Time to change themes on this site.
I have a simple request: White-space is king, single left hand navigation with fluid right-hand content column. Tweaking the typography to look brilliant is more important than whizzy graphics detracting the eye.
As @evilsue says on twitter: “have reskinned blog…..again….its the poor girls substitute for buying shoes“
So, with these demands in mind – my first port of call was to put a call out to the Twitterati. Here is my list of sites, in no particular order.
Let’s start the ThemeHunting:
What is a theme, and how do you create one?
At the bottom of the page, there is a list of Theme sites.
Very soon you head into nasty MySpace-themed sites with mega-advertisements ugliness.
This is the uber-viewer of themes, hosted by WordPress. There is a standard set of content you can apply to various themes.
For instance, for my next theme I would like left sidebar, 2 column, white, no header image and widget-ready.
Either the way the themes are classified in ThemeViewer, or the viewer itself seems borked as you get a mixture of everything when you search.
The themes here seem to be rather plain, but it is the place to start your search.
Elegant themes seem to involve lots of shading, blue and images.
No magical searching to make life easier to find that theme.
This is an uber-theme that alters the concept of WordPress as a blog into WordPress as a CMS.
http://www.topwpthemes.com/
Advertisements stating “earn $3506 per month from blogging” seem to harangue you on this site; again many pre-built images in the header.
Mega-click through blog with no smart searching. fail.
Interesting list of templates, but seems to be frozen in 2007
Now, if I was going super-trendy with lots of graphics and colour – this is the site I would choose first.
There is an excellent list of no-frills themes too in the 45+ Must-see Themes. And I think I’ve found my first contender:
http://www.briangardner.com/themes/blue-zinfandel-wordpress-theme.htm (although in review it lacks right-fluidity)
It is also interesting to see the themes borked by comment form ugliness
Des Walsh, of Thinking Home Business, posted this link.
Here, each of the WordPress themes earns an SEO score: how well the particular theme works with search-engine optimisation. In my instance, I have some WP plugins doing some magic behind the scenes to ensure the searchbots get it right.
From this site, I found my second contender:
http://www.theblogstudio.com/index.php/v5/resources (Branches theme, I would howerver change the top-left image)
Of course! follow the tags, son.
First to pop up in the list is http://www.wpzoom.com/
Smashing Magazine has an excellent list of plain well designed themes: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/25/15-more-free-first-class-wordpress-themes/
I like BalanceWhite and TextBack
This is fun: WordPress theme by form. I recall trying this about a year ago, with epic fail. Now seems to be rather cool.
The current/to be replaced theme here is Ambient Glo Fluid 1.5. Looking around on that site, I notice that there are some excellent minimalist designs such as http://rockinthemes.com/rockinminimalist-2-column-free-wordpress-theme/
Conclusions?
WordPress Themes are like shoes. You can shop until you drop, install them all and wear different colours on different days.
Oh, the choices!