Free WordPress themes have come a long way since Kubrick. Twenty Ten, Twenty Eleven, and the latest – Twenty Twelve – is the newest Kubrick as far as Free WordPress themes go. Twenty Twelve is the current default WordPress theme.
Let’s take a look at some of the features of this free default WordPress theme:
- Front Page Template where you can add text, images, video
- Responsive, Mobile-first Layout
- Custom ”Open Sans” Font
- Custom post formats: links, quotes, asides, statuses, images
- Widgets and No-sidebar layout
- Custom menu, custom header image, custom background color and image
- Multi columns
- Sidebar
- Flexible width
- Editor style
- Flexible header
- Featured images
- Full width template
- Post formats
- Sticky post
- Theme options
- Infinite Scroll
Those are a lot of features coming from a free WordPress theme, don’t you think? And most of these features are what you also get from a lot of Premium WordPress themes. If we use Twenty Twelve as our standard, what then can we expect in 2013, as far as Free WordPress themes are concerned?
- All of the features listed above will become standard features
- More Premium-like features
- eCommerce options
- Typography options
- Drag and drop options
- Page-builder options
- More Single Page Themes
- Free themes for email, mobile, etc.
- HTML5 and CSS3 and adhering to WordPress Coding standards
Many WordPress themes authors, providers and developers give away free themes as samples of their work. These samples, albeit free, are not necessarily inferior to Premium themes being sold in the marketplace. In truth, some of them are even better (or Best – shameless plug). The fact that these free samples are marketing tools to introduce these new authors to the market should be a weighty incentive for them to release high quality products that will catch the attention of WordPress professionals who are always on the lookout for something fresh.
Attention Creatives! Looking for a colorful and creative theme to match your sense of creativity? If you are, then take a look at Creative Skeleton, a responsive portfolio style theme that will satisfy your colorful and artistic side. Creative Skeleton gives you several portfolio layout styles and two unique single portfolio layouts (Pile and HoverScroll) to choose from. Pile stacks your images on top of each other and brings each one to the forefront once you click on it while HoverScroll works like a carousel of images that scroll left or right when you hover on the directional arrows. All these layout configurations give you maximum flexibility to create the look and style of your online portfolio just the way you want.
Creative Skeleton Theme: $35 | Demo & Download
Dramatic in white and even more dramatic in black – with a myriad of accent colors to choose from – that’s Melrose Premium WordPress Theme for you. Melrose is an impressive and professional looking WordPress theme for the serious creative agency. It’s the perfect backdrop to house an equally impressive portfolio. The design elements are amazingly well-thought out and the features included will surely make you feel like you’ve bought everything in a candy store. This easy to work with, beautiful and flexible theme will definitely create a lasting impact on your visitors and eventually on your site’s conversion statistics.
Melrose Theme: $50 | Demo & Download
Creative Agencies and Multimedia Professionals will love Vitrux Premium WordPress Theme. Many portfolio themes include full screen portfolios on the homepage but not all of them offer full screen sliders with audio and full-screen videos as alternatives. This is what sets this portfolio style theme apart from the rest. Not only that, you also have a variety of Gallery presentation options to choose from. If you’ve amassed a large body of creative work in different multimedia formats and you want to give each project the exposure that each portfolio item deserves, check out Vitrux Premium WordPress Theme. It just might be the portfolio theme you need.
Vitrux Theme: $45 | Demo & Download
Tired of your boring blog layout and want something fresh? Why not check out Fashionista Premium WordPress Theme, a blog style WordPress theme that’s meant for bloggers but can also be used for other purposes. Pinterest-styled themes are the latest trends today and their popularity is still on the rise. Fashionista is not strictly Pinterest but uses an Isotope Masonry plugin that mimics the Pinterest look. What is interesting about this layout style is that every post is accessible and available to the visitor. This means that posts and articles are not buried in the archives where they may be forgotten – out of sight, out of mind. For bloggers, this ensures that every post gets equal exposure and importance on the homepage. Check out Fashionista Premium WordPress Theme and bring your blog style up to date today.
