Although plugins are fantastically useful and can equip your site with a huge variety of functions, it is your theme that really sets you apart from the competition.
And make no mistake — as I said in yesterday’s post on creating an authority blog, your design can have a huge impact on the popularity of your site. Furthermore, it can affect the perception of your site amongst those who you really want to impress.
With that said, one would be forgiven for thinking that a premium theme is nothing short of a necessity. But whilst there is no doubting the quality of the great premium theme developers out there, you can find quality free themes. And that is the purpose of our themes of the month series — to unearth only the very best free and current themes available on WordPress.org.
We’ve got a great selection for you this month — enjoy!
5. Montezuma
There is a lot to like about Montezuma — it offers a fully responsive design coded in HTML5 and CSS3. The menu items have hover animations, as do the featured images. The whole theme seemingly feels alive.
Having said that, some might consider the theme a little ‘busy’ — Montezuma isn’t for everyone. But it is a theme you should take a closer look at if you are in the market.
One final thing — it would seem that there are still a few creases to iron out. As you can see from the screenshot above, the breadcrumbs navigation and RSS icon are offset in an unusual manner — this bug is present on my MacBook Pro running Chrome.
4. Convention
Convention is a solid and unspectacular theme. I don’t want that to come across as sounding derogatory, as that is not my intent.
What you have here is a clean blogging framework in the same vein as WordPress’ Twenty Ten or Twenty Eleven themes. You could use this out of the box, or you could build a more creative design on top of it. Either way, it is a great option.
3. Discussion
Discussion is one of those themes that you will either like or dislike. It is the polar opposite of Convention, in that it sets out to offer a completely unique design.
As you can see from the above screenshot, the design is based upon a pin board, with each element on the site rendered as an individual ‘note’. It comes complete with a quote box and a scrolling image slideshow in the header.
2. Skylark
Skylark is a good option for any business that is looking to establish an online presence without having to fork out a great deal of money.
It offers the key items that you would typically expect from a business theme, such as a slider with portfolio-style widgets underneath. It also offers up a fairly presentable responsive design, should you be looking for that.
1. Twenty Twelve
Well — I could hardly not include this, could I?
Twenty Twelve is the latest offering from the development team at WordPress, working in collaboration with ex-professional footballer turned web developer, Drew Strojny. It is a clean, minimalistic and fully responsive design — perfect for any startup blogger.
It also serves as a perfect framework for a child theme — there is no doubt in my mind that people will be developing some really imaginative designs with the Twenty Twelve theme before long.
Free Classifieds Ads
good themes.
Gdaiva
What would be the easiest free theme to change from Chameleon theme? I don’t want to pay 39$ every year, I only have one website, but they don’t even allow to update or read support without paying. Didn’t realized that in the beginning :(.
Tom Ewer
Hey there,
I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the Chameleon theme, but there are loads of options available as you can see 🙂
Cheers,
Tom
Angela
Hey Tom
I agree with Ashu…2012 has my vote too!
Would it be easy enough to add social media buttons to it? And maybe do some basic customization?
I don’t have the first clue about CSS or anything, which is why I ask.
Cheers,
Ang 🙂
Tom Ewer
Hey Ang,
Adding social media buttons is as easy as downloading a plugin such as Digg Digg 🙂
As for basic customization, you would by definition need to know a little bit about CSS to do that 😉 unless you’re talking real basic, in which case Twenty Twelve has a GUI interface for the simple stuff.
Cheers,
Tom
Angela
Thanks so much Tom, that really helps! 😉
Custard Marv
I really like the Discussion theme it flows perfectly and will fit my next web project.
Has anyone come across any free gaming wordpress themes for example gaming review themes? They seem to be in short demand probably this is the reason i can’t find a decent one. 🙂
If anyone knows of any please let me know.
Tom Ewer
Hi Custard Marv 🙂
Check back through the archives (link in the sidebar) — I recall reviewing a good gaming review theme recently.
Cheers,
Tom
Custard Marv
Cheers Tom , i found it. Thanks dude 🙂
Ashu
All these themes are good but out of them i think Twenty Twelve in best.
Lavneet Sharma
Great showcase of free wordpress themes. Thanks for sharing. I’ve bookmarked your website, and will continue to receive updates.
murralii
Yes, these are very attractive and simple. Please upload some regular themes related to jobs etc.
Jacoseo
Really Great Themes, Thanks so much for Sharing the ends up saving me a lot of time..
Suraj Banakar
Great posts , I particularly loved discussion theme . Keep doing the great work . Expecting more goodies !!!!
Andrew
Thanks for a great fresh collection! Montezuma looks really interesting, I’d never say it’s free. 🙂
josbradley
Great selections as always, Tom. I like the look of the Discussion theme a lot. At one time I utilized only premium themes (mostly WooThemes), but then I found some really great free ones that offer as much, if not more, customization options than most of the premiums. Lately, I’ve adopted a free theme called Graphene that is absolutely amazing, and I’ve been using it on a few of my blogs.
I’m not sure if it’s okay to add my url here so everyone can check out the theme, but if not feel free to edit this out and please accept my apology:
http://www.bradleyanderson.me
Tom Ewer
Hi there,
Perhaps it’s just my computer/browser, but it would appear that your slider isn’t working…
Cheers,
Tom
josbradley
Hmmmm… seems to be working fine on my end. I’ll ask a few friends to check it out from their comps and see if it’s working for them. Thanks for the heads-up, though.