My Favorite Wordpress Theme

41 replies
My favorite Wordpress theme is ThemeHybrid plus the yearly paid support. The reason I like it is because:

Pros:
1. It is always updated, not leaving users in the lurch.
2. It uses a "child theme" system. A child theme formats the main theme, without you having to touch the main theme. The reason this is good is because it means there is no danger of the user mangling it in order to customize it. This allows for the main theme to be improved or updated according to changes in wordpress. A child theme can be formatted pretty much any way you can imagine. You can experiment without fearing that you've totally wrecked something.
3. Support is excellent. I've gotten timely, useful, and applicable responses and solutions to various questions I've posted. In contrast, other forums (including those for expensive themes) often leave you in the lurch.
4. It is versatile with widget areas in every location you may desire.
5. It allows for easy control of the formatting of specific pages or posts via style.css.
6. If someone wants to learn Wordpress and how to fully take advantage of its functionality and potential, and you want to learn a little about WP coding, ThemeHybrid is unsurpassed. It is a great forum to learn to do so.
7. It's got lots of range and functionality.
8. It is free except a yearly fee for support.

Con:
It is not necessarily the most idiot proof theme out there. If you want easy theme and everything controlled from admin panel, it may not be the right one for you (nor would be expensive Thesis theme).
#favorite #theme #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author freedomatage25
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    • Profile picture of the author butters
      Originally Posted by freedomatage25 View Post

      Hey there,

      I just had a quick question about blogging. I am wanting to start my own blog but right now I am just having a little bit of trouble trying to design it. Do you think it is better to design it yourself or is it better to hire someone to do it for you?

      Let me know what you think!

      See you at the top,
      Michael Stead
      Use a free theme... When you gain traction and it becomes profitable, then worry about paying someone to design a new theme for you. There are plenty of good, high quality free themes, just search "Free wordpress themes" in Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author ~kev~
      Originally Posted by freedomatage25 View Post

      Do you think it is better to design it yourself or is it better to hire someone to do it for you?
      Wordpress has thousands of free themes. The only problem your going to have, is taking the time to go through all of them.

      My wordpress blog turns 2 years old this month. During the past 2 years I have only used free themes - and I have no complaints. I take the theme, make a few color edits here and there, change the header, and fine tune it to what I like.
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by freedomatage25 View Post

      Hey there,

      I just had a quick question about blogging. I am wanting to start my own blog but right now I am just having a little bit of trouble trying to design it. Do you think it is better to design it yourself or is it better to hire someone to do it for you?

      Let me know what you think!

      See you at the top,
      Michael Stead
      It depends on the purpose of your blog. If it is personal, a free theme should do.

      If it is for professional purposes, maybe hiring someone to design it for you would be the right choice. There are lots of online outsourcing venues, eg Elance. If you outsource, you can specify criteria for who you'd hire and choose a bidder with good reviews and is responsive to what you actually want (vs loose cannon). You'll also have the option to pay with Escrow which protects both parties (wish they had that option on Warriorforum). Also, I think it would be a good idea to ask them to document what they did and be clear in style.css (they'll know what that is, if you don't) and say what code refers to what (eg navigationbar instead of something cryptic like style17).
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    • Profile picture of the author Marian
      Originally Posted by freedomatage25 View Post

      Hey there,

      I just had a quick question about blogging. I am wanting to start my own blog but right now I am just having a little bit of trouble trying to design it. Do you think it is better to design it yourself or is it better to hire someone to do it for you?

      Let me know what you think!

      See you at the top,
      Michael Stead
      You can probably customize it yourself. Just use a theme which suits you best, my preferred theme is Thesis, but I also like Flexx, Shiva... WP is an excellent CMS!

      Marian
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  • Profile picture of the author Leslie B
    I have a few themes I love to work with. A few of those being some of the Studiopress themes and a few of Woo-themes. They are easy to work with, easy to customize and you have a great support forum. Most of the times I use those themes on either blogs I create that I'm going to sell, or on blogs for clients. For myself I usually create a theme myself with Artisteer. That way, if you do it right, your blogs look very unique and no one would have the same theme as you have.

    Leslie
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  • Profile picture of the author ericdpangilinan
    I love Thesis but I'll be trying out Blogussion Theme which looks very interesting.

    Blogussion's flexibility and options are promising.
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    • Profile picture of the author RealExpert
      Hi,
      I have been using Thesis for quite some time now and simply love it. By the way, Blogussion is a skin on top of thesis, isn't?
      Originally Posted by ericdpangilinan View Post

      I love Thesis but I'll be trying out Blogussion Theme which looks very interesting.

