When I launched my first blog about 3 years ago, I used a free WordPress theme called “Cutline,” designed by Chris Pearson. At the time, it was among the most-downloaded free themes on WordPress.org. It’s a terrific-looking theme and it was designed with the reader in mind.
Cutline uses plenty of white space, which makes pages more accessible; it’s easily customizable; the typography is just right for reading online; and it puts usability and clarity ahead of frou-frous. Free, premium themes like Cutline are rare.
That’s not to say there aren’t any free premium themes worth considering either. There’s a whole bunch of sophisticated, well-designed themes. However, you won’t get much in the way of support, a forum where you can exchange ideas, and frequent updates that add new levels of customization. I plan to do a round up of free themes I think make the cut in a follow-up post.
If you want your site to look and feel more polished than most others, you may need to pay for a premium theme. I use the Thesis theme now, another one of Pearson’s designs. I paid for it, which says a lot because I tend to spend all my money on cigars, whiskey and go-fast parts for my motorcycles and cars. The benefits of using a premium theme for WordPress often outweighs the cost, at least if you buy wisely.
I’m not the only person who thinks that way
Have you noticed how fast the number of premium themes out there is growing? Like most people, I’m sold on the adage that you get what you pay for. In this instance, it’s particularly true.
Many free themes I see are designed by people who value form over function. They may not have much understanding about usability or how people read online. In their defense, people who create and release themes free are helping all of us with their hard work. It’s also easy to understand there’s little incentive to continually refine a design or provide support for every Jack and Jill who asks for help. It’s just good business.
Premium themes start at $20-$60 and can go to $250-plus depending features and how much support you need. Actually, you could pay much more for a bespoke theme but that’s a topic for another day. What you’re looking for in a premium theme is not only a good-looking design but also one you can customize without having to fuss too much with handwritten code. It’s the overall design and content that matters and there’s where you want to devote your time.
I have no data to back it up, but I suspect that people who buy premium themes are more interested in building a Web site rather than a blog. It goes back to WP being a great content management system and not merely a blog platform. The other side of it is that many bloggers tend to change their themes regularly, which they’re more apt to do when you have so many free themes to choose from.
I put a premium onThesis
When Pearson introduced his Thesis theme, several months ago, I jumped on it for $67. Thesis came out with an introductory price and my familiarity with Cutline were enough for me to buy it. If you want to buy Thesis now, you’ll pay $87, which I’d still be willing to pay. Soon after I migrated my site from Cutline to Thesis, I got a small job because the client believed “I get it” (his words). That job more than covered the cost of the theme.
In addition, Pearson provides free lifetime support and a forum where Thesis owners can share tips and tricks and solve the “How-do-I-do?” questions. That kind of support is invaluable, especially for people who are new to Web work. I have a good handle on this stuff but even I’ve had rely on Pearson and other Thesis users to help me fix problems I couldn’t work out on my own.
Thesis has many of the elements and the functionality I liked so much about Cutline. What was important to me was having the ready ability to customize my site. As I mentioned, Cutline used to be one of the most downloaded themes on WordPress.org. I reached a point where I wanted to do something different. You can customize Thesis in any way you can imagine, using two unique pages for appearance and design. You don’t have to write a single line of code unless you really want to get fancy. You can change typefaces to your heart’s content, add rotating images, embed videos, search engine optimize without using plug-ins, change the position and width of columns, use teasers and on and on.
The best way to understand what I’m talking about is to go to Pearson’s DIY Themes Showcase to see the variety of sites Thesis users have created with his theme.
I have plenty of grand ideas about customizing my personal site further but it’s hard to find the time to make the sort of changes I envision. As long as my clients keep me busy, the updates can wait. When the time comes, I know I won’t have to spend more time tweaking code than focusing on usability, navigation and sprucing up my corner of Web Street.
Pearson understands how people read on the Web and how they navigate from one page to the other. For example, the theme default typeface is Georgia, which was specifically designed for legibility on computer monitors. It’s a serif face, which I believe are more readable than sans-serif typefaces online and in print, but you can say whatever you want about that and I won’t argue. The other Web friendly typefaces in Thesis are Arial, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Courier and Verdana. It includes several other less friendly typefaces too.
Naturally, you can use whatever typeface you choose for your site, no matter what theme you choose, but it may involve your having to modify your cascading style sheet. I don’t like messing with CSS, because it’s easy to screw things up. Thesis lets me work with a custom style sheet instead of the style sheet itself. I can experiment with changes on the custom style sheet and not worry about breaking my site.
Here are some other premium themes I think are worth paying for:
Revolution 2
Woo Themes
WP Remix
StyleWordPress
Elegant Themes
iThemes
I like Thesis so much that recently, I became an affiliate. If you click on the ad on the right side and buy Thesis, I’ll get some chump change. It’s not about the dough–my traffic is too small to generate even enough money to buy a Grande at StarBucks. I’m just a happy customer.
Here are some other premium themes I think are worth paying for:
Revolution 2
Woo Themes
WP Remix
StyleWordPress
Elegant Themes
iThemes
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