Magazine/News Themes The New Black?

Earlier this morning, Brad Potter and I were engaged in a conversation revolving around the aspect that magazine/news type themes are on the rebound. I remember when they were all the rage but along with the news/magazine layouts came an increase in complexity. These types of themes decreased for awhile but when taking a look at the big picture, it’s easy to see that they are coming back. Just take a look at these released or soon to be released examples.

StudioPress News
ElegantThems eNews
WooThemes The Daily Edition
Darren Hoyts Dispatch
Darren Hoyt – The Local

Why is it that these types of themes are making a strong comeback? Is there a resounding market for them? I’m not sure. But part of the conversation this morning discussed how newspapers were going downhill. I made the prediction that there would be a strong market for these themes throughout this year and next as hyperlocal bloggers begin to get together and use their phones, netbooks, etc to write about their community without any overhead costs that the newspapers have. The definition of hyperlocal is as follows:

In journalism, local news refers to news coverage of events in a local context which would not normally be of interest to those of other localities, or otherwise be of national or international scope.

Sounds like the perfect market for these designs! I’m happy to say though that these types of themes are not nearly as complex or difficult to work with as the first round of 2008. Theme designers have come a long way and it shows.

Are you looking forward to these types of themes showing up everywhere or do you want to see more variety outside of news/magazines?