Jan
2013
30 Inspirational Free WordPress Themes Released in Late 2012
Whether you are just looking for inspiration for your next WordPress design, or if you like to use themes and customize them to your own needs, the themes that developers create and give away are perfect for both. Here we have collected some of the best new free themes released in late 2012.
Inspirational Free WordPress Themes
Asteroid
Asteroid is a simple, clean and responsive theme. It incorporates various widget areas that make management of banners and ads a lot easier, especially for ad-supported sites.
Infoist
Infoist is a nice and simple blog theme. It features muted colors and nice typography, the idea being to place all the emphasis on the content.
Toronto
A blog theme based on the city of Toronto. Featuring two columns, a fixed-width, and a custom header – this WordPress template has been tastefully and skillfully designed to reflect the sleek and refined milieu of the city.
D5 Design
Design is a super elegant and professional responsive theme. This theme has been developed with CSS3 and HTML5. Customizable background and theme options will give the WordPress driven site an attractive look. Right and footer sidebars are usable for showing the widgets. Full wide page can be used for showcasing or other pages. This theme has more than 100 options which will give you the opportunity to customize almost all the features of the theme with extra functionality.
Something Fishy
Something Fishy is an illustrated landscape theme for WordPress with parallax scrolling effects, a responsive, mobile-friendly layout, featured images, multiple widget areas, custom menu support… and a whole lotta cute. If you’re looking for a fun and playful design, this is the perfect theme for you.
Small Business
Small Business is a CMS theme for Business. Customizable background and other options will give the WordPress driven site an attractive look. Small Business is a super elegant and professional theme. The Slider will show the featured images and contents of posts automatically. Front page, right and footer Sidebars can be used for showing widgets and plugins. Full wide page can be used for showcasing or other pages.
PinBlue
Theme ideal for photo galleries and portfolio sites, with a Pinterest-style, responsive layout.
Best Theme
Best affords a wealth of flexibility and power to WordPress powered sites. Built from the ground up with valid HTML5 and utilizing the latest CSS3 techniques, Best is a forward-thinking, responsive template that is designed to last.
CleanResponse
Clean Response is a multi-purpose theme with the choice of two homepages – use for business or as a regular blog theme. Best of all, it’s Free! You can display a normal magazine/blog style layout on the homepage along with a slider, intro text or you can have a more business style homepage with features widgets (with icons). The theme is responsive and has the brilliant Flex slider built in, which is also responsive.
Demo | Free Registration Required
Leatherly
Leatherly is a free WordPress theme specifically created for those who want to benefit from the web on a brief one-page website. If you want to use the web to showcase your work and find leads and clients, Leatherly is definitely for you.
Demo | Free Registration Required
Lensa
Lensa is a full-screen WordPress gallery theme designed for those of you who are addicted to high-resolution photography. With Lensa, your visitors will be immersed in your world, seeing what you see through your camera lenses. With its dramatic full-screen background slideshow effects, Lensa functions as an exclusive online photo gallery that looks equally awesome on desktops, tablets and smartphones.
Demo | Free Registration Required
Photo Theme
Photo Theme Responsive is a WordPress Theme with mobile and tablet responsive design. Features include WordPress 3.4+ compatible, Search engine optimized, support and updates, and more.
Tyrant
Tyrant is a free WordPress theme. This is a WordPress 3+ ready theme with features like custom menu, featured images, widgetized sidebar, and customizable homepage widgets section, jQuery image slider on the custom homepage template. Theme also comes with an option panel. This theme also comes with customization option.
Demo | Download
Rasputin
Rasputin is a portfolio/agency type wordpress theme. This is a WordPress 3+ ready theme with features like custom menu, featured images, widgetized sidebar, and customizable call to action section , jQuery image slider on the custom homepage template. Theme also comes with an option panel.
Required plugin – Once the theme is installed, you will get a notification on the admin panel to install the Options Framework plugin. Install and activate the plugin.
