If you’re looking to bring your blog’s design back to the bare bones of pure content without distractions, then the new Cover theme may be a good option. Cover brings blogging minimalism to a new level. After less than a month on WordPress.org, it has already been downloaded more than 2,500 times. Cover was created…
Gazette is a new WordPress magazine theme from the folks at Automattic, designed by Thomas Guillot. Since the majority of themes produced for WordPress.com are well-suited to single author blogs, Gazette’s fine-tuned focus on digital publications is a welcome addition to the collection. Magazine themes are generally few and far between, because they have to…
Toivo Lite is a new theme on WordPress.org that features a bold minimalist design that really shines on mobile. Sami Keijonen created the theme to be suitable for both business and blog sites. Toivo is Finnish and it means “hope” in English. It’s one of a very small number of WordPress themes listed as accessibility-ready…
Gateway is an elegant and eye-catching new theme that recently landed on WordPress.org. Since its release less than a week ago, the theme has already been downloaded more than 1400 times. It’s easy to see why it’s an instant hit – the versatile design is perfect for writers, businesses, or personal sites. The homepage design…
When ModernThemes launched its site with a dozen free WordPress themes last year, founders Robbie Grabowski and Mike Driscoll committed to getting all of their themes listed on WordPress.org following positive feedback from the community. At that time many of their themes had issues that would preclude them from being hosted in the official directory.…
Hew is Automattic’s 67th free theme release on WordPress.org. The new theme, designed by Ola Laczek, was inspired by Ryu, a classic among personal blogging themes. Ryu was released two years ago and for awhile it seemed like everyone was using it. Hew brings that same clean, identity-focused design that features the author’s Gravatar at…
WordPress.org launched a new design for the Theme Directory just over a month ago and the meta team has continued to fix bugs and add enhancements. Preliminary stats and feedback indicate that the directory improvements have had a positive impact on users’ ability to hunt for themes. WordPress.org contributor Konstantin Obenland reports that user engagement…
WordPress theme author Anders Norén is back to releasing themes after a brief hiatus over the winder holidays. Lovecraft, is his 10th theme to be approved on WordPress.org. The Lovecraft design was inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, an American horror fiction author known for his “weird realism” – the idea that reality is…
Last year, WordPress saw a renaissance in personal blogging themes. The official WordPress.org directory received a deluge of high quality themes that served to raise the bar for commercial developers when it comes to design and simplicity. In particular, the trend of flat, minimalist blogging themes is still running strong. Last month, theme design and…
Tom McFarlin released his Mayer WordPress theme on GitHub today. The theme was designed with writers, bloggers, and authors in mind and was previously only available to WordPress.com users for $79. Mayer is unique in that it was created to get users writing immediately, without having a bunch settings pages or additional widgets to configure.…
If you like designs that feature stunning, fullscreen background images, then Automattic’s latest free theme release is a prime candidate for your next blog redesign. Harmonic recently landed on WordPress.org and is rapidly closing in on 3,000 downloads. This theme puts the spotlight on your images and content. Harmonic’s striking homepage is accompanied by a…
Restaurant themes don’t often land in the WordPress Themes Directory. In fact, there are barely a dozen listed among the 3,000+ themes on WordPress.org. One problem with many commercial restaurant themes is that they are usually marketed as a complete package with everything built into the theme, including menu management. The lack of separation of…
Earlier this week, WP Theming‘s Devin Price announced a partnership with French translation specialist Fx Benard on a new theme shop aimed at the French-speaking WordPress community. Hexagone is now open for business with four products available – two commercial themes and two free themes. The duo plan to expand to offer more “products, support,…
In just one week since its release, the new Modern theme was downloaded nearly 2,700 times from WordPress.org. It was created by WebMan Design, a Slovakia-based company founded by Oliver Juhas. WebMan Design has been selling WordPress themes across multiple marketplaces since 2012 and recently began focusing on producing future-proof themes that meet WordPress.org standards.…
Looking back on the theme landscape of 2014, a clear design trend emerged that highlights WordPress’ roots as a blogging platform. Minimalist, content-centric themes took center stage in the official WordPress Themes Directory, outpacing their more visually-bloated commercial counterparts. This past year saw a major renaissance in themes for the personal blogger, particularly designs that…