If you are not confident adapting WordPress themes but cannot quite find one that is ideal, you may like to consider using a a free flexible and customizable theme; where changes are made via an admin dashboard theme interface. There is no need for you to touch the code at all, with theme options built into the admin area. Some of these type of themes are also ideal if you want to easily take advantage of the capabilities of WordPress to create something a little different, do not want to go all the way with a magazine type theme, or want to use your site for more than just a blog.
Here are a selection of such free WP themes. They vary in the amount of customization available; all are widget ready. Another advantage of all of these themes is that there is more help available. The theme designers have gone the extra mile to provide you with with help pages, forums, tutorials or wikis.
Dkret2
- An adaptable theme with its own options in the admin/presentation area for choosing which stylesheet to use – either one of the included styles (or if you are feeling adventurous one you have created or modified yourself.
- A dashboard theme page for making adjustments
- Up to five Sidebars including 3 “footer” sidebars.
- Choose from one of the supplied style schemes or add your own without the need for editing the base them files.
- Includes Guestbook Events and Todo templates. and the ability to have no Sidebar,
- Uses AJAX for comments and has a built in AJAX comment preview
Download from WordPress.org
Documentation
Forum
Making Schemes Video
Mandigo
A customizable theme from onehertz which among other features allows you to choose from 7 color schemes and determine the placement of sidebars.
- Dashboard Themes Option page for easy customization
- 38 languages .
- Two widths 800×600 screen resolution or 1024 pixels.
- One or two columns, right or left side selected selected from the Theme Options page
- Per page or random header images
- 7 Color Schemes – blue, red, green, pink, purple, orange & teal.
- Schemes can be selected from the Theme Options page, or switched randomly by enabling the random scheme feature
Download from WordPress.org
Wiki
Royale
Another customizable theme from onehertz with layout and color options and an unusual feature of changing link colors.
- A fluid-width layout
- Two or three-column
- 3 column layout – side by side or right/left sidebars
- Choose the accents (link) color from a 360-color palette or make colors cycle automatically, which means that the color of links will change smoothly as your visitors read your blog.
- Translated into thirty-eight languages.
If you do not like the black background color this is reasonably easy to change.
Download – WordPress.org
Theme Homepage
onehertz also has a customizable theme based on Nintendo’s Mario Bros although you could change the background image to your liking – smw theme
Starscape
This theme has a large range of customization options and the creator MillaN has added more and more features over time. StarscapeII in the pipeline.
- Theme Control Panel
- Inbuilt ready to use themes of different colors.
- Customize header logo and background
- Control the rendering of menus and sidebars,
- Sidebar customization – left and right or just one -
- Sidebar width options
- A footer ’sidebar’ for 3, 4 or 5 widgets.
- Icon customization
- Date Button for Posts and Pages
- plus even more features
Theme Control Panel
A selection of the built in styles
Download - WordPress.org
Theme Homepage
Tutorials
Tarski
by Ben Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson.
This theme comes with different styles and layouts and a choice of stock header images.
- Tarski comes with a choice of several stock header images but you may prefer to add your own.
- You can choose from with three alternate styles, which tweak the theme’s colours slightly or add your own custom style.
- There are a number of different sidebar options
Theme Homepage
Download – WordPress.org
Documentation and Help
Forum
Ikarus
Finally one with over 2,000 options configurable from your admin dashboard area. Here is but one example of the layout and colors available.
- Theme options page and help page in admin
- Live theme preview in admin area
- 4 homepage layouts to choose from, Blog, Magazine, List or Magazine List
- Content Gallery (on or off) Slideshow or static header image with link
- Featured Sidebar post (on or off)
- Many sidebar features built in without the need for additional plugins – popular content rating, recent posts, comments and feedback, tagcloud, Social bookmark tools
- 6 125×125, 1 header 468×60, 1 footer 468×60 banners all managed from theme admin area
- 10 color variations to choose from for header bar, widgets, post titles, links and footer
- 3 Columns, Widgets 2 columns
- CSS multi-level drop down page menus across header
- MooTabs slider box
- Featured YouTube Video post
- Custom typography styles
- and more …,..
Download - WordPress.org
Homepage and Demo
I have created a list on diigo for this type of theme and will add to the list and this post as I find more of interest. I will be continuing with this series of posts to bring you details of unusual themes, niche themes; free and premium.
Please let me know if you use any of these themes or know of more themes that allow for easy customization.
Wow, 2000 options on that last one? That’s almost TOO much!
Ben did a great job on Tarski, I’m really impressed with both the theme and the options he’s integrated.
