Choosing the Best WordPress Template

I have a WordPress blog. Before I started it, I vowed I would never create a blog. Most of the free blogging websites looked too shoddy and thrown together for my taste. To start a blog, I needed to find a site that offered professional designs and layouts. Even though I know enough about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to apply my own design choices, with a full-time job, a newly rejuvenated writing and freelancing side career, and a thesis I need to finish, the last additional project I felt like taking on was designing my own web design for a blog.

After looking over many of the popular blogging sites and asking for recommendations from family and friends, I decided to start my blog on WordPress. Actually, if you read my first post, you'll learn why WordPress was really the only option for me.

WordPress offers many easy-to-use tools along with professional, yet fun-looking design templates. Many designers create these templates and offer them for free to the masses. While there are WordPress design templates offered in a variety of places, my focus in this article is on 20 of the top design templates offered on the WordPress site itself.

Before you start a blog, or if you are looking for a change, you should consider your professional and/or personal goals for the site. By considering the overall goals of the site, you will be able to choose the best design template(s) for you.

A few things to consider when you choose a theme:

1. What kind of content will you post? Are you trying to create a professional site, such as a portfolio of your work? Are you planning just to post your daily rants? Or, will your site be a combination of professional and personal writing? This is important to consider, because you will need to choose an appropriate design template that reaches your audience effectively. If you want to share your site with potential employers, you probably should not select a template with semi-nude women. Unless that's part of your profession, in which case, I'm not sure what to tell you.
2. If your site will focus on personal writing, will it be artistic? Silly? Just for fun? What message do you want your design template to convey? First impressions mean a lot. What do you think the readers' (we're hoping you have more than one) first impressions will be? What do you want their first impressions to be? If the site is just for fun, will you continuously change your design template around? Or, will it be important to your readers for you to have a recognizable theme? Will they expect to read from left to right, top to bottom? If so, find a template that accommodates this expectation and ease of use.
3. Do you want a one-, two-, three-, or four-column layout? If you are going to create multiple posts, the one-column design can be frustrating for your readers, because it creates lengthy, scrolling pages. If you want clear categories and places for widgets, you may want the two-, three-, or four-column design.
4. What designs and styles do you like? Do you like black backgrounds? If so, is the font color light enough to create enough contrast? If not, choose something else. You don't want to strain your readers' eyes - if you do that too much, they won't come back.
5. Do you know enough about CSS to make changes if you want to? If you do, then the recommendations I make below may not be necessary for you. If you can easily make changes to a design and you want to, your options are limitless.

So, the following are 20 of my favorite, current WordPress design templates. The reasons I like each template vary from looking the most professional to being the most fun. These templates come straight from the WordPress site itself. As stated above, there are many other places that offer WordPress design templates; however, with some sites, you may have to follow specific usage guidelines. Once you have created your WordPress blog, you can click on the "Design" link to check out the available templates.

1. Calming: Ambiru (1 column)
The banner, which is customizable, starts off in a muted green shade with futuristic lines and spots. The look is centered, meaning the actual content is set in the middle of the screen with large grey borders on the left and right sides.

2. Side Headings: ChaosTheory (1 column)
With the headings next to the text on the left-hand side, this is a unique design. Also, the black background makes the design more dramatic. The sky blue and white fonts stand out against the black background, making the text easy to read.

3. Inspiring: MistyLook by Sadish (2 columns)
This is the design template I use on my WordPress blog, so of course I'm going to list it as a favorite. MistyLook is a two-column design with a white background and a top banner with trees, a bridge, a lake, and autumn leaves. It is a peaceful and inviting look that works well for professional and/or personal blogs. The fonts are easy to read, and the site is easy on the eyes. With two-columns, it makes it easy to create useful categories for organizing your posts.

4. Simple: Benevolence (2 columns)
This design has a simple font, is easy to read, and has an element of fun with the grass- and sky-filled banner. If your blog posts focus on the end of the world or death and destruction, this design is probably too peaceful and friendly for you; however, that is what I like about the design.

5. Artsy: Chaotic Soul (2 columns)
This template has an artistic feel with the black background; however, it is still easy to read, so it would not strain your readers' eyes. While the background is black, the banner is colorful in greens and blues. Studies have shown that muted shades of greens and blues are the easiest for people to look at on the screen over extended periods of time. This design would be good for a dramatic professional portfolio or as a unique personal site.

