03 Jun 2013
Home  »  Wordpress   »   55 Top Free WordPress Themes for Designers

55 Top Free WordPress Themes for Designers

Posted in Wordpress By Abbas Arif On June 3, 2013

We reveal the best free WordPress themes for creating blogs, porfolios sites and more.

High Quality Free WordPress Themes are always a smart choice. Whether your a designer or blogger in need of a cost effective WordPress Theme or you need some WordPress inspiration or professional coding to pick up your skills. Free WordPress Themes are also a fantastic way of learning how they’re built so you can start to build your own.

In The beginning of 2013 most of the designers looking  for a great free responsive WordPress theme for our blogs. In this showcase, we have collected best free responsive WordPress themes you can play around with. These themes are built to re size and realign itself to cater to the different screen resolutions, such as smartphones and tablets.In this article we’ve selected some of the very best WordPress themes for you to use in your projects. Each is not only free to use and open to the public but also offers something special and unique.So,hope you like this latest collection of  Top Free WordPress Themes for Designers.

Zenith

Zenith features a beautiful magazine-style layout that’s responsive

Zenith is a responsive theme with a rich, magazine-style layout that features space for large images. The theme has built-in support for Gravity Forms, and ships with multiple layout options, as well as support for custom templates and menus.

Sensitive

Sensitive features a Metro-styled accent to its design

Sensitive is a fully responsive theme built using Twitter’s Bootstrap framework with Metro Styled Accent. It ships with three different page templates, support for custom backgrounds and menus. It’s a great option if you’re looking for clean and modern, without a lot of fussy code.

Strap Slider Lite

Strap Slider Lite features a full-width auto-sliding content panel

Slider Lite is a clean, modern and responsive theme that showcases a large, full-width sliding panel at the top of the page. Each post featured within the slider supports an image and caption, as well as the content itself. As with some of the other themes featured here, Twitter’s Bootstrap is used to provide the functionality within the theme, making it easily extensible.

Appliance

Minimalist panels allow you to showcase posts visually rather than in a list

Appliance is a super-clean and minimalist theme that presents posts in a series of panels across the page instead of as a simple list. It’s very code-light, making it quick to load, and has a pleasingly clean look that’s ideal for magazine-style content where each post will feature a strong image.

Noteworthy

Noteworthy features a bold palette and layout that happy showcasing content

Noteworthy is a bold theme that, according to its author, is modelled on the USA Today website. The colour scheme is modern and clean, while bordering on brash, but the stand-out feature of this theme is the showcase area for the most recent post.

Origin

Origin’s minimal yet stylish design allows users to focus on content

Origin is a premium, fully responsive WordPress blog theme with a minimal, clean design that allows visitors to focus on content. Origin lite is the only free version of this theme, which features a fixed two-column layout, responsive gallery and custom widgets for categories and social media networks.

Folder

Free WordPress themes

Free WordPress theme Folder is perfect for showcasing projects and products

Folder is a free WordPress theme with a slight retro feel to it. With a design dominated by images, this responsive theme is perfect for displaying projects and products. Features include custom project posts and admin panel, five different widgets included (video, latest work, contact form, twitter feed, recent posts), and more.

YAMINTH

Yet another minimal WordPress theme available for free download

There’s no shortage of modern and minimal WordPress themes available online. But YAMINTH (Yet Another Minimal Theme) and its unusual image layout caught our eye. The free theme comes with light colors, dark footer, Google Web Fonts and jQuery fade in, fade out of images. It also hasan options page for easy customisation and is free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

vFlex

Free WordPress themes

vFlex was designed specifically with designers and bloggers in mind

Designed specially with bloggers and designers in mind, vFlex is a stylish, free, responsive WordPress theme. Its main features include an inbuilt FlexSlider so you can simply select featured images and an integrated VibeOptions panel, which supports logo upload, import and export settings and many other features. vFlex’s responsive layout also means the theme looks great on iPad, iPhones, and other devices.

