14 Most Visually Appealing Free WordPress Themes
With such a large community that has grown around WordPress, it’s no surprise that there are tons of free themes floating around out there. However, there are only a few that look great out of the box. In this article, I’ve rounded up what I believe are the best looking free WordPress themes available.
Magazeen
Themes don’t get more stylish than this one. Magazeen includes some pretty cool features including a thumbnail gallery at the top of the home page that showcases the latest posts.
Gallery
Since this one is heavily inspired by Card Observer, I had to include it.
Color Paper
This theme has a traditional blog layout but, but the use of color and texture really make it stand out from the crowd.
Infinity
This light on dark theme features a 3 fixed column design, thumbnail covers style, and Flickr, Twitter and delicious integration.
Irresistible
Irresistible is a visually-rich personal blog, with a little bit of a multimedia focus. Some features include: integrated video player, integrated banner ad management, and 9 color choices.
Typebased
Typebased is a very clean and elegant theme that doesn’t have a lot of design elements and doesn’t need them.
Imprezz
A very clean design with a unique middle column.
Outdoorsy
If you are looking for something unique and different in a theme, this is it. It makes great use of some beautiful textures.
Imprezz
This one is a 2-column theme with lots of detailed vintage design elements.
Meta-Morphosis
Meta-Morphosis is a visually-rich personal blog, with a magazine layout approach.
Notepad Chaos
This theme has 2 columns, a quite vibrant design including “personal” design elements such as handwritten headings, stick-it-notes, clips and pins.
Colourise
Colourise is a gorgeous light on dark, two-column theme with an ultra large header image, a dark backdrop and a fat footer.
Wordpress Fun
Another theme that uses a lot of great textures and has an excellent color palette.
Simply Ornate
This is a minimal theme that comes with 5 different ornate background paterns.
Related Posts
Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.
10 Free Clean and Minimal WordPress Themes
WordPress 3.0: Changing The Way We Manage Content
20 Best WordPress Ecommerce Themes
10 Best Free Minimal WordPress Themes
10 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Be Using
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Jun 4, 2009
wow! nice list of themes. Im impress by Imprezz i like it
Jun 4, 2009
Good list…. but these are not new to me, at least.
Jun 4, 2009
yahoOo.. thanks a lot..
Jun 4, 2009
Smashing Magazine seems to reign supreme.
Jun 4, 2009
Awesome list. Thanks you very much
See more great themes Wordpress in my blog: http://tr.im/lqTt
Jun 4, 2009
Wow, 3 of my themes are mentioned here. Amazing, thanks Henry!
Jun 4, 2009
Just signed up for my free WordPress blog.
Can I use these themes on the free blog version, or do they only work on a hosted WordPress site?
Thanks
Jun 4, 2009
Agree with a_usman, nice… but the usual suspects that I ´ve been seeing on just about every wordpress theme post during the last few months. I guess that´s what happens when everone reads everyone else´s posts. New themes roundup! please..
Jun 4, 2009
free stuff and also really cool nice and cool stuff.
Jun 4, 2009
Hmm – have seen almost all of them before…Sabine
Jun 4, 2009
One of my favorite themes Wordpress fun. Great list and thanks for sharing.
Jun 4, 2009
Excellent list…I find new great themes every. You’ve made an excellent selection here.
Jun 4, 2009
Hey, great. Simply Ornate si one of the best theme what i can see.
Jun 5, 2009
It’s an excellent list.. I know some of these themes.. Thanks for sharing..
Jun 5, 2009
Great list.. i liked color paper, but it has some alignment issues
Jun 6, 2009
Great list!
Thanks for putting them together..
Jun 18, 2009
The only scuff I have is that “notebook choas” looks like they ripped the design from http://www.webdesignerwall.com. Other than that these are very nice.
Jun 19, 2009
Nice article. Good job.
Jun 23, 2009
Good!!
Jun 29, 2009
I’m using typebased, and it works great
Jul 1, 2009
Thanks for this inspiring list!
Just starting to use irresistible for my new blog. Such a versatile theme.
Jul 4, 2009
Great selection. I love the themes Wordpress Fun Outdoorsy and the 2 column Imprezz.
Jul 10, 2009
they look amazing. thanks alot guys
Jul 11, 2009
Greetings,
Great designs here. I’m in search of a WP designer. If you are interested, please send me a quote. I’ve contacted five designers so far and only one has written back. My hope is that a targeted comment on a blog read by designers might get me a few more quotes to consider. Deborah
Aug 5, 2009
This is really a great list – and I will definitely look at some of them in detail. Thanks.
Andreas
Aug 21, 2009
Great post, some of my fav posts are ones that give out free resources!
Thank you!
Sep 3, 2009
Cool site, love the info.
Mar 18, 2010
These are really very awesome themes. Thanks for share.