OK, are you ready? Then let's start blogging.
With the perfect name for your blog, and your shiny new Gravatar in tow, the time has come to choose a theme. I suggest that you use these factors to help decide how-to pick a blog theme.
- Color – this will set the mood or tone at your new spot
- Layout – determines the number of columns, size of the header, placement of sidebars and widgets
- Font size – helps improve readability of your content by you're readers
- Functionality – impacts how readers navigate through your content
- Aesthetics – basically what I'm trying to say is – Do you like looking at it?
WordPress.com Themes
WordPress.com offers nearly a hundred themes and earlier this year Automattic announced the official Theme Team with the promise to:
“present as many perfect-fit WordPress themes to as many WordPress.com users as we can.”
The Theme Team is also responsible for creating the Twenty Ten default theme which is included in the core of self-hosted WordPress 3.0 (code name Thelonious). This theme focuses on many of the things I mentioned earlier including customization of layouts and improved readability. Drop down menus are also incorporated with Twenty Ten as with every other new theme introduced by the team.
I like this example of Modularity Lite because it demonstrates how a light font and a dark background can work well together in combination with the appropriate size and style of font.
The WordPress.com dashboard allows you to try-themes-on-for-size before committing to them. From the Worpress.com dashboard go to Appearance > Themes > Â Feature Filters to locate themes in the library based on: colors, columns, width and features (like custom headers and backgrounds).
Preview a few themes on your blog and I'm sure you'll find some to suit your impeccable taste. I wanted a 3 column theme for Ms. Ileane Speaks but if I change my mind, it's good to know that there are so many options to choose from and they are super easy to change out.
How about you, what do look for in a theme?
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Excellent advice. Color does set the mood of the site. I love black background for sites with vivid color photos. Puts the focus on the photography. 🙂
Hey Melinda, for a gal with old eyes like me the font has to at least 10 pt. in order for me to read on a black background. Otherwise I end up using the Readability extension for Chrome then switching back to add a comment. Thanks for your input.
I agree that choosing better color is good. It changes the mood of readers. Nice! I will keep your advice in Mind.
Added my voice of approval to the chorus on Stumbleupon. I love the look of this theme, the fonts are gorgeous, and the whole layout does very well with basics – lines, boxes, and black/white/gray.
Hi Ashok, thanks for the Stumble. I’m glad you like the theme. My buddy Ditesco suggested that I give it a try. I’m still tweaking things but I like the Magazine theme too.
Hi Ileane,
The first thing I look for is the color. I prefer a subtle color, white or slightly off-white is perfect for me. I also prefer magazine-styled themes.
For the sidebar, I would prefer wider bar near the top with two narrow bars below the wider one. 125×125 ad spots and featured gallery can be a bonus.
And after installing the theme, I check out the simplicity, ie, adding the analytics codes etc.
Sourav, it’s so much easier to pick a theme when you have a nice “wish list” like yours. Thanks for sharing it.
Great post. There are so many themes available that almost everyone can find one to meet their needs with a little customization. If you need help customizing your theme just let me know.
Arelthia, do you develop child themes? I’m sure I’ll need your advice one day soon. Thanks for the offer.
Ileane, you are welcome. One of the things I do is create child themes.
I like the font you use in this blog… its nice on the eyes and has a good balance through the entire blog with the use of subtle colors against other graphics.
I always look for themes where I can use large headers on the front page, so I picked the theme I use. I like to take advantage of that space to be able to display my designs.
Cindy you have an awesome header with the slide show view of your portfolio. You made a great choice with Thematic. Thanks for the visit.
Hi Ileane and thanks for the post!
When I try out a theme I check for:
– Do I like it? Usually, after a second I can say if I like it or not and most of the time it’s “not” so it makes the job easier .. or harder 🙂
– Once I like it – can I customize it? A good example of highly customizable theme was Mystique Theme. It’s a beautiful theme with tons of options but for some reason it stopped working for me so I switched to Choco now. Choco isn’t that powerful so I tweaked its HTML and CSS where I could.
