Thanks to my recent just scratched itch for a “new” WordPress theme for Wordpreneur, I’ve just waded and sifted through who knows how many free WordPress themes available online for the taking. “A lot” feels like an understatement — there really is an incredible amount of theme designs out there for WordPress, most of them free. That’s the good news. The bad news? There’s an incredible amount of theme designs out there for WordPress.

Finding that “perfect fit” design (or at least, close enough) can be terribly time consuming, even confusing as your attention gets pulled multiple directions by all that eye candy. Of course, after doing this a while, you tend to learn which designers (or design collections) you favor, which does help you zero in on what you’re looking for. But even then, finding the right theme takes quite a bit of patience and luck.

The “WordPress theme search” task, however, is more difficult, I think, if you’re a writer looking for something simple, something you can comfortably use to write with online, and just as important, something for others to use to comfortably read what you write, helping put your writing in the best light with a minimum of distraction. You know, what blogs were meant to be in the first place. Looking for a very busy-looking, feature-heavy, more-columns-than-you-ever-thought-you-needed theme design? Easy. It’s the quest for simple yet good that can give you problems.

Well, this may help your search. Here are five (5) WordPress theme designs of the simple and good variety that are very well suited for the true writer’s blog. Yes, simple, but not so much that you’ll have to make do without many of the technical niceties… such as widgets. Simple after all, does not necessarily mean technically backward and functionally crippled — not by much anyway, at least not the parts that count.

In any event, here you go. In alphabetical order:

Barecity (by Shahee Ilyas; free) — You may recognize this as the previous Wordpreneur theme… a heavily modified version of it anyway. Very minimalist. Widget-ready. Typesize on the small side, but it really works for the design. After using it for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that it probably looks best as-is, with no modification (or very little).

Hemingway (by Kyle Neath, free) — It’s been out for a while, and very popular. And you can see why. Very elegant and slick, proof that graphics are absolutely not needed to achieve either. Its all-text design is very expertly laid out, something I wouldn’t muck up at all with any form of advertising (not banners, not AdSense… nothing). By default it’s set up with a black background, but it can also be set up to show in reverse (black text, white background) with just a couple of clicks. Looks great either way, although I’ve seen it in black background a lot, so doing it in white will probably make your blog look far less “me too”-ish.

Infimum (by Alex Smith, free) — Very similar to Barecity, but with a softer, less urgent, more creative feel. Sort of like the artsier sibling to Barecity’s no-nonsense, no color tight seriousness. And yet, versatile enough for just about any kind of writing. Widget-ready and supports gravatars. The standard color scheme I find particularly beneficial.

Leather (by Nathan Berry, free) — This is one beautiful theme. Minimalist in layout and organization, it is otherwise quite richly (and professionally) graphically rendered, as you can see, with “leather” touches and textures and all, hence the name. The typography is exquisite, with the body typesize large and the headlines in a non-conventional, impressive serif and color. Behind the scenes, this is actually the most technically current among these theme selections, also providing support for the new WordPress custom menus and threaded commenting features. Very, very nice.

Ultima (by Jai Nischal Verma, free) — Part of the Blog Oh! Blog collection, one of the sites I frequent whenever I have a WordPress project that needs a theme. As of this writing, Ultima is the Wordpreneur theme, and you can see why: clean, without being stark; the focus is completely on the text; serif font for a less techie feel; large typesizes for a very easy read. Sufficient features (widget-ready, etc. etc.), but you will need to get your hands a bit dirty with the PHP source code to change some of the default links and form destinations in the margin. Nothing major (really), but I know enough writers to know that to many, that is usually a dealbreaker.

There you go. For your writing-centric site, hard to go wrong with any of these five WordPress themes. If none of these fit the bill, however, stay tuned — there’s lots more out there, and I’ll continue giving you heads up on the good ones for writers right here.

— EES

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1. Split Testing WordPress Themes
2. How-to Customize Your WordPress Blog’s Header
3. Split Testing Your WordPress Blog Theme Designs

Blogging, design, tech, wordpress, Writing General