6. Standard: Blix (2 columns)
Blix looks like a basic professional web design or writing portfolio site. The simple boxy design creates a strong structure and layout that is easy to navigate. The colors are a little too Easter egg pastel for me, but that is easy to fix.

7. Innovative: Connections (2 columns)
The banner is a tunnel with a car driving through with its headlights on. The car looks like it could drive right off the page and in to your living room. It is unique and reminds me of traveling, even to a mundane location like the office. It also makes me think of a movie scene. This template would work well with a travel or creative writing blog.

8. Journalistic: Cutline (2 columns)
Instead of the word "Home," this one has "Front Page" to indicate the most important and most recent posts. This is a good template for journalists as it is streamlined and has the feel of current event reporting.

9. Stylish: Dusk (2 columns)
This design is pretty and unique, but still easy to read. The dark, dusk blue and black tones make it kind of mysterious and mystical. This one has more design elements around the main page and it could come across as being more feminine. This design pops. It would be hard not to take notice to a site with this design.

10. Modern: Green Marineé (2 columns)
This has a white background behind the text with black and lime green banner and accent elements. It is very modern looking and could work for a professional or personal blog. The lines are clean and the layout is very sharp and organized.

11. Vintage: Jentri (2 columns)
Red is my favorite color, but when it comes to screen designs, red is one of the most difficult colors to stare at for long periods of time. That being considered, Jentri is designed well because there is a dark shade of red (instead of bright) and the red is used on the right border of the page instead of as the background behind the text. The red border's pattern looks kind of like wallpaper. It is a striking and cool design that could work well for a professional or personal blog.

12. Default: Kubrik (2 columns)
This design is the default for WordPress blogs. If you want the least amount of decisions possible, just leave this one up. It is simple, easy to read, organized well, and easy to navigate. This can be used for professional or personal sites.

13. Old-Fashioned: Quentin (2 columns)
This theme has an old-fashioned charm. It would look best with arts and crafts information or personal tips. The red and beige coloring looks nice and the design makes it easy to read and navigate.

14. Nighttime: Regulus (2 columns)
If you like the mystical look of the night, full of the stars, moon, and dark blue, this is a good design choice. It is fun and pretty. To offset the dark shades of blue, a marigold shade is used on some graphical elements, such as the button indicating which page you are currently viewing.

15. Cool: Rounded (2 columns)
This is a unique design with a brown background, green and blue accent colors, and flowers. I think this design would look neat with scrapbooking tips, recipes, really anything crafty. It is fun and stylish and would certainly get noticed.

16. Classic: Silver is the New Black (2 columns)
A white background with design elements in grey and text in dark red. This is a simple design with clean lines and rounded corners. This design would be great for creating a clean, well organized, simple, and professional portfolio.

17. Retro: Sunburn (2 columns)
This style is cool. The background is black and grey; the accent colors are orange, red, and yellow. It is psychedelic and fun, but still readable and professional looking. A cool feature is the calendar element next to each post that lists the day it was added.

18. Christmas: Vermilion Christmas (2 columns)
This layout would be strange throughout most of the year, but from November to January, it could be really cute. It has the vibrant green and red Christmas colors with some trees in the banner. Even the bullet points look like little Christmas ornaments.

19. Sleek: Andreas09 (3 columns)
This three-column design offers even more organizational options as you can create categories and navigation in multiple areas. It is another clean and simple design with a blue banner. It is easy to read and easy to customize the colors on the banners and sidebars.

20. Funky: Fjords04 (4 columns)
This layout is really cool. With the four-column design, you have a lot of control. You can create useful categories for your posts and pages and navigation features. The banner, with a lovely sand-filled beach, water, and rocks, is broken in to four pieces that correlate with the division of the four columns. This design is not only pretty and inviting, but highly functional. The only problem is that it makes me want to go on vacation.

If you do some searching on WordPress yourself, you will see many more templates than those I chose. Some of them may be more suitable to your tastes; however, the reasons I chose these 20 were because the colors were not too bright, the design elements did not become the focus, the color palettes worked well together, and the text was easy to read.