11 replies to this topic

[The Simpleton]

I've just started a new wordpress blog, ditching my old blogger account and am now in the hunt for a new theme to use. The problem is that there are so many to choose from! On blogger there wasn't much choice so it was easy to pick something (ok not even one was that great to be honest!) but on WP there are over 900 themes and I don't think I have the patience to see them all!

So can someone suggest me a good theme to use? I'm not looking for anything heavy but I do have some points in mind and it would be good if I got a theme like that -

1) I was thinking something along the terms of a newspaper headline - the latest post should appear on the top, not the full post but an excerpt or something like that.

2) The category links should be placed horizontally on the top instead of the vertical position found on most blogs.

3) I'm not particular about the colour, but anything light would be good.

I think there won't be many themes which will meet the above conditions, but if there is a possiblity that you know about a theme like this, then please mention its name here tHaNkS for the help!

[mahesh2k]

You didn't mentioned premium or free themes. What you prefer ? paying for themes or free ? In any case you can try wordpress theme gallery. Take a look at this theme, i found this theme suits your requirement. Gonzo daily theme is also based on news and headline type of style. Take a look at Gonzo daily theme. Another theme is star news. This theme is not completely news style but it has 3 column layout. Which you can change and make it to suit your wordpress site. Take a look at star news theme.


If you're ready to edit few php files and modify CSS. Then i can recommend you Wp-theme framework. This framework allows you to edit existing template of theme and from which you can create theme that suits your site. Check wp-theme framework. Another alternative to framework is thematic framework. This is also on similar lines of wp-theme framework. Some cool themes are created with thematic framework. Check if you can create something out of it.

And i almost forgot there are few newpaper style theme on site called blogohblog.

[Nameless_]

NICE.... that was what I just asked previously on my other thread... you know, the WAMP not Xampp one the somehow turned into a thread about MAMP installation?

Yeah... I'm currently looking for a good theme too... one that gets updated often and has something to do with stacking papers, preferably NEWSpapers, because it is a news blog about interesting news that I find daily.

If possibly, the catagories are on the top of the posting thing or next to the posting thing like those sticky tabs that people stick on to remind them on what page they are, or in boxes at the bottom of the page, so people can look at interesting news in a specific category, like crime, or research or global or environmental and such...

Well, I know what I want... I might draw a sketch out and upload it for all to have a look...

[The Simpleton]

Those are some good looking files, mahesh2k. I forgot to mention that I was looking for free themes only... The ones you suggested do look good, and I think I'll use one of them temporarily till my blog builds up. I didn't know that premium themes had such insane costs as $300-$1000 on them! All that for just a blog! The ones who buy these expensive themes might be having really good blogs or maybe they're simply wasting money

[buxgoddess]

try wp-max and its a good one. Hope you can tweek it for your purpose. I have my temporary blog workinhg in this theme at mdnath.com/press and is absolutely fantastic.
There are some issues hoever that you will have to check your site every now and then to see any post that is out of sync. It is tedipoius at times.

[Nameless_]

The Simpleton, on Sep 12 2009, 11:00 PM, said:

Those are some good looking files, mahesh2k. I forgot to mention that I was looking for free themes only... The ones you suggested do look good, and I think I'll use one of them temporarily till my blog builds up. I didn't know that premium themes had such insane costs as $300-$1000 on them! All that for just a blog! The ones who buy these expensive themes might be having really good blogs or maybe they're simply wasting money

Woohoo!!! After like, twelve hours (okay, that was a huge exaggeration... more like two hours, actually), I've finally went through ALL the wordpress templates that wordpress has to offer...

I'll list some out if you like: (They're all for my news blog though, so they might not apply to you)

Quote

in-berlin (I'm using this at the moment... it's activated)
Arclite
Arras Theme
Fusion (Thanks to Baniboy for the recommendation)
LaunchPad (Construction purposes)
Media Master
Morning Coffee
My papers
Password
RedTime
Titan...

