WordPress themes
Wordpress offers a powerful theming architecture that allows for powerful sites to be built upon it. In addition to an active community of developers creating some of the themes listed below there is an in depth codex of information that Wordpress provides that can serve as a starting point for either customizing these themes or creating one from scratch.
Listed below are just a few of the top choices for Premium and Free themes.
Premium themes
Numerous media-rich templates that could be used for newspapers or magazines, out-of-the-box. StudioPress requires a license for each theme which is generally around $60. Each theme comes with a substantial options page that allows for many site options to be configured from within the Wordpress Dashboard.
Some of the themes that StudioPress makes for news sites are:
- The News Theme - A slimmed down news theme that is optimized for fast page load times. Three column layout with threaded comments and more features.
- Magazine Theme - Similar to the news theme this has a different look and feel but could also be well adapted to a news site.
WooThemes produces premium themes with many design options and well-implemented custom features. Their packages range from themes for personal blogs and photography sites all the way to full featured news sites. A theme from WooThemes is part of the Managed Hosting package.
Some of the themes that WooThemes offers for news sites are:
- The Journal - A theme that mimics some of the elements of a traditional print template. Comes with 10 color schemes out of the box to use as a starting point for customization.
- Daily Edition - A theme that emphasizes large photo and typography. A javascript homepage image slider and 16 color schemes are among some of the many features.
- The Gazette - Perhaps the most popular theme for college news sites this includes thumbnail images and a featured content slider on the homepage. The theme that powers sites like The Mustang Daily and Central Michigan Life.
A solid set of themes that tend toward the artsy. Full access for only $19.95 makes these themes appealing as something to use as a starting point for your own modifications.
Free themes
In addition to the premium themes listed above there are also a significant number of free themes available for download. Many of these need some customization for a news site but they're generally good starting points.
Magazine theme by bizzArctic with clean lines and typography.
Includes video and popular posts widgets as well as a unique photo-driven layout at the top of the homepage and archive pages. Comes with multiple ad slots built in as well.
Magazine Hybrid child theme by Justin Tadlock.
This theme is meant to be a theme purely for news site. It has extra widget sections, double navigation menus, drop-down menus, a featured slider, and pretty much anything you’d need to run a complete news site. It was developed for WordPress 2.7+
Magazine theme by Michael Jubel Hutagalung.
Fairly standard layout but with clean lines and built in ad slots. Would need customization in order to personalize to a news organization's identity but is a solid starting spot for any project.
Magazine theme by Michael Oesner. Very similar to Mimbo and Revolution.
Clean typography and image thumbnails on the homepage and archive pages make it a solid foundation for a news site.
The Morning After is a magazine-style theme for WordPress created by Arun Kale. The theme was created based on a brief survey on the WordPress forums about what people would want to see in a unique magazine-style theme.
Not just simply a “theme,” Cutline is instead a platform on which developers and designers can easily build on, and which users can easily modify and manipulate to their needs.
Theme frameworks
There are also multiple frameworks for theming Wordpress. These act as more of a barebones foundation for your creating your own WordPress theme and would all require heavy customization and coding to make work but can be good starting points for learning how to code Wordpress themes. Some of the more popular frameworks are:
- Hybrid By Justin Tadlock
- Thematic By Ian Stewart
- Whiteboard By Brian Purkiss