Siren
Siren is a responsive WordPress theme. This responsive theme is built upon the responsive grid system called RWDgrid . The theme will adjust itself to fit on various display devices. The content will adjust between 1200px for widescreen desktops to 300px for mobile devices. This is a WordPress 3+ ready theme with features like custom menu, featured images, widgetized sidebar, and customizable call to action section , jQuery image slider on the custom homepage template. Theme also comes with an option panel.
SimplePhoto
SimplePhoto Responsive WordPress Theme is design for professional photographers to show and display their photography.
GamePress
GamePress is a gaming oriented WordPress theme, perfect for game reviews, videos and news or other entertainment related website. It comes in 4 color schemes and it’s easy to use and customize.
Top Notch
TopNotch is a neat new General/Blog theme. The theme comes with its own widgets, custom menus, custom backgrounds, and even a free javascript slideshow.
Darix
Darix utilises the latest technologies in WordPress including custom menus, backgrounds and featured images. This fantastic General/Blog theme boasts easy-to-use admin options and widgets.
GoMagazine
A 2-column, fixed width magazine theme, compatible with the latest WordPress versions, SEO optimized and easy to use options page.
Humix
Humix is a clean looking free WordPress theme with plenty of white space, whilst also being responsive and customizable. A sleek custom drop-down menu, with up to five social media button logos including Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Vimeo and Dribbble. A navigational “You are here” breadcrumb trail sits below the navigational bar. The slick slider sits page wide below that.
Curiosity
Curiosity is a simple, clean and elegant theme for WordPress 3.5. It is packed with an easy-to-use options panel which makes it very easy to customize the layout. It also includes a jQuery slider and carousel posts on the homepage. There are two widgetized sections in the sidebar and the footer where you can use default or custom widgets included in the theme.
Shortnotes
Shortnotes is marketed as a ‘Free Premium WordPress Theme’. Features include: responsive design, built-in pagination, widget ready, web fonts supported, and more.
Underfire
Underfire is a free WordPress theme for game and gadget related blogs. This is a stylish WordPress 3+ ready theme with features such as custom menu, featured images, widgetized sidebar, and jQuery image slider on the homepage. The theme also comes with an option panel.
Metrics
Metrics offers the beauty of a professionally designed website with the efficiency of a veteran developer. This gorgeous General/Blog site includes widgets, drop-down menus and a javascript slideshow among other features.
Gadgetry
A Free WordPress theme with a clean and modern style, best suited for blogging or small magazine style websites. Includes features such as responsive design, built-in SEO marketing, fuse framework, and more.
Demo | Download (although free, you have to go through the checkout process)
Viper
Viper is a free affiliate directory WordPress theme. This is a WordPress 3+ ready theme with features like custom menu, featured images, custom post type, custom taxonomy, and jQuery image slider on the custom homepage template. Theme also comes with an option panel.
Voyage
Voyage Theme is a flexible and responsive theme that allows you change layout and style through theme options. It is based on a modified version of the 960 grid system and Twitter Bootstrap framework. Voyage is the base theme featuring 10 widget areas and 3 menu positions. It also includes a Featured Page Template, Recent Post Summary widget, tabbed navigation widget, Integrated Social Sharing and many shortcodes.
TheNewEffect
TheNewEffect is a free 2 columns WordPress theme with Option/Admin Panel, footer columns and post thumbnail image. Suitable for tech WordPress sites.
NextMag
NextMag is a sleek News/Magazine theme that is fully compatible with the newest version of WordPress. The amazing design is matched by how much customisation NextMag offers, including its detailed .po file for easy translation.
Conclusion
Whatever your reason for downloading WordPress themes, hopefully there are some of interest to you in this selection. The Pinterest-style grid gallery is seriously trending right now, and responsive design is rapidly becoming a new standard. There is hardly a WordPress theme developed these days that does not include a slideshow or carousel, and HTML5 and CSS3 are being incorporated more and more. Free WordPress themes are perfect learning tools for all of these trends and standards.
Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.