You have some good themes of your own!
Christopher is in the midst of publishing 5 free search engine optimized WP themes.
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Certainly no good if you have trouble making your mind up
This is such a versatile theme though.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Revolution in WP Themes
WordPress is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Why would you construct a website yourself from scratch when you have hundreds of WP themes to choose from on any niche?
I like Royale theme because of it’s color
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I like Royale theme because of it’s color
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I same with you
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Excellent analysis, well documented post, Sue – as usual. I am missing from the list Justin’s Options though. I consider it the best of the flexible themes. The name says it all: it has “too many options” Check it out.
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Options is indeed a flexible theme with new child templates being regularly added (free and club themes) I did not include it here because it is mainly magazine style. I am going to cover those in a future post
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
That’s a great list. Another theme that is customizable, which I have used on a few blogs for over a year with great success, is the Cutline theme at http://cutline.tubetorial.com/. It’s a nice white theme, you can rotate your own photos, and the theme is well documented with the intention of allowing people to easily customize it. I have no relation to Cutline, except for being a happy user.
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Tarski is an outstanding theme.
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For me Royale theme is the best of all themes.
great list of themes thanks for sharing
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I like the Ikarus theme. Thanks for this post! I think it is very well organized and well made!
Yes, Ikarus has some nicely organized code within it. Well done.
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Hey, very cool – the Ikarus theme is really cool. I’ll be downloading it shortly.
i like royal theme. i love black.
i love the themes….nice
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These themes are fantastic – I’m the perfect target user for a theme like this. Competent enough to find my way around an admin panel, but uncomfortable getting under the hood with code. Thanks for the round up.
i love this list. the only issue is that these themes are going to be used by hundreds of people. if you want to establish your presence in the internet you need something unique that reflect your personality. anyway thanks for this list. it is a nice start for beginners
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Unique is good but if you are unable to code yourself and cannot afford to buy custom themes then the flexibility in these can be useful. Many long term bloggers use ready made free themes.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
What do you think of magazine themes? SOmetimes its hard because you have to custom build so many images it takes longer to post I think.
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The magazine themes are great for certain types of blogs but they have to have the type of content that goes well with the theme. These tend to be those with only a handful of well defined categories. They can be confusing to navigate otherwise and I think too many bloggers are using them when they are better off with a traditional layout.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
Great post.
However, the trouble with customizing some of these themes is it would take a lot of work to get rid of the unwanted graphic elements. For example, Starcape has graphic elements that people may not want, but removing them can require some HTML work, which many bloggers can’t do themselves.
Minnesota Attorneys last blog post..Blog Law 101: Keeping Your Blog Legal
You are right, Aaron, but some of these themes do give you various options for graphics and make it easier to edit the theme via admin panels. Starscape has a few different designs – if you cannot edit a theme yourself you would have to like one of these.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
I didn’t realize themes had evolved so much to be this customizable via the admin panel. That can be a huge help for non-programmer bloggers. Slick!
With all these extra elements will it slow down the loading time for the page at all?
Good question but I doubt it would slow page load time as much of the changes done through the admin interface will just point the page to different style sheets.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
That’s insane that Ikarus has 2000 options, that in itself gets my vote because of the amount of customization that can be done….Mike
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Ikarus is my favorite. I use it for one of my blog
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I like the themes very nice, good job keep on like that the best is royal
i like royal themes, thank’s guys
Thanks for the list! I’m going to try Ikarus on my next project.
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Vote for Ikarus
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Sometime I really don’t like dynamic customizable wordpress, I have one install previously, the performance to load is terrible.
If the designer is not a good programmer, they will use multiple database connection just to retrieve simple attribute, imagine how many database connection it need just to create a dynamic css file.
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Thank you for this – I will take back what I said earlier about them not increasing page load time. Some of those with fewer options will just use a different CSS stylesheet rather than dynamic ones I should imagine, which would not cause a slow down.
It is worth testing a theme out first before committing to it.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
Yeah, I was having trouble with my FTP client—it wouldn’t create new directories. I’ve got the new version uploaded, but my problem now is that the Post Editor won’t switch to the VISUAL option, it’s stuck in the HTML viewer. Any ideas?
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What theme are you using game-girl? Are you using the default wisiwig editor or a plugin? Have you made sure your user options are set to show the visual option?
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
Wow, I cant stop playing with Ikarus theme. You can do whatever you want with it and set a unique look. It totally dominates the collection here.
Users of these themes can keep in mind that a theme can be easily customized by changing the header image. For example, replace the cow with your business logo, your name, your photo, or some other image. That makes a standard theme have a whole new look.