Panoramica

Free WordPress themesWith a full-width slideshow on the homepage, Panoramica is perfect for showcasing your photos

If you want to showcase images in all their glory, free WordPress theme Panoramica may be just what you’re after. Its design heavily emphasizes the use of images, with its appearance fully customiseable through an extensive options panel. Panoramica also features a full-width slideshow on the homepage, perfect for grabbing prospective client’s and employer’s attention.

Xenastore

Xenastore

Xenastore is simple and bold

Xenastore is one of those WordPress themes that stands out because it is simple but bold. The use of colours and graphical elements are subtle but add a lot of value to the site. The homepage offers several widget areas, making it very easy to offer specials, coupons and more. With a large featured section, showcasing a small number of products can be done very easily.

Responsive

Responsive

Responsive has a large and easy-to-control featured area on the homepage

I like this free WordPress theme so much I’m currently using it to power Jes.se.com. Responsive utilises several homepage widget areas to drop in content, making it easy to control everything. It has a very large and easy to control featured area on the homepage, which was perfect for me to feature my book, Web Designer’s Guide to WordPress.

Balloons

Balloons

Balloons is the theme for you if you want to play around with scrolling effects

Who doesn’t like Balloons? I could probably ask the same thing about parallax scrolling. This is the first free WordPress theme I’ve seen that uses the recently widely adopted effect of multiple scrolling speeds. Balloons utilises a minimalistic design and lets you focus on the cool scrolling effect. While a small business or corporation may not get what they want out of this theme it would work beautifully for an event or personal website.

Grid

Grid

Grid is great for a graphically rich or photo-heavy site

Grid gives you the feeling you’re on a site that’s had a lot of thought put into its design. This free WordPress theme would work really well for a portfolio, artist or event site. It’s very graphic or photo heavy so make sure you have the content to back it up. One plus is that this theme maintains its responsiveness quite well.

Fotofolio

Fotofolio

Fotofolio lets the content do the work

If you’re looking for a free WordPress theme that lets the content do the work, then Fotofolio is for you. While its design and layout is really well done, it’s also subtle and inconspicuous, allowing your stunning photos to take control of the visitor’s eyes. The functionality and use of the theme is also quite nice.

Bonpress

Bonpress

Bonpress benefits from its left-hand nav

I’m becoming more and more a fan of the left hand nav. With the adoption of wider desktops it makes it easy for us to utilise more space, making it easier and more pleasant for visitors to view your content. Free WordPress theme Bonpress does a really nice job of organising the layout while maintaining responsive functionality. Whether you need a typical website, blog or portfolio site, this theme will do nicely for you.

ARCHITEKT

Architekt

Architekt is a minimalist, responsive theme

At first glance, I couldn’t tell if I really liked this free WordPress theme or just the stunning photos. Sometimes if your content (especially photos) isn’t as nice as what’s in the demo, you can lose the effect you wanted in the first place. However, after getting to know Architekt a bit more I realised it was the layout and minimalistic approach to the design that made the content stand out so well. This is a really nicely designed and well thought-out responsive theme that will work for you.

Swatch

Swatch

Swatch is great right out of the box

The crew over at WooThemes really know what they are doing. This free WordPress theme is very well designed, with a lot of detail put into every element. Swatch is definitely a theme that you don’t have to customise at all, it’s just so nice right out of the box.

There are a lot of widget areas, columns and places for a lot of content. Make sure you have enough content to fill it. Hopefully in the near future they’ll put in the extra work to make this theme responsive.

Blue Bubble

Blue Bubble

You’ll need a featured image with each of your posts with Blue Bubble

This theme uses the left-hand sidebar well; I like the navigation alongside the blog posts. One thing to be aware of is the use of featured images. If not every one of your posts comes with a featured image you may lose the effect of the proportionate and balanced layout. If you’re a web designer you should be able to convert this free WordPress theme to a responsive layout relatively easily.

Big Square

Big Square

Big Square is great for showcasing your work

I’m a fan of art museums and this free WordPress theme gives you the feeling you’re reading about a painting hanging on the wall at your local contemporary art museum. It designates a lot of space to the image or photograph so if you’re trying to showcase your work you Big Square will do nicely for you.

