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.