Friday 1 March 2013

The Short List: WordPress themes you should check out this week


The Short List of WordPress themes
In just a couple of weeks (since the last time we looked at The Short List) another crazy amount of themes are out. But who has time to dig through every single last one? That’s why we have The Short List, which lists off only the themes worth a serious look.
There are a surprising number of really unique themes this time around. I’m pleasantly surprised to see themes created for a very specific niche, actually. Things like food bloggers, fitness professionals, or event legal and medical firms. I’d rather see those than another slew of boring business and portfolio themes any day.
Let’s dig right in.

Foodie by Mint Themes

Speaking of themes made for a very specific use case: Foodie is a great blog for those who want to blog about food. Or, you know, just blog photos of stuff you’ve eaten. As one does.
Foodie theme

Personal, by Obox

I tend to like Obox’s themes. Personal is a fairly traditional photoblogging theme — but hey, if you’re going to use something pretty standard, you might as well look to longtime members of the community like Obox first.
Personal theme

Connect by ThemeForest user Br0

Connect has a catchy layout for pretty much every page on the site. It also has support for a timeline plugin I hadn’t heard of before, Content Timeline I believe, which is pretty neat.
Connect theme

Hipster, by Beantown Deisgn

Hipster has a unique look for a WordPress theme. I foresee a few problems with it though (some elements are uncomfortably big to me, and what happens when you get rid of their cool logo in the header?) but unique is still worth a passing glance.
Hipster theme

Conzert, by ThemeRain

Conzert reminds me of some photo blogging themes I’ve seen before. This is a pleasant implementation, I think, and isn’t as clunky as others that I’ve seen.
Conzert theme

Mazzareli, by Theme Laboratory

Another food theme, Mazzareli would be perfect for just about any restaurant really. Granted, you’ll need some solid pictures of the food to make it work. Or just lie to people about the food you make, I guess. Either way.
Mazzarell theme

Appify, by AppThemer

As far as single-use themes go, I really like Appify. I mean, I know their demo site doesn’t even contain a real app. But I want to use the app, the site looks so cool.
Appify theme

Bloggit, by WPExplorer

Bloggit, by “Elite Author” WPExplorer on ThemeForest, has an appealing bold design. It’s not as crazy busy as most magazine-ish themes are. It doesn’t seem like you would need oodles of content to make this one work for a site.
Bloggit theme

HumbleShop, by HumbleSpace

I find myself looking past a lot of ecommerce themes, I think because they sometimes have pretty similar designs. I like HumbleShop because it’s a very tight, modern looking design. I could see myself launching a shop site using this theme.
HumbleShop theme

Ripple, by ThemeForest user ithi

Ripple falls into the category of standard blog themes that I would be happy to use for my own blog. It’s a fresh, modern look that — and it’s hard to explain — just makes me want to create awesome things so that the theme can display it. To me, that’s the sign of a killer theme. At least at first glance.
Ripple theme

Rock Palace, by ThemeForest user gljivec

Rock Palace is a passable musician’s theme that, honestly, would be no problem to make use of for pretty much any other purpose really.
RockPalace theme

Wunder, by Umbrella Studios

Wunder caught my eye because it has four columns and not that many themes do. Is that too simple of a reason to look over a theme?
Wunder theme

Golden, by Guu Themes

Golden brings the retro blogging look, and pulls it off fairly well I think. I can see a trendy team somewhere really wanting to use this as their company site and blog.
Golden theme

Label Pro, by Qantum Themes

Label Pro is a bit over the top in terms of visuals, but it does make it stand out. Given the right label, I suppose, it could be a great company site. Still, really intense.
Label Pro theme

Soundmaster, by ThemeForest user Devilcantburn

Another music/label theme, Soundmaster is a theme any musicians (or anyone who manages musicians) should take a second and look over.
Soundmaster theme

Apart, by ThemeForest user bignet

Apart would work as a blogging theme for a creative person, or someone who posts videos a lot. But my own preferences would probably mean the text size would need to bump up a notch or two. That’s just a personal thing though.
Apart theme

Beard, by Tommus Rhodus

Beard is similar in purpose to Apart (above) but with a different design style. I like this one too.
Beard theme

Dr. Lawyer, by ThemeForest user ppandp

A WordPress theme designed for a law firm? And it’s called Dr. Lawyer? Count me in.
Dr. Lawyer theme

Newcastle, by ThemeForest user dwoolf

Newcastle has a catchy look to it, but then again I wonder if it might lose some of its shine when its demo images are removed. It might.
Newcastle theme

Simplo, by ThemeForest user Nesia

Simplo is a colorful blogging theme that, after it caught my eye, I noticed seems to take some design inspiration from Svbtle. It still has it’s own look, though.
Simplo theme

Arch, by Engine Themes

Arch is a theme for architects, and features huge images and lots of padding. I imagine most people will be using this for purposes other than architecture companies, even though it would work really well for those I think.
Arch theme

Centre, by WPExplorer

Centre is the kind of theme I would love to see more photo bloggers using. Let the images shine, use typography that’s nice and clear and easy to read, and set it all on a dark background that doesn’t distract from the photos.
Centre theme

Lolly, by Mean Themes

Lolly brings a solid color scheme, a single blog column, and lots of padding. I’m not crazy about the font sizes and a few things about it, but they could be easily tweaked to make it really shine as a blog theme.
Lolly theme

Soundstage, by Mint Themes

Soundstage is a theme for musicians from Mint Themes. I like that this one isn’t quite as busy as so many other themes for artists tend to be. It’s still pretty busy — just not as busy.
Soundstage theme

BlueBird, by Just Good Themes

A theme like BlueBird wouldn’t always catch my eye, but for some reason this one did. I imagine something like a church, or maybe a dentist’s office, would really enjoy using this particular design.
BlueBird theme

HC, by Tommus Rhodus

HC, standing for health clinic, is a theme designed just for health professionals. I could also see this in use by a blogger in the medical profession.
Dr. Med health theme

GymBoom, by Justin Scheetz

Speaking of niches that hardly ever get served by WordPress themes, GymBoom is a theme designed specifically for gyms or fitness centers. If you run one of those, this would be perfect. Although I bet it could be tweaked slightly to work for other purposes too.
Fitness theme

Identify, by Theme Bros.

Identify reminds me of my old portfolio. This is how I like to lay out portfolios, maybe mostly because it’s simple and right to the point. This theme is very bold, with a lot of strong thick lines.
Identify theme

Journal, by Creer Themes

Journal is another one of those themes I could really see myself using. It’s just so… cool looking. I’d have to get really good at taking huge pictures to be able to really blog with it, though.
Journal theme

Portfolios, by ThemeForest user tagDiv

There are a lot of portfolio WordPress themes that consist primarily of large images butted up against one another. I know, because I tend to skip past most of them when going through the new themes released each week. There are a lot of them.
Yet the Portfolios theme caught my eye. I think it’s the display, the use of color, and the description for each element rather than just dropping them on the page. In general the content area, particularly for pages and posts, is a big wider than I usually prefer. But it’s worth a look.
Portfolios theme

Any favorite new themes lately?

That does it for my collection right now. What about you? Have you run across any awesome themes lately that you think others should check out?

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