The Internet is constantly changing, and any self-respecting web designer – amateur or professional alike – would rather die than to be caught managing a website that was last designed in 2007. Each year, many new web design concepts emerge and change the Internet forever. That makes a slightly old website (from, let’s say, 2011) look sorely outdated. Whether you’re a serious web designer or just someone who’s designing a website, you should keep yourself up to speed on the latest changes. Unfortunately, some free WordPress theme designers don’t do that and leave us with a plethora of outdated WordPress themes marketed as “new”.
As far as free WordPress themes go, it’s a hit-and-miss. Some free themes are stylish, modern, and immaculate while others are just downright appalling with tons of faulty coding. Sometimes it’s difficult to decipher which category a certain WordPress theme falls into. However, let us give you a little push in the right direction with our list of the 12 best WordPress themes to have been released or updated this year.
Blogs
Tetris
If you have a photo-based blog, this is the theme to get. Its super clean look helps you organize your blog posts neatly, and you can include many different media types, like text, photos, or videos. This theme showcases the mulch-column card design, which is one of the “it” designs of 2013.
Attitude
We decided to include this theme, called Attitude, solely because it’s highly customizable. The programmer made it extremely easy for the user to modify the background, header, menu, slider, widget areas, templates, and CSS. Its highly customizable nature gives you the ability to modernize it or add any nifty new features in the future.
News
Gadgetry
When you’re managing a news website, you want your articles to make it to the front page of Google, right? Well, Gadgetry will help you do that with their extensive built-in SEO feature. It also helps that the design is clean, simple, and easy on the eyes!
Online magazines
Max Magazine
As someone who has personally used this theme, I can vouch that this is a solid one. It comes with many easy-to-use options and you can add as many widgets as you want to the sidebar without it messing up the layout. After tweaking it a bit, you can make your website look original and top-notch.
Xin Magazine
If you want to add color to your magazine, Xin is the theme to use. It’s relatively new, but it looks solid. It comes with support and an easy-to-use drag-and-drop admin panel.
Business websites
Discover
The Discover theme is as neat as a business website could get. It clearly showcases the business name, the latest news/products (in a slider), and any other type of information you wish to put in the box headings.
Customizr
Like its name implies, Customizr is a very customizable WordPress theme. While its default look is already clean and minimal, you can tweak it to your preferences by changing the skin, logo, layout, slider options, and home featured blocks.
Photography portfolios
Snapshot
The Snapshot theme is specifically built for showcasing your photos. All you need to do is to set up the website with your information and then start adding your photos. This theme makes it extremely easy to create a photography portfolio!
Spun
The one-page layout is very big this year. That’s why this WordPress theme, called Spun, looks delightfully modern. It focuses solely on your content, and nothing else.
Minimatica
This year, the minimal look is all the rage among web designers. This free WordPress theme, called Minimatica, boasts probably the most minimal design a portfolio could get.
News Channel
This theme, called Newschannel, is a great one to use when you have a photography portfolio you want to constantly update. Once you add a new picture, it automatically gets added to the collection of photos on the front page.
Do you have a favorite 2013 WordPress theme you’d like to share with us?
About Author: This guest post was written by Simon, owner of Simon’s Online Marketing Agency, an online marketing agency specializing in providing online marketing and link building services to clients in difficult niches.
About Author
Founder
David Watson is the founder of DesignDrizzle and is a professional website designer for over 10 years. He has competence in creating visually appealing and user-friendly websites for all the clients. He likes to explore new and creative ideas for designing, photography effects and other inspirational subjects
GREAT Collection !! Now there are many more upgraded themes and templates in 2014 . You can explore and try out the latest ones in http://www.wptemplate.com/.
Gadgetry is looking great.