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Premium Wordpress themes and theme sites have been springing up over the last couple of years, often catering for the increasing popularity of magazine style themes. Free themes have not always measured up to premium themes in design complexity and, at times, in their coding accuracy. The additional support offered with premium themes is also a draw card.
For personal bloggers the cost of buying themes tends to outweigh their advantages. For those who are making money or promoting a business with their blog the price is less of a factor. The good news for those who do not want to spend money on themes is that the new Wordpress theme directory not only has a huge repository of themes but, to be eligible for inclusion, themes have to meet certain standards. This means that anything downloaded from the directory will work, without any coding glitches. That is the theory; although I would have thought that there are bound to be the odd few that fall through the net. Despite this we can feel much more confident downloading themes from the WP theme directory than from sites we don’t know and trust.
If you do want a magazine style layout you may still have to consider paying for a premium theme. The WP Themes Directory only has two tagged as “magazine”. There is however more good news, hence the title of this post. The site that brought us the premium Revolution Theme is going open source (under a GPL licence) as from 1st November. The themes will all be new (as it is not fair to offer the Revolution Theme itself after many have already paid for it). There will be an option to purchase packages which include support, tutorials, access to customization and a few other things (not yet specified) but the themes themselves will be free. More details can be found on the site of Revolution’s creator Brian Gardner - Revolution Going Open Source.
WP Limits is following the lead with some soon to be released free themes, including a “never before created knowledgebase theme”.
I have spent some time researching magazine style themes, free and premium, and have a post in the pipeline showing you my findings.
For Blogger users, there is a list of blogspot template sites on my Blogger blog.
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Sueblimely
This Revolution website rocks - really cool designs. I didn’t know it so far. Thanks a lot!
Yes it is an excellent theme - it will be interesting to see the free ones.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Revolution in WP Themes
Hi Sue! I’ve been through all the magazine themes and can’t find one I really like. I prefer the normal style blogging theme; it’s easier to navigate and just feels more like a blog. Magazine themes seem to be a fad and are only effective with certain types of sites.
I like the theme you use - simplistic, easy to navigate and in the true blogging style
I definitely agree with you Bobby: magazine themes aren’t for every site. Many blogs are simply a blog; they aren’t an online magazine. The cool thing about WordPress is that there are so many different options, depending upon your specific needs.
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I agree Bobby, they do not suit most blogs although some features of them are often worth incorporating. When I get chance I am going to do some adapting of my theme to add features such as tabbed boxes which help keep the sidebars less cluttered.
I often find magazine style sites difficult to navigate as they are out of the box designs which are not adapted to suit the blog content.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Revolution in WP Themes
I tried to use magazine theme on one of my sites, but they are just to crowded. My blog looked like one big ad, and I don’t want that at all. I like to keep things simple, so I always choose usefulness over the glitz.
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You have a clear clean site Loren and easy navigation is so important.
Sueblimelys last blog post..Revolution in WP Themes
Have you checked out Thesis? http://www.thesistheme.org
Not strictly a magazine theme, but it’s extremely versatile and I’ve had good luck with it.
Thesis intrigues me. It looks like they really put a lot of work into SEO. That’s incredibly important for a quality theme.
I agree, Revolution is a great theme. I’m impressed by the increasing number of magazine styled themes available for Wordpress. Last year at this time there were only a handful to choose from. Now there are over 30 that I’ve come across.
The only problem with magazine styled themes is they can be tricky to install, and sometimes require special customization. Also, some plugins create erratic results.
Here are some more great magazine themes: http://www.pingable.org/20-of-the-best-free-magazine-wordpress-themes/
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Here is another nice list of magazine themes that I found: http://www.themeplayground.com/the-best-wordpress-magazine-themes-available
E-Discoverys last blog post..E-Discovery 2009: Electronic Discovery Trends
I love Revolution, it’s pretty sleek. Actually I just finished my first Magazine theme this week (thisismyurl.com/wordpress/smashingly-good-free-magazine-theme-for-wordpress/ if you’d care to take a look and tell me what you think. I know it’s not as good as Revolution but I’ll be working on a few more over the winter so hopefully I’ll be able to produce something as nice shortly.
Thanks for the info, I’ll surely check the free themes they’ll release as we all know that they’ve been making very good wp themes.
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Magazine theme only for specific blog and sometimes require special customization.
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Thanks for the post. I have only used free themes up to now, so I’m looking forward to it.
Please forgive me Sue for this non related comment.
First let me thank you for dropping in the other day and leaving a comment. You made me smile.
Now I am here to ask you to join in on a special project for global peace.
I do so hope that you can participate.
http://shinade.blogspot.com/2008/10/peace.html
Happy day
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Revolution sites rule in terms of getting a great looking site up and running in a hurry. There are something like 30 THOUSAND posts in their forum so if you get stuck in your build process there may already be an answer for you in all that data. If not, there are a small bunch of dedicated moderators and they answer general WordPress questions better than the official WP forum IMHO. I am hoping that going open source will not hurt the product… it is absolutely worth the 80 dollars per site to get one of these. And the Revolution line has many options different themes so there is usually one for every type of site.
The Revolution site is really slick. I’m still not a big fan of the magazine style themes. I guess I still have not gotten used to them yet.
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Hi Sue -
Thanks for your thoughts on Themes.
I had the normal beginners love affairs with various fancy themes, and lately have used a modified Revolution Theme look-alike. But for all my new sites now I use the stock standard WPress theme and just modify the header/footer/style to suit each site.
The logic of that is that most plugins will always work with the never-ceasing stream of WPress upgrades, so you don’t have hassle with every upgrade, and most plugins will work with each other as long as the Theme is stock - so Stock Theme = more up-time +less hasssle.
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I’ve been looking for some nicer looking wp themes.
Thanks for the tip.
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Why my comments are not visible?
Your comment is visible. Maybe there was a delay when you originally posted it.
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And theme WP Remix is more difficult in adjustment, than Revolution? And I have bought WP rremix - and boom - boom. Now I shall wait the license, and then appears, that without expert will not consult. And then sense WP is lost..:-(
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I am still having trouble picking some good wordpress themes. There are just too many! Thanks for your post on wordpress. I found it informative.
Hm….interesting information..
Wow, I didn’t know there are so many beautiful wordpress theme around, revolutiontwo.com seem to have a lot to offer here, thanks for the info
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This is a great list. There are so many beautiful and free wordpress themes, including Brian Gardner’s Revolution Two site. It’s amazing how far Wordpress has changed over the past year.
I love Revolution themes. I’ve used them before and will use when I’ll need magazine-like site again.
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I have to agree there are too many premium theme site out there, another good source of income for designer rather then working by hours.
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Thank’s for this site! I have read so many interestins and useful themes
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After checking out those themes, i’m becoming more and more tempted to start a blog of my own. I always wanted to but i ever thought that i would get any traffic. But i guess there is only one way to find out…lol.
Yeah! Revolution themes are something oddity thing. The themes are “charged” fully. I have a couple of them (found in Internet) They may be used as manual for personal theme creation.
Amadeus, could you please to give me a link where you find themes? I will appreciate you very much.