EBUY

EBUY

EBUY is a good choice for ecommerce

It’s only a matter of time before WordPress is seen as a viable option for ecommerce sites of all types. Free WordPress themes like EBUY continue to push the envelope and get us ever closer to that goal. This theme is well laid out and offers a great deal of features to help you share and sell your products.

Busby

Busby

Busby’s use of bold colours makes it stand out

Busby is a really nice free theme. Its use of bold colours and well planned fonts makes it stand out. I love the styling and emphasis on post dates. However, if you aren’t posting often, a proud and boldly stated date may make your theme look stale and outdated. Frequent bloggers looking to keep visitors on their site for long periods of time will benefit from this theme greatly.

Blog-o-folio

Blog-O-Folio

Blog-O-Folio is very blogger-friendly

Saying that Blog-O-Folio uses bold contrasting colours would be an understatement. The layout is really nicely put together and the entire theme is very functional. The dedication of real estate to blog posts and sidebar make this free WordPress theme very blogger friendly.

Skeleton

Skeleton

Skeleton is minimal and responsive

Skeleton has a lot going for it. Firstly, it’s very minimal so if you know what you’re doing it will be very easy for you to layer your own flavour of style and colour on it. Secondly, it’s responsive, so it’s ready for any and all devices. The added bonus that it’s BBPress ready just increases its value. Lots of widget and featured areas makes this a very versatile WordPress theme.

Shuttershot

Shuttershot

Shuttershot is a great choice for photographers

Shuttershot is another free WordPress theme that lets the content speak for itself. If you have less than stellar photographs or graphics you may want to use a different theme. Allocating the entire homepage to a single image will pressure you to highlight your best work. Make sure your content can support this really well made theme before you move forward with it.

Spectacular

Spectacular

Spectacular is aptly named

The aptly named Spectacular theme is really well designed and laid out. The colours are subtle but really help the visitor navigate the site. While this free WordPress theme does appear to be very blog-centric it would be easy enough to convert this to a small business, event or product website. Make sure that the logo or featured graphic at the top is designed to fit the theme. A black and lime green race car logo will not do this theme justice.

Meeta

Meeta

Don’t overlook this ‘plain Jane’ theme

Sometimes “Plain Jane” themes like Meeta get overlooked. However themes like this are easily converted and modified to fit your site and content. With two navigations, a featured graphic and a responsive layout, this free WordPress theme will act as a great foundation for your site or blog. However you will need to dedicate the time to customise it a bit.

WP Coda

WP Coda

WP Coda provides easy navigation

What WPCoda does well is easy navigation of pages without moving off the homepage. All the pages in the tabbed navigation below the tagline are served to the visitor without reloading the page, functionality that is usually reserved for custom builds. I have to be honest, I’m not really sold on the colour scheme of WP Coda, but that is easily adaptable to your needs.

Splendio

Splendio

Splendio provides a good balance of content

Splendio has done a great job of balancing the featured content of the page with additional added value content. You want to promote the other pages and posts on your site (to increase traction and time on site) without taking away from the reason the visitor is there in the first place. This is a difficult task that the designers and developers of Splendio have done well. The details and colours really help to make this a great blog theme.

Polar Media

Polar Media

Polar Media is a good choice for newsy blogs

I like the content used to demo PolarMedia because it speaks to exactly how this theme should be used. It’s great for a blog featuring news and up-to-the-minute updates.

This free WordPress theme does a great job of showcasing content in a new format. Whether you’re reporting on red carpet happenings or political disputes, it will do you and your visitors proud.

Clean Retina

Clean Retina is ideal if you’re targeting iPad users

Clean Retina delivers exactly what it says on the tin. The theme is simple, clean, responsive and retina-ready. There is a selection of nine homepage layout options, as well as a large homepage slider with space for supporting text. This theme would work nicely for bloggers or small business owners.