      Blogussion's flexibility and options are promising.
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  • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
    I have been giving Privateer a spin and am very impressed both by the theme (very versatile) and the responsiveness and pro-activeness of the developer:
    http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...eme-1-6-a.html
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  • Profile picture of the author melissa1982
    what about WP Remix... I've used that since version 2.0 and as long as you have a little coding knowledge or don't mind following the instructions then it is awesome to work with for most sites.

    also, i hear version 4.0 is almost here so it will be interesting to see how they've progressed it
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  • Profile picture of the author LucindaWatrous
    DIY Themes offers a great selection of free and premium themes. If you like the idea of Thesis, but don't want the expense, there are some free ones that mimic it a bit.
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  • Profile picture of the author lesliejadesh
    Studiopress themes are my favorite. They have such variety and they are awesome looking too! If you buy the pro package you get unlimited access to all of them so you can use different ones on your websites. Anyway, that's my fave. Oh, and you automatically get access to all the new themes that come out and they have an active forum for support.
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    • Profile picture of the author con.mic
      I love thematic, the layout is just so simple and google absolutely loves it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jamian
    I like thesis theme, and Mstique theme, they are easy to use and to customize.
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  • Profile picture of the author RebelSEO
    Two great premium theme sites:
    Press75 . com
    ElegantThemes .com
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  • Profile picture of the author nolimitman
    Hi
    I am a real beginner. Can you explain in only a few simple sentences exactly what a Wordpress theme is? Its come up a few times in stuff I have been reading but they always assume you know what it is/does.
    Any help much appreciated.
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    • Profile picture of the author tyroneshum
      Originally Posted by stephensmith@monaco.mc View Post

      Hi
      I am a real beginner. Can you explain in only a few simple sentences exactly what a Wordpress theme is? Its come up a few times in stuff I have been reading but they always assume you know what it is/does.
      Any help much appreciated.
      Hi in simple means, a Wordpress theme is what you can call the overall "look" that enhances any Wordpress site or blog. More and more marketers have been customizing their pre-made themes to market their businesses better by attracting their audience through the welcoming and eye-catching themes or looks they provide. Theme also covers the background, the buttons, colors, gradients, menu bars, heading as a whole.

      You could either choose from the pre-made themes and templates over Wordpress or you could search through and download from the other websites we've mentioned as well.

      I hope that helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author tyroneshum
    Thanks for the tips over pros and cons. So for my favorite, I go for WooThemes | Premium WordPress Themes and Free WordPress Blog Themes both great for building great customizable themes over Wordpress.

    You can check out my blog so you could see how I'd also work on it: Tyrone Shum dot com | Lifestyle Australian Entrepreneur | Outsourcing Secrets

    Enjoy!
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    • Profile picture of the author Byrt M
      Tyrone - thanks for the link to BloggingThemes - much appreciate it dude!
      Byrt
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  • Profile picture of the author mikeevee
    I love Suffusion. Very customisable, well supported and totally free.

    Links 2 and 3 of my sig are Suffusion if you want to see it in action.
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  • Profile picture of the author IHhello
    I like Thesis and I am using it for several of my blogs. For some my blogs I am going to use Socrates. It looks really cool from the marketing perspective.
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  • Profile picture of the author Arun Pal Singh
    I like Studiopress, Thesis. Another theme with a lot of promise seemed to be Semiologic bu something happened in the way.
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  • Profile picture of the author AzzamS
    can you really compare anything to the thesis theme?
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by noviceSEO View Post

      can you really compare anything to the thesis theme?
      A lot of Thesis users swear by it, but it is expensive, not particularly user-friendly for someone starting out in Wordpress (eg, demands a lot of css workd), and the support is kind of slow from what I've heard. I guess I think why pay a lot when there are other themes out there which are good if not better and many of them are free (or considerably less expensive)? However, there are lots of YouTube videos on customizing Thesis, so there is something to be said for that.

      My advice is just pick a theme and stick to it until you gain some mastery over it, rather than jumping from one to the other like a dung beetle.
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  • Profile picture of the author MrSaws
    My Favourite theme is Ultimate Blogging Theme from Carl Ocab. Superb!
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    • Profile picture of the author Tyson Faulkner
      I've been using atahualpa for awhile now, and I really like it. It's very customizable and gets updated all the time. I haven't even scratched the surface with what you can do with it, but I try to spend less time designing and more time producing content...which doesn't always work out haha.
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    • Profile picture of the author xiaoayuan
      Originally Posted by Saws View Post

      My Favourite theme is Ultimate Blogging Theme from Carl Ocab. Superb!