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I like Ikarus theme. It is very fun to use. Keep posting.
I really like the first one Dkret2. it’s simple and clean just the way I like ‘em. Thanks again.
The colors in Ikarus are perfect. Those are probably my favorite colors in combination. Thanks
I really like the Ikarus theme and like daniel said; the colours work perfectly together to produce a very tight, very stylish theme.
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I love Ikarus too especially the styles and colors. It is also easy to use.
You have motivated me to install Ikarus and have a play with it – on a testing site rather than this blog though. I have plans to develop my own theme for this blog – plans I have had for over a year now!
Sueblimelys last blog post..Flexible Customizable WordPress Themes
Sounds good. The most impressive ones are ‘Mandigo’ and ‘Ikarus’. The last one is ideal for the money-making blogs
Thanks for sharing and keep up ghe blogging work
These are all really unique individually, and extremely customizable . . . very handy! I am going to jump on the Ikarus bandwagon, and may actually consider it for the use in my next blog . . . great additions to the blogging community!
Great resource! Thanks for the links, I’ll be sure to forward this article on to my friends who are looking for some easily customizable WP themes. Thanks for putting all that time into this post. I’m a big fan of Tarski myself.
Thanks again!
Ikarus is an amazing theme, I had a play with it a little while back and I was blown away by the effort that the developer has gone to. Great stuff.
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very good list theme wp, I like Royale. I will try using in my new blog in http://womenrecipe.com thanks
I have been playing around with the Mandigo theme. The ability to customize its colors and appearance is very cool. I haven’t seen this ability to customize on any other WordPress theme.
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Ikarus theme. It’s nice/ I like it!
I like these themes. Not only do they look good, but they are easy to change, which is in my opinion more important than looking good. I will give one a try on one of my blogs.
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As I wrote before, I’m using Ikarus on my new project now. It’s quite cool, although I modified it a little bit.
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I like Royale theme much better because of its color. Anyway thanks for the great share.
Me too dude, I love royale theme very much. it’s awesome.
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great theme recommendation, thanks
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Ikarus is the best one imo
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I think there is several excelent templates for WordPress. Please also consider that it´s very easy to make own templates since the blogging system is a perfect system.
Excellent analysis, purely documented post, Sue – being usual. I am lost from the inventory Justin’s Options though. I understand
stable the best of the adroit themes. The quote says corporeal all: true has very multifold options Check substantive out.
Hey buddy thanks for sharing these wordpress themes . I have also started one blog and I was looking for some cool animal themes . Soon I will few themes in my collection too and may be you will get links too .
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Thanks, this is a great article. I am already subscribed to your rss, do post more on body building!
Very nice information. Thanks for this.
Yes, those are very comfortable and great theme. Thanks for the info
Great list of WP Themes. These are really beautiful! I’m looking forward to the additional valuable information here.
thanks for the info. i’m testing out ikarus and am very impressed with all of the options to customize it from the admin panel
thanks! realy nice themes but i prefer news premium themes!with video plugin, and auto resizers and auto picture posting!))
nice themes, maybe I will apply it is later.
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wow, So true! It’s great to be able to learn from your blogs and laugh while doing so! Thanks for the tips.
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These are some great themes here. I wonder if you would ever plan to do a list of Adsense ready WordPress themes?
hi, i have downlaoded a wordpress theme but how do i upload it to my wordpress blog?
thank you, Ikarus, I love it..
Thanks for this wonderful themes. I have downloaded two of them. Those were just brilliant. COngrats.
I have tried a lot of themes, and struggle to customize them to my liking, thanks for these ideas.
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I think there is several excelent templates for WordPress, and AJAX comment preview is very cool for save time loading page
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yeah, the templates looking good. my favourite is the one with the cow.
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I find that most wordpress themes look the same. These themes however give wordpress it’s own unique touch.
These are good themes looking simply different.
Good wordpress themes. I like Mandigo themes. Thanks for good themes.
I am surprised the atahualpa theme isn’t mentioned. it’s an excellent theme, highly customizable and amazing support for it
I like the themes very nice, good job keep on like that the best is royal
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Very nice and useful themes indeed!
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Great find. Are these seo-friendly too?
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thank for wp theme that is very nice
these are some awesome wp themes. Thanks for sharing this, great job.
these are some awesome wp themes. Thanks for sharing this, great job ???
Customizable is the key, I have had some themes that have made me want to pull my hair our. Thanks for the list.
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Wow customization is great! Especially for those that don’t know a single thing about coding!