Fashionista Theme: $40 | Demo & Download
Point Break Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive portfolio theme and the sixth of the Super Skeleton Themes released by Epicera. This theme is more than just a WordPress theme because it also functions as a comprehensive HTML5 framework and a templating system as well. It’s an innovative way to creating and customizing themes and it’s primarily designed “for users, not geeks.” It’s innovative and definitely worth looking at especially if you want something that will be flexible enough to withstand the next WordPress update.
Point Break Theme: $45 | Demo & Download
What’s so unique about Unique? We included Unique Premium WordPress Theme in our list because of the guy behind it – Justin Tadlock. This premium magazine-style WordPress theme is Justin’s first foray into ThemeForest and is part of his experiment to “improve” ThemeForest from within, with the goal of getting as many authors to adhere to WordPress coding standards and practices. Unique may not stand out as far as “looks” are concerned but its creativity lies under the hood. It’s back to good old code and just enough cool features without going overboard with the bells and whistles. Check out Unique today.
Unique Theme: $40 | Demo & Download
You have to see Creative Portfolio Premium WordPress Theme by Gavick in action to see what it does. This uniquely creative premium WordPress theme with parallax scrolling effect is surely going to catch the attention of your visitors and create a lasting impression. If you want to start your website with a bang or re-launch an old site with an ultra new look, then you need to check out Creative Premium WordPress Theme by Gavick. The experience will definitely be unforgettable.
Creative Theme: $99 | Demo & Download
According to a survey I came across a few months back, the number of people who use a smartphone is larger than the number of people who use a toothbrush! This means that if your website is not mobile phone friendly then you are missing on on a lot of visitors. Some people feel that if the number of people who surf the Internet on smartphones is A and the number of people who use the Internet from their computer is B then the total number of Internet users is A + B. Wrong!
A lot of people browse the Internet on their smartphones only when they can’t access it via a computer for e.g. while travelling in a car, train or bus etc. This means that there is a big overlap between A and B. A major portion of smartphone browsers is a subset of computer browsers. So what does this has to do with your website? A lot. If you ensure that your site is easily accessible to smartphones then the number of page impressions your site gets can dramatically increase as the same people who were visiting your site via their computers can visit it even when they are…say…travelling.
Below we have collected 15 beautiful WordPress themes designed specifically for mobile phones. Some are free and some cost a nominal amount. Check them out and see which ones work best for you! NOTE: A post on great Responsive WordPress Themes for 2013 is coming soon!
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Web design is not a stand alone activity. It is affected by several factors like technology trends, business trends, market trends, and consumer behaviour. It takes a studied effort in order to intelligently and accurately “predict” what the market wants in the future. No one can claim to make 100% accurate predictions but by taking stock of what goes on not just in the web design industry but in the related industries that affect it as well we can somehow make calculated “guesses” as to what trends may happen in the near future.
Here are some of our predictions on what’s currently hot and what will continue to be hot up to the early portion of 2013:
- Mobile Driven – WordPress themes will continue to be responsive, adaptive, fluid. Older but still popular themes will come out with mobile-friendly versions.
- HTML5 and CSS3 – Stricter adherence to W3C Valid code and significant decrease if not obsolescence of Flash.
- Simplified and uncluttered call to action buttons per page – Simple, minimal and uncluttered themes with lesser number of buttons to click.
- Big Typography – Big, bold and readable fonts.
- Single Web Page Design – Infinite scrolling (parallax style).
- Authentically Digital – Windows 8 style graphics (less shiny, more flat).
- Simplified front end customization – Backend customizations will move to the front making it easier to preview specific customization choices.
- Social Media Management – Integrating social media into the WordPress design template (Instagram, Pinterest, Dribble streams etc).
- Modular Template Layouts – More drag and drop options with less coding required for customization.
- Adaptive to new SEO trends – WordPress Themes will be adaptive to new SEO trends like Voice search, mobile search, humanized ranking, social media factors, etc.
If you a WordPress professional or developer, what emerging trends do you foresee in 2013? Share your thoughts. We want to know what you think.
Best Theme (v1.1) A Beautiful, Responsive Theme for WordPress Sites Make sure to check out our official post on the Best Theme for updates on recent and future releases! Take some time to check out the Best Theme demo …
