8 Awesome & Creative Free WordPress Themes
Brilliant Design: Provide An Amazing Experience
If you want to stand out in the world of blogging then you’ve really got to have a site that looks amazing. We live in a world that ignores amazing content if it doesn’t look amazing.
Even if you consistently write award winning content that won’t guarantee that people will read it. If someone lands on your page and it’s difficult to find the first headline, or the page is covered with ads, or the navigation is difficult then they aren’t even going to take the time to find your awesome writing. I know that I won’t.
So now that we understand that let’s make it happen. Let’s wrap our websites in the absolute best possible design to make people really remember our websites. Here’s 8 awesome WordPress themes that are absolutely free. Check them out and hopefully you can find something that you can use on your blog.
One Room
Fusion
Magaling
FREEmium
WP Coda
Gallery
Magasin
WordPress Christmas
Nicholas Cardot
Nick uses his blog Site Sketch 101 to express his passion for helping bloggers and webmasters connect with real people through brilliant designs, unique content, and genuine creativity. Nicholas Cardot has 200 post(s) at Site Sketch 101
Share your Opinion
and be a part of the discussion.
42 Vibrant Comments
I would love to hear yours!
Eric said:
These all have a creative edge to them however I like the more simple designs that still add style.
I’m buying DIYThesis this year and will be redesigning my blog and I think custom is best.
If you can’t afford custom, premium and if not that, something eye catching without loosing the reader’s interests and distraction from your content. After all, you want them to read what you’ve written, right?
Good designs here though.
My Latest Blog Post: Ever Wanted To Write A Book? Think Of Your Blog As Your Novel
Don Gilbert said:
Good choice on getting Thesis. If you need any help customizing it – let me know. I have used it numerous times and have seen great success. However, probably my favorite customization that I have done so far is @ http://seovid.com.
My Latest Blog Post: Top 10 Tips to Dominate Your Niche for SEO
Ron Leyba said:
I am using thesis at my .org blog. A great kick ass theme as of this writing. Although, it really confuses me if I have to use the all in one seo pack and seo slugs along with this theme? Because thesis have its own functionality like AIO SEO Pack and SEO Slugs.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Eric » I’ll be honest. I’m not a big fan of minimalistic blog styles. I see so many of them. I love seeing vivid colors and beautiful textures. Make sure that as you use Thesis that you take the time to make it really spectacular.
Don Gilbert said:
I have used the first two themes before – I started scrolling through the list and thought that I was looking at a list of my websites – but it stopped there. I hadn’t come across the others – but that’s not to say they aren’t great!
One theme that I really like – and used to use until I saw it popping up EVERYWHERE was iNove.
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/inove
It is very clean and has a nice layout. It might just be my favorite free theme. (For now at least.)
Thanks for the great list!
My Latest Blog Post: Top 10 Tips to Dominate Your Niche for SEO
Eric B. said:
That is a very nice free theme. Unfortunately, it’s a bit overused, in my opinion.
My Latest Blog Post: A Look At Internet Forum Design
Nicholas Cardot said:
Eric B. » I agree that it is overused. And it lacks any color. I’m really not a big fan of black and white themes.
Tom | Build That List said:
I use an awesome free theme called Magazeen, it is made by Smashing Magazine.
But I especiallty love the ‘Magasin’ one.
My Latest Blog Post: RSS Subscribers VS Email List | Which Is Better?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Tom | Build That List » Very cool. I featured the Magazeen theme in another theme roundup a few months ago. I agree that it is a very cool theme.
Eric B. said:
A nice collection here!
The Freemium theme is very nice. It would be almost perfect if the content column was just a little bit wider. But you can do that with some very basic CSS knowledge.
My Latest Blog Post: A Look At Internet Forum Design
Nicholas Cardot said:
Eric B. » That’s exactly right. I think that some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS are invaluable tools to bloggers as they work to customize their websites.
Deepika said:
Very nice list of free themes… Last week only i changed my blog theme and now i am using busybee theme. I am customizing that… I like all the above theme…Especially Magasin i like very much..
Then i like your blog theme very much. What is your theme name friend?
My Latest Blog Post: Contest @FamousBloggers: Win Prizes worth Over $500
Nicholas Cardot said:
Deepika » I started this blog with the Papercut Theme from Woo Themes.
Lee Ka Hoong said:
Finally I got to know where you get your theme because I thought you designed it yourself. No doubt, this theme is pretty cool and nice looking. Honestly, one of the reason that I’m here is because of your blog theme, I feel comfortable to be here.
Of course, your content is the main reason that keeps me here.
Best Regards,
Lee
Nicholas Cardot said:
Lee Ka Hoong » Thank you. As you can see if you compare this to the original, I’ve made a lot of changes to reflect some of the design principles that I believe really help to set a site apart from the crowd. I’m glad that the content keeps you here and I hope to continue providing the quality content that draws you back again and again. I love having you as part of the discussion. Thanks.
Dana @ Blogging Update said:
I like magasin, it seems perfect for magazine theme choice.
Nicholas Cardot said:
Dana @ Blogging Update » I agree but I also think that it’s even more versatile than that.
Lee Ka Hoong said:
I like Magasin theme and Wordpress Christmas theme, I’m going to use Magasin theme for one of my blogs. The rest looked simple for me, but I’m sure all the designers spent quite much time on them.
Thanks for sharing Nicholas!
Cheers,
Lee
Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks said:
Nice themes, I liked the Fusion and that Magasin the most. However, it’s just my personal taste.
Nicholas, did you ever visit my blog? If so, visit it now, and honestly tell how you like it.
