Magnus: A Bold New Photoblogging Theme for WordPress

Magnus is a beautiful new photoblogging theme that landed in the WordPress Theme Directory last week. It was created by Hugo Baeta, whose work you may have seen in the WordPress.com design handbook and last year’s subtle refinements to the default admin color scheme. Magnus is Baeta’s first theme to be approved for the official directory.

The theme puts the spotlight on your photographs with full-width featured images for posts. If the homepage is set to display posts, the most recent post’s title and featured image will show at the top of the page.

Baeta applied a unique pulse effect to the full-width images using CSS3 keyframes animation with the scale property. The resulting effect almost makes it appear as though you are traveling through the image. The theme also includes several other subtle, tasteful CSS animations for menus, toggling, and page transitions.

If the homepage is set to display posts, they will tile uniformly under the most recent one with titles and featured images.

Baeta’s careful attention to typography is evident in the highly readable single post design. Magnus uses a combination of Google fonts – Karla for paragraph text and Montserrat for headers.

The theme includes one widgetized area, a sidebar that can be toggled into view from the right side of the screen. The sidebar slides smoothly into view and is semi-transparent, which makes for a less jarring experience than other similar sidebar implementations.

Left, right, and centered overhanging pull quotes can be easily created by aligning blockquotes to either side or the center.

One thing I appreciate about this theme is that it makes almost all of the design decisions and allows very few design-related customizer options. You can change the header image and the header text color, but that’s it. The design is all about showcasing your images.

If you need your content to make a big impact, Magnus is solid option that doesn’t require configuring a long list of options. You can download it for free from WordPress.org or via your admin themes browser.