Till then,
Jean
I have just come across this site and its really great, interesting with great content. Its amazing how themes can make a huge difference.
Used tires I have to agree with you on that one.:)
Good wordpress themes. I like Ikarus theme. Thanks.
Have been playing around with the Mandigo theme. The ability to customize its colors and appearance is very cool. I haven’t seen this ability to customize on any other WordPress theme.
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If you know a bit of coding then even the stock Kubrick theme can be easily manipulated.
The theme on my blog was originally Kubrick (default) but customized to within an inch of it’s life
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These are some great themes thanks Sue.
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There are many great themes! Thanks a lot for the collection!
hanks for sharing, It’s very useful for everyone who interests.
hanks for sharing
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There are many great
Great WP Theme
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Themes are so much better when they are customizable and easy to navigate at doing so.
thank youu
thank youuu
Great WP Theme
Vote for Mandigo. It is an elegant theme!
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I vote for Tarski because it has clear background.
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I used Mandigo, on my first blog. If your new to blogging, like I was at the time, then you’re going to love this theme.
The layout and design is pretty basic really, but this is also its quality. If your after a blog that’s not to fancy and lets the content do the talking. But more importantly, its super easy to use… then you might want to take a look at Mandigo. It’s super easy to manage, your only restriction is your imagination.
The developers don’t even ask for money to use it, but you can give donations, which I might add they truly deserve.
It was so well written that it literally flowed off my tongue as I read it aloud to my friend.
Well said Captain. Thanks for your efforts.
I use Mandigo on a couple of my blogs and I really like it, having said that I have always preferred dark themes. Does anyone know of any other good dark wordpress themes, I’d love it if Thesis came in black.
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Great themes!
Thanks for sharing!
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Most of people do not understand coding.
The Mandigo theme is one of the nicer ones in my opinion. Nice colors.
Mandigo is very nice.
thank you for royale. ? like black themes
Thanks for these WordPress themes, I started my new blog and was looking out for good themes and found some real cool ones on WordPress site and at the moment I am using ‘Swift’ theme, it’s good as well but thanks a ton for sharing them, I may need them in the future so will bookmark this post.
Mark Hostetler
I use Mandigo on a couple of my blogs and I really like it, having said that I have always preferred dark themes. Does anyone know of any other good dark wordpress themes, I’d love it if Thesis came in black.
Great article thanks for posting.
great article.
wordpress is nice cms, it can modified very easy including themes, plugin.
I use Mandigo on a couple of my blogs and I really like it, having said that I have always preferred dark themes. Does anyone know of any other good dark wordpress themes, I’d love it if Thesis came in black
i love this list. the only issue is that these themes are going to be used by hundreds of people. if you want to establish your presence in the internet you need something unique that reflect your personality. anyway thanks for this list.
Good post..I use Firefox..in my blogg…and I am happy.In my other job we use wordpress..and I do enjoy working with the software…Your artical gives a open minded view on the software..and its uses…I like that..Thanks..
I have been a new starter in Affiliate Program, hope I can take this as a good starter tips.
Blogging is very new to my senses when it comes to marketing my site, these tips could really help me. Keep on blogging!
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i love this list. the only issue is that these themes are going to be used by hundreds of people. if you want to establish your presence in the internet you need something unique that reflect your personality. anyway thanks for this list.
very nice theme.
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I couldn’t agree more.
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what a phreak…
and why would u put ???? ???? as your name?
hey.. thank for the info on the theme.. I love themes and Wp.. it make it sooo much easier to get your content online!
These are some great WordPress themes Sue, great for customization.
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Very interesting artical .Best wishes !
Very nice themes, i will surely try them on my wordpress blog soon.
very nice informations thanks. laptop
I am very excited for this docs
I’m really very useful to follow a long-time see this as a blog here Thank you for your valuable information.
i like royal themes, thank’s guys
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i like royal theme. i love black.
Mandigo theme I think very good …
I love the royale theme, I think it is probably one of my favorites.
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woow…nice collection, simple but great looking…I wanna download one, thanks
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Thanks, great post
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I have been reading your blog for a while and it is great. Keep up good work.
i like royal theme. thank you
Tarski is an outstanding theme.
Mandigo is very nice.
I like the themes very nice, good job keep on like that the best is royal…
love this list. the only issue is that these themes are going to be used by hundreds of people. if you want to establish your presence in the internet you need something unique that reflect your personality. anyway thanks for this list.
i love to download starscappe and ikarus.
Thx for your post.
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This list is very nice. I personally prefer the Mandigo Theme. Its options, usability and everything around that are wonderful!
Great work done!
Best regards
Tobi