Wordpress Themes You (Probably!) Haven't Seen Before

As more businesses realize the power of blogging systems, Wordpress is slowly but surely breaking out of the "personal blogging" mold. It's becoming more difficult to point out a website that runs on Wordpress, largely because of this change in the way we're viewing the blog as a publishing platform. This has made it easier for designers to get away with really astounding themes.

One of the ways that Wordpress has changed is that many websites are using Wordpress as a Magazine. Why not? It's still one of the easiest ways to publish to the web that's out there, and with a little coding (or searching) you can have a website that looks truly professional. It's dynamic. And it's easy to build on.

What all of these things mean is that personal blogging is far from past, too. The difference is that personal bloggers are taking more chances with their design choices and using the experience to build a website that truly represents them as an artist, a mother, a grandparent, a military spouse, and millions of other things.

Whether you're looking for a fresh look or just starting out with Wordpress, you have thousands of design options available. Themes make it easy to keep an always-changing look, or to cement a brand. In this guide, we're going to look at some of the best - free - Wordpress themes currently available. And they're changing the way we view blogging.

Newspaper Wordpress Theme: Grid Focus

Some really stellar work went into creating the Grid Focus theme for Wordpress. In its basic elements, it is a 3-column Wordpress theme created and distributed free of any dependance on Wordpress plugins. That alone is something very, very hard to find in our widget and plugin bloated web world.

Visually, Grid Focus is extremely easy to get around with navigation bars located at both the top and bottom of pages, and category archives are presented at the top of the page. You can't get away from the newspaper feel of this theme, either. A very clean, strong monotone theme cements the newsy look begun by the placement of columns and elements.

It's the default gray that turns so many people away from this theme. I would like to remind a potential user that any image you add into Grid Focus will stand out precisely because of the monochrome colors - there's a reason beyond cost of ink that newspapers continue to print their papers in the traditional manner, instead of making them look more like a magazine.

Read more about Grid Focus and grab your free download of this great Wordpress theme at 5ThirtyOne's website.

Magazine Wordpress Theme: Mimbo

A really stunning theme that is tons of fun to work with, I've actually used this one on a website of my own. Very much a magazine theme with a Lead Story, three Features, and a selection of the newest posts in the center.

Have I used dynamic in connection to this theme yet? No? Odd. Everything about this magazine theme for Wordpress is dynamic - all the items shown on the front page is pulled automatically. Even those fantastic looking features that almost appear static, really giving the feel of a magazine, update on their own when a new post is placed in the right category.

If there's anything that might hold you back from jumping right into downloading this theme, here it is: you will have to edit some code. However, the author (Darren Hoyt) has gone beyond the call of duty in detailing step-by-step everything that might need edited - including a bunch of things that don't have anything to do with smooth running of the theme, but were requests of users. And it's widget-ready, which is great news for those of us who want the Wordpress thing to continue going as press-and-play easy as possible.

The three links you'll want (or need) for the Mimbo Wordpress theme are these: Live Demo, Download Page, and Step-by-Step Usage Guide.

Journal Wordpress Theme: Hypereal

To be honest, I'm partial to the idea that a site should look like what it is. It just makes design sense. Who is going to view a site posting magazine-type entries on a theme that looks like a girl's journal? Well, I suppose that depends on the author ... there's probably a way of getting away with it and being super-cool at the same time.

Hypereal is an unashamed journal theme. It packs three columns, stylish gradients, icons for quick navigation, styled quotes, and a banner that would be easy to change even by someone with little graphic experience. Slap some clipart on that baby and you can make it your own.

It's really the little things that make Hypereal such a great Wordpress theme. Things like the little yellow post-it note and the search box at the very top of the page, or the fact that the side-bar of navigation icons stays in place while you scroll content. The color scheme is catchy and works great for a personal journal.

You can view a live demo of Hypereal here or hit the theme's home page here.

Portfolio Wordpress Theme: Day Dream

We're talking minimalist beauty in design when we talk about the Day Dream theme. It serves no purpose to lay out a blog like this other than one: to make your newest post the focus. Period.

In its default format, Day Dream is a pretty blue one-column theme with an oversized header perfect for showing off your work. You don't have to stay with the blue look, though. Within the admin screen for this theme, you can choose from four colors and check off some other great customization options. Seriously, a theme doesn't get more minimalistic-yet-elegant than this. Its typography is clean and easy to read, its layout is widget-ready, and it has built-in support for Asides and Gravatars. All of the messy navigation elements are tucked neatly away at the bottom of the page, keeping clutter out of the design.

View a live demo of Day Dream here or download it here.

Business Wordpress Theme: Time Manager

Business can be very cool - and this Wordpress theme proves it. 'Nuff said.

Okay, maybe not. How Time Manager pulls off a business theme in a way that screams classy and techy all at once lies in its smart color decisions and really unique layout. Simply looking at the theme would never tell a user "Oh, this is a blog." Instead, they get everything they need about a business right at their fingertips using really great icons and graphics, the color red (which urges a user to "act now"), and great navigation through the tabs right at the top of the page.

A demo of Time Manager can be found here. There is a home page for the theme at Anieto2k ... but you have to be able to speak Spanish to read it. Don't speak Spanish? No biggie - seriously - it installs easily by downloading the .zip here, unzipping the file, and uploading the folder to your themes directory. Just like any other standard Wordpress theme. All you have to do after that is activate it and you're off!