What do I customize?
– RSS feeds. To send users to FeedBurner rather than “blog/feed”, didn’t solve this problem with Choco yet, some RSS links are correct but some are still not
– Font
– Width
Hi Evgeny, Your knowledge of CSS and HTML is a big bonus!! I’m in the process of learning how to code but it’s a very slow process….:) Using Feedburner to replace the WP blog feed is crucial and something that I will surely discuss in upcoming posts. Stay tuned. Thanks for sharing your theme wish list.
I’m sure you’re doing just fine. CSS and HTML are very easy to learn if you’re just updating something. It takes much more time to create new page from scratch.
Will be waiting for FeedBurner instructions and thanks again for the post. I’ve spent lots of time choosing theme and always ready to switch it to a better one.
Btw, will you be covering commercial themes? I’ve tried some of them but they looked horrible, as if some CSS was missing ..
Hi Evgeny, I’m not familiar with using commercial themes yet but once I do, I’m sure to blog about the experience. Stay tuned.
So far I have stumbled upon:
– http://www.studiopress.com/
– http://richwp.com/
– http://www.woothemes.com/
Collect free & commercial themes at http://delicious.com/evgenyg/wp%20themes, may be you’ll find it useful.
I had an impression that commercial themes are a bit “screaming”, they’re more about theme itself rather than the blog content. Free themes seem to be more “shy” and, therefore, the emphasis is still where it should be.
But I can be wrong here so will be waiting to read your opinion 🙂
I’m looking into Elegant Themes which is mentioned in one of your bookmarked articles. Thanks for the listings.
Elegant is developing shortcodes on all its themes. If you intend to use it, you should wait for more 1-2 weeks.
Tek3D, that’s great advice. I’m starting to get used to this Magazine Basic theme so I’ll hang on to it until I see the updates. If you think of it can you send me a tweet when it happens? Thank you.
Hey Ileane,
Nice Post.
The first thing i look for colors of the theme and functioning part.
I think magazine style theme looks good.
Thanks for sharing this great Post.
~Dev
Hi Dev, thanks for stopping by.
I am one of those people who likes when a blog is very easy to read. The text is more important to me than most other things so long as the blog doesn’t look spammy. Even then though, I have come across some blogs that overuse the large Adsense ad blocks, but still are packed full of top notch high quality content. New visitors will bounce because of the overall look of a site like that, but the smart people will realize there are hidden gems underneath.
By the way I am a fan of the Magazine Basic theme. I have used it on some money sites.
Kathy, have you ever tried the Readability extension to help you suffer through those “Overly Adsensed” sites?
Thanks for your feedback.
Hi, My difficulty is always choosing the right color for my blog. I am easily persuaded by pastel colors even if the design is not that good, your article makes sense to me and gives me an idea to choose the right theme.
Hi Ben, I like the pastel colors too, as long as they don’t make the fonts hard to read. Thank you.
Ileane, this site was made just for me.
As you know, I’m currently looking for a nice (freebie) theme so this information is helpful and timely.
Thanks, Lady.
Hey Kissie, any blog I make is just for you! 🙂
The theme’s versatility is what I first consider. I’m going to want to tweak and customize it right away to achieve a custom look. But there are tons of great looking themes available now.
I would demo maybe 4 or 5, select the best of those and move on. Otherwise you could be shopping themes for awhile. 🙂
Hi Jimi, I’m looking forward to the new themes they have coming out for WordPress.com. Yesterday they made a change to the 2010 default theme so that everyone doesn’t end up with the same header image. All of the new themes will have nested menus and some features that they test before making it part of the WordPress core.
Thanks for your input.
I am not good at design so, I rely on my designer ideas and I just provide comments and pay 🙂
I usually design my own themes. I am not the best designer in the world, but I do know what I would like in my theme. I usually try them out on my local machine before moving them to my blog.