      Me too. When I first started to set up a wordpress theme blog, I choose to use free theme. But I couldn't figure out how to change the color, where to put my advertising, what kind of social bookmarking I should pick. One day I saw the videos created by Carl Ocab and decided to try this wordpress theme.

      Now I am glad to use it for it is very simple to set up. Especially For some one who has no idea of how to set up a blog, I highly recommend it for just following the step-by-step videos. And the social bookmarking sites are built in (like myspace, mix, digg, delicious, twitter, etc), and I found they are great. I get good results from stumbleupon.com.
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      • Profile picture of the author interloper
        I use Suffusion. To get a feel for it, visit my blog. The link is in the signature.

        Pros:
        Good support
        One column, Two or three column.
        Very customizable

        Cons:
        They can't seem to figure out the update issue. If you have the Atahualpa theme and you upgrade to the newest version, you don't loose your layouts / customization. With Suffusion, you loose your layouts / customizations.
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        Webmaster at Interloper.com - an e-commerce site about specialty ISA computers. I earn my livelihood from the internet so I am always keen on learning new things or looking for a new wrinkle on an existing method.

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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Shelton
    Man its great to see this thread because I really need a theme that looks great and is flexible and easy to work with so I'll check all these out. How come nobody's mentioned One Theme or FlexSqueeze? Not that I've used them but I understand that they are popular too.
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanLima
    I had to buy it but it was money well spent - Flex Squeeze Baby
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  • Profile picture of the author Leslie B
    If you'd like to be able to create unique themes then Artisteer would be the way to go, at least in my eyes. It's not yet updated to work with the new wordpress 3.0 features yet but I'm certain it won't take long before they do. The themes work so that is not the problem, it's just the latest features that aren't added yet.

    Leslie
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  • Profile picture of the author bjallen
    Thanks Leslie. Does Artisteer let you integrate plugins fairly easily? I am working on a blog right now that requires the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin.

    Do you have any links to blogs that you have created using Artisteer?

    Thanks again!
    BJ
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    • Profile picture of the author thunderbird
      Originally Posted by bjallen View Post

      Thanks Leslie. Does Artisteer let you integrate plugins fairly easily? I am working on a blog right now that requires the Dynamic Content Gallery plugin.

      Do you have any links to blogs that you have created using Artisteer?

      Thanks again!
      BJ

      Artisteer is an impressive program in many ways. It makes it easy to create wordpress themes to meet a range of color choices and formats. Artisteer allows for fairly simple WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editing and control over appearance. However, Artisteer also suffers from limitations of functionality and doesn't fully tap the functionality of Wordpress. The good news is, Bud (of Bud's Tech Shed) has stepped up to the plate to fill in Artisteer gaps and provide the range of choices Artisteer users desire, eg options for magazine style format, greater control over menus:
      The Templateer: Home

      (I have no affiliation with the above links. I am just a fan, and if you check out Bud's sites, I'm willing to wager that some of you will thank me profusely for it.)
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      • Profile picture of the author Byrt M
        Thunderbird
        Thanks for the link to Templateer - I have never seen it - I just checked it out - great looking and cheap
        Thanks
        Byrt
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  • Profile picture of the author EthanDenney
    Some great places for wordpress themes, that I use often are themeforest.com, studiopress.com, and woothemes.com

    There you can find great free and paid themes.

    Theme Forest is my favorite :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author deliverer
    Flex Squeeze theme is good coz of the many enhancements. Imagine:
    1. custom search box text
    2. flexible tag and category options
    3. more font style choices
    4. built in pagination navigation
    5. You can turn any wp blog page into a custom sales squeeze page with a click.
    6. You can even upload your own custom header images no messing around with FTP uploads.
    7. Set your sales page title and tagline separate from the rest of your blog.
    8. Squeeze page settings are independent from your main blog.
    9. Faster page loads which means better SEO and spiderability.
    10. New AdSense-ready one-click page layout.

    List seems endless. That for today.

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  • Profile picture of the author txconx
    My favorite free theme is Arthemia, but I don't recommend it for people who can't tweak the theme files.

    My favorite paid theme is Gazette (Woo Themes).

    I have old free versions of the Revolution themes. At that time, they required more manual tweaking than the Woo Themes, but I haven't checked out the upgraded (paid) versions.
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  • Profile picture of the author smither07
    I use thesis theme. For me it is easier and more friendly to the eye.
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  • I don't thinks there's a "favorite" or "best" theme.

    The idea with themes is to choose the correct one for your website's business model. Is it going to be a magazine-like blog? is it going to be an automated Adsense-plastered blog? is it going to be a Product Launch blog?

    You need to get the right theme for each business model. There's no one-fits all.
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