Website needs a face lift

It’s been a while now that my site has been running on the theme GreenPark. I converted this theme into a subtext skin last year and I’m not entirely sure if anyone else is using it? At the time I converted various WordPress themes into subtext skins and I’ll continue to ( All Subtext related Posts including skins ).

I know there are literally thousands of nice free WordPress themes out there through various different sites but finding a site that’s not clogged to the teeth with advertising, pop up windows with a varied wide selection is hard. There are some nice themes on the official WordPress site but to me some look dated and very limited without having to trail through endless lines of code.

Bite the bullet and write my own?

It struck me that I could look at creating my own, but where to begin? I dug around looking for informative blog posts and articles which led me to a book called “Build your own wicked WordPress theme“, so I ordered the book. Having a skim through the chapters and thinking about where I wanted my website to go I knew that it would take a while for me to write a theme.

A couple of tweets about my quest to find a nice theme and hopefully go on to and build my own led me to Theme Forest. I do plan on creating a couple of WordPress themes for my own sites and for friends. Who know’s if I convert to the dark side and learn PHP properly I may even try and sell a couple. Watch this space…..

Quick look about

The amount of quality, well written themes and site templates over on Theme Forest is immense. Lots to choose from. Varying from magazine style to portfolios, to themes that orientate around WordPress features such a post type. The list is really long. This is the hard part. Without knowing really what you’re looking for, chances of finding it straight away are very small. If you’re looking for a theme I’d brainstorm first and write down what you want the theme to accomplish for you and you’re website. How do you want represented as a person or even a company?

My Precious

Really, it’s very difficult to pick from such a vast amount of themes. Trying to put in words what I am looking for is quite hard. I do want a theme that caters for post types. But keeping that out the equation right now I have found the following 4 that caught my eye:

Advance WordPress Magazine/Community Blog Theme

This theme has a lot of potential in relation to colour schemes, widgets, and for easy customisation.

“Advance looks to offer the right tools, no gimmicks, no bloat, none of the silly stuff you won’t use. It just works, and it gets the job done. If you want a painless experience without worrying about whether you’ll even be able to set it up without a professional developer’s help, this is the theme for you.”

Check out the theme yourself.

Quickr – Responsive HTML 5 Premium Template

First off the selling point is that it’s using the latest in technologies catering for most internet enable devices.

“«Quickr» is a WordPress Premium Responsive HTML5 / CSS3 which uses the best practices of latest technologies and is compatible with all mobile devices. Quickr is suitable for wide range of websites, from personal blogs to small business and corporate websites. 6 Sliders (2 of which -responsive), Audio/Video posts, pricing tables and numerous jquery enhancements are just a small part of what the template offers.”

Check out the theme yourself.

Splaty

Like the other themes comes with a lot of customisation options, colour schemes and page templates.

If i go with this one I won’t be going for the dark grey/black scheme as I’d like some colour boldness on my site.

The screenshots over on Theme Forest also show the themes option page which is packed with goodies.

Check out the theme yourself.

U-Design WordPress Theme

“U-Design is a very powerful theme which suits both, users with no programming background as well as advanced developers. It will help you build your site in no time to your liking with minimal effort. It empowers you to set any color to elements such as backgrounds, links, text, menu links, etc. You can completely change the look and feel of your site in seconds. You can also choose from over 200 fonts, including Google Font Directory and Cufón fonts. This number will grow with time since many new fonts are being added to the Google fonts library. The theme also features 6 (six) Home page sliders for you to choose from.”

Check out the theme yourself.

Are you looking for a WordPress theme?

Before looking at a theme I’d write down what you want the theme to cater. What features, colours, layout options, then head over to Theme Forest and pick from there wide selection.