I usually like changing my themes every few months, since I do get bored or annoyed of the theme after that time – I am very critical of my own work.
I prefer darker colours instead of lighter colours, and a simple design, rather than one full of widgets, and links all over the place.
Hey Paul, you’re good! I’m sure my readers can pick up some great CSS and HTML tips by following your blog. Some blogs have so many widgets that you get confused, can’t decide what to click and end up moving on to the next blog. 🙂
I’ve been experimenting with Canvas by WooThemes! lately, and have some experience with Thesis from DIY Themes, too. They’re both premium themes, and they give me the ability to tweak, tweak, tweak away. The problem, I find, is with so much flexibility, I find myself wanting more. I think I’m going to have to break down and learn PHP so I can do some of the things I want to do – I’m tired of waiting for theme writers to do it for me.
Hi James. I you’re doing great with your blog theme. I haven’t even looked at learning PHP yet. I’d better understand XHTML and CSS first. It’s really brave of you to take that one on. Cheers!
Font asize and so forth are done in the CSS arent they? Does the theme matter?
Also, I’m curious as to why you’re promoting WP.com?
I forgot to subscribe to commnts.
Hi Dennis, I started blogging with WordPress.com over a year ago and I’m sure that you and I first met when my primary blog was Ms. Ileane Speaks. I moved to this blog in July. Essentially I promote WordPress.com because my experience with using WordPress.com is fantastic and I highly recommend for others to use it also. WordPress.com is a one of the best blogging platforms available, especially for someone who is not familiar with CSS.
Often more experienced bloggers tend to frown upon free blogging platforms, and I’m sure they have their reasons, however I’m not in agreement with them.
Thanks for subscribing 🙂
I agree WordPress.com is a one of the best blogging platforms available, IF all you want to do is text writing, like a personal blog; correct?
They frown on, if not delete your blog, for nearly EVERY other reason, yes?
I think number 4 functionality is the most important. If people can’t find what they are looking for they will just leave and go somewhere else were they can find what they are looking for.
For me I am kind of new to blogging, but I am learning more and more each day. Basically, from people saying, “Hey Garen, your sites blog is hard to navigate.” Then I will go in and make it easier…lol.
Hi Garen, I’m the same way, it can really pay off to listen to feedback from other bloggers and your readers. My friend DragonBlogger just changed his theme and he got feedback on a test site from a few of us before he went live with the new look.
I prefer simple and clean themes but with a complex and easy navigation. I don’t like “heavy” themes with lots of pictures, banners and stuff…
Hi Ali, there’s a fine line between having too many ads and having just enough. I like the clean themes too. Thanks for sharing your feedback.
Check out the Elegant Themes as it’s one of the cheapest for WordPress user as starters. It’ll be even cheaper if you purchase it from WPWebHost.
For free themes, Automattic is definitely one of the best.. For premium themes and for those starters, you can’t go wrong with Elegant Themes.. The best price that you can have compared to other premium themes
this is a great article because I have been always confused when it comes about themes.
I already changed my theme few times. you should mention that there is some themes
are SEO friendly and optimized.
Thanks it was a great article for me.
We are having a free theme giveaway by Theme Junkie. You guys can try and perhaps someone might get lucky
Hi Ileane,
Please write about adsense integration and optimization in wordpress themes.
Thanks again for great articles.
I don’t like use WordPress. Com I like use my hosting with wordpress and select Frame Word Theme like Thesis and Genesis because it is easy to SEO on Google.
Added my voice of approval to the chorus on Stumbleupon. I love the look of this theme, the fonts are gorgeous, and the whole layout does very well with basics
With HTML5 and CSS3 already so popular, I think responsive design should top this list.
Your Blog Really Is Great and This Focus On Theme Selection Is Really A Good Point and On the other Hand Informative Too.So Thnxx Again.