Weird and Unique Free Wordpress Themes
January 5th, 2009 | Published in WP Themes | 1 Comment
17 weird and wonderful themes, all of them unique in some way. Some of them are clones of popular sites like Facebook – others look like their designer has been sniffing the liquid paper. If you want blogs that don’t look like everyone else’s, or often look for a new ways to present information – say a transparent foreground, posts traveling horizontally rather than vertically – or a unique way of popping up information to your audience, this is a resource to keep handy.
1. Launchpad
If you want a “site under construction” page – this is a great alternative. Instead of a static message (you can just have that with a bit of commenting out and deleting of image files) this has even more.
Launchpad has a sign up box for readers to get a RSS or email alert, telling them when the new website will be ready. And there’s no need to change the design much – as it will disappear when the new one is online. How handy is that?
Demo • Download • Designer’s Website
2. WP CODA
WP CODA is one of the most stunning – and truth be told frustrating – Wordpress themes ever. Check out the demo, if even just to see how far Wordpress theme design has got in recent years. The whole content slides across in a beautiful fluid motion quite unlike most sites out there.
The frustrating part comes when you try to download and use it – downloading takes an inordinately long time as you sign up, wait for email confirmation, get passwords, and the like. I’m all for people protecting and making some money from what they do, but this is seems like an awkward solution to the problem. The customization is also really difficult – changing the image files or trying to add posts (no page option). But – well worth it for some people who want to leave it as it is, and wow people with their expensive looking website.
Demo • Download • Designer’s Website
3. Cubist 1.0
I haven’t found a use for this theme yet – but I know there’s one waiting. It’d be a nice one to modify and to try out different colors with. The nice theme with this one is as you hover over each different text area, the whole square lights up – making for a unique, flash like theme.
4. Ubian Nation
Ok, this is not a download, but I mention it because it is a pretty amazing example of a unique Wordpress theme. Someone is going to take this idea and run with it pretty soon – if they haven’t already. I only knew about it and the fact that it’s WP as the owner posted a question on a forum.
Basically this site reads like a book or magazine – with one single page intro, then whole pages that open up in a double format way. The whole thing could be toned down an inch for my taste, but the result blows me away.
I’m not sure I read the content or just oggle at how it works – which is one drawback!
5. Takimata
A real gem, but not for everybody or every project, that’s for sure. One of the most experimental and unique designed free Wordpress themes I have come across, this theme opens up like a graphic design convention’s lunch menu. Beautiful work, and here’s hoping it inspires more experimentation in this and many other directions.
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6. Facebook Theme
I can’ think of a situation where you’d want to make a site that looks like Facebook, but it’s nice to think you could if you needed to. Here’s a pretty good Facebook clone, if you find yourself ever down that particular road!
7. Revolution-X Transparent Background
Ok, the screenshot and dramatic design isn’t for my type of projects, it might be for yours. But this is a great and rare example of a transparent wordpress theme, and I’ve ended up using this for the bare bones for many of my sites.
If you replace the background image for any image of your choice, and strip away every other image in the download folder, you’ll have a great, transparent theme, useful for almost any project. What you’ll have is your image, with floating text all over the top of it. Change the fonts, colors and remove the borders for best results.
If anyone wants any more information, let me know, and I’ll post some examples and a tutorial for you. But do try it out for yourself, it makes for a great, professional looking theme!
Test Run • Download • Designer’s Website
8. Open Air
Another transparent theme with a unique ‘action’ – as you scroll the posts go up to heaven, leaving the image at the background – your horizon, if you will – stay in the same place.
If you don’t like the artwork you could strip this back to basics and have some fun with this one!
9. Strange Little Town
A third ‘transparent’ theme – ok, I’m not getting obsessed – this time with a pretty/ folksy pink starlit background. I’m wondering if and when someone is going to come up with a nice, minimal transparent theme? Anyway, no one is forcing you to use the background, and it might just suit a project – you know – for kids.
10. Compact
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11. BlackBox
Another one I know there’s a person just waiting for – this is a really bold design with a black half for navigation, and a white half for content. Or you might swap them around with a bit of swapping of numbers in the style sheet. I can see a band information or any other slightly edgy project taking to it like a duck to water…
Test Drive • Download • Designer’s Website
12. Motion
A nice alternative – this theme has little bars that open up to reveal content – sort of like a toast coming out of a toaster.
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Demo • Download at the Designer’s Website
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13. Natural Power
Ok, not your usual theme. You might have your own idea what it’s useful for. For my money, I find the rounded curves, flip out sidebar, and groovy logo-like text area great for making video featuring sites. There’s something about the interface which is great for saying “watch me”! The grey background is quite lovely, but I think it works better with a plain background you can set up just by changing the numbers in the stylesheet.css (and renaming the background file that comes with it). Let us know if you use this theme for any of your sites
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14. Stripped
A stripped down Wordpress theme with a unique, typography focused theme that wins my eternal admiration for experimentation and creativity. One of the best designed themes out there, it has a completely unique navigation that I enjoy (although sometimes I forward my domains so that viewers land on a single post page, rather than the home page, to save time).
If you have a project that you want the look of stripped, but with a more conventional sidebar, WordpressTheme.me has made a hack that gives you this option. Basically, download a very Stripped-like theme (Estranged), and then add in our Stripped-like fonts, colors and sizes. You can get the hack here.
Test Run • Download • Designer’s Website
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15. Plain Box Theme
One of the most interesting and unique themes out there, this theme wouldn’t download last time I tried it – but it probably has been fixed since. It has great potential for a very unique site, and hopefully the file will be repaired by the author soon.
The theme has some very unique visual thumbnails on the front page, and then opens into a very visual-dominated, delux opening spread. Personally I would remove some of the extra elements on the front page, but you may have uses for them. Tell us how you go.
Test Run • Download • Designer’s Website
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16. Make Your Very Own Theme Generator
If you still can’t find something unique – why not make your own, with this theme generator online wizard. Type in the variables you want (one sidebar, two sidebars, etc.), fonts, colors and images, and the Wordpress Theme Generator will convert it all into a downloadable, zipped file you can use like any other free theme. Let us know of your experiences trying this software.
Try out the Wordpress Theme Generator for yourself here.
17. StudioPress
Ok, so this isn’t super unique, but I didn’t know where else to put it, so it’s in the “miscellaneous” category here. It’s an elegant theme well worth keeping a tabs on for its extended header – great for highlighting a photo that really sets the scene for your site’s content.
There is another version out there with the (white here) content box black, so the content seems to ‘float’. It’s something you can easily change yourself in the style.css, otherwise Google “StudioPress Black” and the theme’s designer, Danny Archer.
If you want to make your own header, simply fade the bottom of the image to black in Photoshop using the gradient tool and replace the file. If you want to use the same font that the “StudioPress” uses, it’s called Scriptina.
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This section is growing by the week, make sure to come back soon.
Coming soon: Leopress for mac lovers.
Broken link? Do you know of more unique themes? Comments? Leave them here
October 5th, 2009at 5:33 am(#)
What a great mix of themes! I shall have to setup wordpress-mu just so I can run them all at once! (still using Blogger for http://nevynsblog.co.uk at the minute but I think it will be worth the effort in the end!)