Simple Corp

Simple Corp includes plenty of time-saving features

Simple Corp is a responsive HTML theme by Site5. It includes plenty of time-saving features, so there’s no need to go hunting around for plug-ins. The contact page includes a built-in contact form and a large Google Map. Multiple colour styles can be easily accessed via the colour options tab. A good use of this WordPress theme could be to update a corporate website with a fresh vibe.

Workality

Workality is responsive and a great way to showcase your work

Workality is a responsive WordPress theme that provides a powerful way to showcase your work. Your images, videos, and text will all scale down precisely for iPad, iPhone, and all mobile devices. It’s also compatible with all major browsers. Workality offers four different thumbnail sizes for your portfolio layout, small, medium, large, and portrait.

Photo

Photo is, as the title implies, a great choice for showcasing photography

Photo is best suited for a photographer’s website, as its major feature is its responsive gallery. The theme is clean with a bold header that emphasizes your logo. This is perfect if you’re looking for a minimal and versatile theme.

Great

Great in name, great in use

With an unlimited selection of colour themes this theme would be appropriate for any blogger. Another feature, which has been cropping up on some of the newer WordPress themes, is the Translation-ready abilities, reaching new audiences in a foreign languages. Simple and responsive wordpress themes

Grid – Responsive WordPress Theme

Grid is a premium style theme using the latest design techniques.The home page features a grid design with auto load on scroll similar to what you see on Pinterest.A fantastic design for photo or design related blogs.

Responsive WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Responsive Theme
  • Infinite Scroll
  • For Menus Name use: header_menu
  • For Category Name use: category_menu

Leon WordPress Theme

Leon is a magazine style WordPress theme with a dark color scheme.Posts on the home page are displayed in three columns with a post thumbnail and read more. Leon WordPress Theme

 

Key Features:

  • widgetized sidebar
  • footer, theme option page
  • fully responsive

 

Mixfolio Gallery Theme

Mixfolio is a bright WordPress theme with a minimal gallery design.On the home page posts are displayed in three columns by the main post or featured image.The post pages have a separate two column design.

Mixfolio Gallery Theme

 

Key Features:

  • FULLY RESPONSIVE
  • theme options
  • Grid layout

Respo WordPress Theme

Respo is a bright two column theme for WordPress.The design is responsive so will look great on all devices. Respo WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Responsive grid layout,
  • Flexslider – jQuery slider with turn on/off possibility,
  • Unlimited dynamic featured sections,

Frank – Minimal WordPress Theme

This theme was built to load fast and focus on content.A bright white color scheme with a two column design. Frank - Minimal WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • 100% open source.
  • responsive WordPress theme
  • page layout system

AccentBox – Classic Magazine WordPress Theme

Accent Box is a magazine WordPress theme in the classic design.This theme has a grey color scheme is ads optimized and uses the read more feature on the home page. Classic Magazine WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Fluid Responsive Layout
  • Unlimited Color Schemes
  • SEO Optimized

Launch – Tumblr Style WordPress Theme

Launch is a fresh WordPress theme with a Tumblr Microblog design.The theme has a two column design with a left sidebar and blue color scheme. Tumblr Style WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • 3 awesome custom widgets.
  • Bloat free codebase.
  • Post format support.

Casual – WordPress Theme

Casual is another classic design theme but like so many new themes is responsive and has some neat extra features. Casual - WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Social Sharing
  • Tumblog compatibility
  • Portfolio Section]

Xena – Online Store WordPress Theme

Want to use WordPress for your online store ? Then this could be the theme for you.Easy to set up with your products and shopping cart a good option if you want a free theme for your store.

