As you may know, this last year has seen the development of a new kind of wordpress themes: the magazine themes. They have shown that the famous blogging platform could be much more and compete with many other CMS thanks to its easy customizable themes.

These magazine themes were consequently much more “advanced” than simple wordpress themes. Including some Javascript, and making good use of template tags and custom fields, some wordpress designers like Darren Hoyt started to show to the world what could be done to give a bit a CMS taste to your wordpress installation…

These kinds of themes have then grown fast and of course, and soon great themes appeared like Mimbo, Revolution, The Morning After and many others that I will describe in more details in a longer article soon. But of course, such themes may need much more work than other simpler wordpress themes. It may then seem logic to ask a bit of money for it.

Premium Wordpress themes

One may wonder how much can it cost to get a hand on such designs. Hopefully some websites have already made the comparison between all these themes: ithemes is selecting some of the best Premium themes for you. You can compare the functionalities of every of them and of course the prices of such jewels… However this may not be the best solution: indeed you can already find magazine themes for free. I am of course not speaking about the many websites offering you a more or less modified Premium theme for free as you can already find on the Internet, but about new opportunities…

Free magazine wordpress themes

One of them exists for a few weeks now and has raised a polemic (we have spoken about it here), it is Brandford magazine. The problem is now over as the two main wordpress designers of Mimbo and Brandford magazine have solved the situation, and the Brandford magazine appears to be great magazine theme. Check it for yourself!

Lately a new magazine theme has been brought to public and has raised the discussion again on another level, the possible end of Premium wordpress themes. Options theme is free, and you can find most of the features you would pay for in a Premium wordpress theme.

Personally this magazine style is not my favorite but it can be customizable to fit to your needs. I strongly advise you to have a look into this options theme. It could give you new ideas and new tips about what you could do of your favorite blogging platform!