’s an opinion question for you on the theme site. For a health related site (in this case stopping smoking), do you think a magazine theme is more appropriate? I picked up a site recently (stopsmokingcigs.net) that I’m going to convert to wordpress here soon (mainly because I’m getting addicted to the CMS wordpress offers and it was painful to shift adds on each and every page on the previous owners work!), but was trying to decide what the most suitable theme for this niche or genre was…
My motivation for the site is I’m actively trying to quit, so what better way than to put a site/blog up on the subject right??:)
Cheers,
James
James´s last blog post..HTML Basics for Work at Home Parents
James — I’ve seen magazine style on a health related blog although the author(s) talked about multiple health issues that looked really hot. If this is going to be impersonal then yes, that would be the format of choice. If it’s going to be more of a diary of how you deal with stopping an addiction, then probably not the magazine style. Like I said when I talked about it before, I associate this style with a more impersonal, educational/informative or business blog, but that’s my own personal opinion.
Check out Michael’s blog http://www.michaelaulia.com — he uses a magazine theme and it’s a VERY nice one, too. While he occasionally talks personally, most of his posts are informative.
It may be a few days but I’m going to follow your suggestions and look like a pro!
By the way… You Are the Queen!
km
Karen — thank you — you are too kind!
I went to Wordpress.com and created a new blog just to see if the related posts thing showed up. I created about 6 posts but never saw related posts at the bottom. I chose a different theme than yours. I didn’t see where there were plugins, so evidently there are just default settings you can change. I didn’t take a lot of time to look through all the settings, but you might want to just to see if there is something you turned on by mistake.