That's all though... The rest are good but not functional enough for me and my purposes.

buxgoddess, on Sep 12 2009, 11:12 PM, said:

try wp-max and its a good one. Hope you can tweek it for your purpose. I have my temporary blog workinhg in this theme at mdnath.com/press and is absolutely fantastic.
There are some issues hoever that you will have to check your site every now and then to see any post that is out of sync. It is tedipoius at times.

Oooh... that's a good thing for me... it's a bit plain though. But I like the catergories thing. If only I can somehow do that...

[The Simpleton]

Thanks for the list Nameless_ I'll make sure to save the list for later use. For now I have decided to use the Gonzo daily theme suggested by mahesk2k. It looks really simple and has all that I'm looking for.

The theme is ok, but now the real task of blogging starts. I'm not blogging for any particular reason, but I've always wanted to keep a blog running regularly and that's something hard to do! Well let's see.

Quote

try wp-max and its a good one. Hope you can tweek it for your purpose. I have my temporary blog workinhg in this theme at mdnath.com/press and is absolutely fantastic.
There are some issues hoever that you will have to check your site every now and then to see any post that is out of sync. It is tedipoius at times.

thanks - this theme looks really brilliant - I think I'm not ready yet to face the issues that you mentioned, so I'll keep this on my list of themes too. Thanks for the suggestion

[Nameless_]

The Simpleton, on Sep 13 2009, 02:20 AM, said:

Thanks for the list Nameless_ I'll make sure to save the list for later use. For now I have decided to use the Gonzo daily theme suggested by mahesk2k. It looks really simple and has all that I'm looking for.

The theme is ok, but now the real task of blogging starts. I'm not blogging for any particular reason, but I've always wanted to keep a blog running regularly and that's something hard to do! Well let's see.


thanks - this theme looks really brilliant - I think I'm not ready yet to face the issues that you mentioned, so I'll keep this on my list of themes too. Thanks for the suggestion

Cool... nice.
Just want to point out that if you go here, there's 50 really cool blog designs with five links at the bottom of the post for even more blog designs and themes. Unfortunately they're unique ones, but it can give you ideas for what your blog can look like.

It gave ME ideas... I like a few of them, especially the TV one, because it's related to news and is in the form of stacking and newspapers. (Well, not really stacking, but with layers and layers of paper.... you know what I mean...)

[mahesh2k]

The Simpleton, on Sep 12 2009, 06:30 PM, said:

Those are some good looking files, mahesh2k. I forgot to mention that I was looking for free themes only... The ones you suggested do look good, and I think I'll use one of them temporarily till my blog builds up. I didn't know that premium themes had such insane costs as $300-$1000 on them! All that for just a blog! The ones who buy these expensive themes might be having really good blogs or maybe they're simply wasting money

Not exactly. Some of those premium themes are used by bloggers who earn six figure income. If you want to know some of these six figure income earner bloggers then take a look at some blogs like. Problogger, Davidrisley, Copyblogger, John chow are just some of the six figure income earner bloggers. You'll come to know that why their blog earns more. The key is design which comes after important aspect of content. So it is wrong to think that they're wasting money.

The guy who designed Thesis theme charges 300$ to 1000$ for custom themes. and this is justifiable cause those designers work with various types of clients and requirements sometimes stuck with moody clients. Who change their design thoughts after every revision from designers. So in my opinion it is perfectly alright to charge huge for corporate blogs and premium blogs(blogs whose earning is in 6 figures).

Smashing magazine, Mashable publishes regularly the list of top free or paid themes. Some themese are of magazine style while some are of diverse style. Most of the themes published in such lists are usually taken up by huge crowd and design becomes regular as more and more blogs common. So it is always better to modify those designs instead of using as it is.

[Nameless_]

I still think that free ones are the best ones though, if you can customise it to suit your needs...
Can someone tell me how to merge some Wordpress templates together? They don't work right separated, but if I can somehow merge their functions together it'd be great. Thanks. (I've made a thread about it but no one replied... yet - maybe it's just too long. )