Online Store WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • ecommerce WordPress theme
  • custom post types
  • taxonomies
  • metaboxes

Simple N’ Bright WordPress Theme

Everything you need to know about this theme is in the title.A great colorful design with a large slideshow and lots of options. Simple N' Bright WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • shortcodes
  • fully responsive
  • Blog options
  • Simple SEO
  • Footer message supported

Koresponsive – Magazine Theme

This is a magazine style theme with lost of features including a featured image slider, social icons and fixed jump break. Koresponsive - Magazine Theme

Key Features:

  • responsive design
  • theme options
  • related post with thumbnails
  • coustomizeable menu

Daily Post WordPress Theme

Daily Post is a unique professional theme.With a left sidebar hugged by social icons and large slideshow the design really stands out. Daily Post WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Nivo Slider
  • Twitter Widget
  • Tabs Widget
  • Share Buttons
  • Responsive Web Design, Mobile first
  • Post Format

Fanwood WordPress Theme

The first thing we notice about Fanwood is it’s very yellow ! But the black posting area really adds a nice contrast.The default layout is two column with a right sidebar but there are options to change the layout and features.

Fanwood WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • responsive
  • mobile friendly
  • 12 optional layouts

Next Tech – Technology WordPress Theme

Next Tech has the classic tech blog design.A three column layout with both left and right sidebars.The features include social icons and search in the header, full width slideshow and more.

Technology WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Responsive Design (mobile friendly)
  • New! Shortcodes + Shortcode Generator in the editor
  • New! WooCommerce Shopping Cart Support
  • New! 4+ Custom Page Templates

Gadgetry WordPress Theme

Another technology theme this time with the demo set up as a gadget blog.But this them could be used for any blog niche with it’s slick three column design. Gadgetry WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • responsive
  • SEO optimization
  • fuse framework

Bello – Basic WordPress Theme

Their is not too much to say about this theme we wanted to add a basic theme to the list and this is it.A three column layout that puts the focus on content. Basic WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • responsive
  • Fading background image
  • slideshow gallery posts
  • drop down menus,

Pinboard Gallery Theme

Pinboard is a great theme with the main post area in a Pinterest style.A good theme for photography or design blogs to showcase your work. Pinboard Gallery Theme

Key Features:

  • Flexible, multicolumn grid
  • Responsive Layout
  • Post Thumbnails
  • Post Formats

Caja Pinboard Style Theme

Caja is another gallery theme with a Pinterest style design.It looks fantastic and once again will be loved by Photo bloggers. Pinboard Style Theme

Key Features:

  • Powerful admin options
  • HTML 5
  • Internationalized (translation ready) –Support translations in more than one language. Spanish pack included.
  • SEO options
  • Wp menu

Simple Corp – Pro Design Theme

Simple Corp is a great theme for your business website or maybe a portfolio.A nice design with multiple content sections and very social friendly. Pro Design Theme

Key Features:

  • full documentation
  • browse compatibility
  • mobile friendly

Dezibelly Retro WordPress Theme

This is an awesome theme with a great retro design.The header has a cool featured image slider set in a classic style television.The theme has options for color and layout so you can play with the design until you get it right.

Retro WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • 20+ different boxes styles
  • unlimited layouts
  • shortcodes
  • Testimonial page

 

Velvet Sky eCommerce WordPress Theme

Velvet Sky is another eCommerce theme with enabled store.A brown color scheme with multiple product sections.This theme is also available for Prestashop users. eCommerce WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • WordPress 3.1+ compatible
  • Prestashop 1.4.2.5 compatible
  • Custom homepage
  • Horizontal menu and submenu integration

 

Best – Dynamic WordPress Theme

This is a bright and dynamic theme that once again will work well on all devices.It features a number of options for the layout with a large slider and footer columns. Dynamic WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Responsive Design
  • Layout Options
  • Shortcodes

iFeature Drag And Drop WordPress Theme

This theme comes with lost of layout options through the drag and drop feature.So you can use it to focus on your blog or as a static website. Drag And Drop WordPress Theme

Key Features:

  • Responsive iFeature slider
  • Drag & drop header elements
  • Page and blog elements
  • Intuitive theme options page
Tags:,

About Author

abbasarif

Abbas Arif is a webmaster and blogger who has a love for creativity and enjoys experimenting with various techniques in web.


Warning: Use of undefined constant rand - assumed 'rand' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /var/www/bcstatic-com/wp-content/themes/ribbon/single.php on line 35

Related Posts