I am aware I am using (limited) free blogger platform with free templates, but I somehow think that the current design is far more better than the green one I had before. After all, it is my first serious blog I’ve started, so I felt more confident experimenting with something simpler for start.
That old green one looked something like this (I’ve just copied the template to another test blog) http://transitionblogtest.blogspot.com/
I know you are busy, but if you have some time, drop a few tips. You are more than qualified to express your professional opinion since this blog of yours looks so amazing.
My Latest Blog Post: Major redesign!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks » I like the new theme better and since you asked I’ll be glad to offer a few tips and I hope that you’ll keep in mind that I’m not trying to be unkind however there are principles that I’ve learned and I would love to share them with you.
1. I don’t like the ads in the content. I won’t revisit a website with them and I’ve heard many of my friends tell me the same thing.
2. You’re catch phrase across the top is very long and wordy. Shorten it and make it very simple.
Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks said:
1. Yes, I know what you mean, but still I will try it out. I had ads at the bottom of the posts for the last few months, time to make an experiment and see the percentages of returning visitors and subscriber numbers now when my ads are under the post title and I changed my blog design so radically. You have to have in mind that lots of people aren’t fully aware of Google ads yet, although the IM and MMO niches are a different story, because most of the people heard of and know what Google ads are know how they look like.
I will experiment, and that’s it.
2. By catch phrase you mean – “Small ebooks blog primarily created…”
under the title? Right?
Sorry to take your time once again, and thanks for replying to my question!
My Latest Blog Post: Major redesign!
Nicholas Cardot said:
Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks » Yeah. That’s the phrase.
vasiauvi said:
Hello,
I like Magasin template but unfortunately/fortunately I am on blogger.
Nicholas Cardot said:
vasiauvi » That is unfortunate. LOL. I used to use blogger several years ago when I was just learning. It was fun learning and I was hesitant to move away from them but I’m glad that I made the move.
Ron Leyba said:
I am an avid blogger user too. It wont hurt to also use wordpress by the way. And some of the above themes are already converted and available for blogger. But the blogger converted template do have missing features of the original wp templates though.
Keith said:
Those are all nice, I just started using FlexxSqueeze (free version) and it is really customizable from the WP-admin page, I really like how easy it is to use.
My Latest Blog Post: Add Multiple Feeds to Facebook Fan Page
Nicholas Cardot said:
Keith » A great user interface is very important and options are great also. If you decide to ever get a premium theme then you should definitely check out Elegant Themes. They really have some great stuff in terms of administration options.
Ed said:
Great stuff…Magasin would be my pick but I’m going with a paid theme, maybe themeforest or elegant themes…looking for a new design and a switch to Wordpress…
Nicholas Cardot said:
Ed » Both of those that you mentioned are great. I’ve made purchases at Theme Forest and I’m currently a member at Elegant Themes. You won’t go wrong with either one. Good luck on your quest to find a new theme.
Shane said:
Very nice collection! My favourite among them is the Fusion theme. Another great, free theme I like to use is the (old) coppyblogger theme. Coppyblogger runs on Thesis nowadays, but you can still get their previous theme and it’s just really nice, simple and clean (also fast loading, which I like).
Cheers,
Shane
My Latest Blog Post: Interview With Google Sniping Expert Gary Gregory
Nicholas Cardot said:
Shane » I’m not familiar with CopyBlogger’s previous theme. I’ll have to look into that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Aminul Islam Sajib said:
I always love to give newer and newer wordpress themes a try. But I have a few blogs on my own hosting. They are so active that I can’t change their themes pretty often to check out newer themes and study on them. So, I’m looking for a free yet reliable hosting for wordpress. So far I’ve come through freehostia.com and other hosting services but none of them seemed good enough for me. Freehostia.com is nice but they provide a database storage of 10 MB only; which is too small.
Do you know of any reliable free hosting service where I can host wordpress blogs for test?
My Latest Blog Post: PrtScr: The Easiest and Simplest Tool to Take Screenshots
Nicholas Cardot said:
Aminul Islam Sajib » You can just create a wordpress installation on your existing domain by using a subfolder or a subdomain to test it out. Nobody will see that.
Aminul Islam Sajib said:
Well, that’s a good idea.
My Latest Blog Post: Twitter Tool: Who Was My First Follower?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Aminul Islam Sajib » That’s what I’m here for.
Olusegun said:
I kind of like the magasin theme too.
I’d go and check out the free squeeze theme Keith talked about.
Nick can you give a few tips about customizing a theme?
Nicholas Cardot said:
Olusegun » A few tips? Look at the most beautiful sites you can find online and learn from the things that they do.
Ron Leyba said:
The Magasin theme is the best for me. The theme structure is great and the navigation is well presented. Widgets and plugins fits very well on this theme.
A little customization and some more added codes in the template can make this template one of a kind.
My Latest Blog Post: Sikat Ang Pinoy
Joe Boyle said:
I really like “WordPress Christmas” for some reason. Besides the logo, it is really plain, and I like that. I feel that themes with a plain background allow the readers to be more attracted to your actual content, not the graphics.
Chris said:
I was sort of surprised to see Fusion here since I use it on a site I set up a while ago. I have found it to be a really easy to use, seo-friendly site.
There is a built-in “related posts” function that is pretty cool.
My Latest Blog Post: Marketing your Internet Business with a Cool App
Nicholas Cardot said:
Chris » Very cool. It’s good to know that someone has made good use of one of these themes.
Eli Prenten said:
WPCoda looks like an excellent choice for freeware developers. It has a great color choice giving a me good feeling.
My Latest Blog Post: Russian Photo Stock, images, photographers…