Top 10 Free WordPress Themes

The WordPress community is big. Really big. We're talking thousands of designers and developers, tens of thousands of writers, and millions of users, all contributing to pushing WordPress forward. And one very popular way to do this is designing and developing free themes.

Free themes are a great way to get a blog or website off the ground. You might want to start writing about a topic but don't want to invest the money in a custom site design on top of hosting and a domain. And once your site is up and running, there's nothing to stop you dissecting them, building on top of them and learning from them. In this article we've selected 10 of the very best WordPress themes for you to use in your projects. Each is not only free to use and open to the public but also offers something special and unique.

01. vFlex

• Download and demo: vibethemes.com/vflex-free-responsive
• Category: Blog, portfolio
• Responsive: Yes

Designed specially with bloggers and designers in mind, vFlex is a stylish, free, responsive WordPress theme. Its main features include an inbuilt FlexSlider so you can simply select featured images and an integrated VibeOptions panel, which supports logo upload, import and export settings and many other features. vFlex's responsive layout also means the theme looks great on iPad, iPhones, and other devices.

02. Yaminth

• Download: azmind.com/2012/03/04/free-wordpress-theme-yaminth/
• Category: Portfolio, photography
• Responsive: No

There's no shortage of modern and minimal WordPress themes available online. But YAMINTH (Yet Another Minimal Theme) and its unusual image layout caught our eye. The free theme comes with light colors, dark footer, Google Web Fonts and jQuery fade in, fade out of images. It also has an options page for easy customisation and is free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

03. Spectacular

• Download and demo: www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/10/free-html-4-01-html5-wordpress-theme-spectacular
• Category: Blog, website
• Responsive: No

The aptly named Spectacular theme is really well designed and laid out. The colours are subtle but really help the visitor navigate the site. While this free WordPress theme does appear to be very blog-centric it would be easy enough to convert this to a small business, event or product website. Make sure that the logo or featured graphic at the top is designed to fit the theme. A black and lime green race car logo will not do this theme justice.

04. _ARCHITEKT

• Download and demo: www.dessign.net/architekt-theme
• Category: Website, blog, portfolio
• Responsive: Yes

At first glance, I couldn't tell if I really liked this free WordPress theme  or just the stunning photos. Sometimes if your content (especially photos) isn't as nice as what's in the demo, you can lose the effect you wanted in the first place. However, after getting to know Architekt a bit more I realised it was the layout and minimalistic approach to the design that made the content stand out so well. This is a really nicely designed and well thought-out responsive theme that will work for you.

05. Grid

• Download and demo: www.dessign.net/grid-theme-responsive
• Category: Portfolio
• Responsive: Yes

Grid gives you the feeling you're on a site that's had a lot of thought put into its design. This free WordPress theme would work really well for a portfolio, artist or event site. It's very graphic or photo heavy so make sure you have the content to back it up. One plus is that this theme maintains its responsiveness quite well.

06. Workality

• Download and demo: http://www.workality.ca/themes/workality
• Category: Agencies, portfolio
• Responsive: Yes

Workality is a responsive WordPress theme that provides a powerful way to showcase your work. Your images, videos, and text will all scale down precisely for iPad, iPhone, and all mobile devices. It's also compatible with all major browsers. Workality offers four different thumbnail sizes for your portfolio layout, small, medium, large, and portrait.

07. Folder

• Download: luiszuno.com/blog/downloads/folder-wordpress-theme/
• Category: Portfolio, website
• Responsive: Yes

Folder is a free WordPress theme with a slight retro feel to it. With a design dominated by images, this responsive theme is perfect for displaying projects and products. Features include custom project posts and admin panel, five different widgets included (video, latest work, contact form, twitter feed, recent posts), and more.

08. Origin

• Download and demo: http://inspectelement.com/wordpress-themes
• Category: Blog, website
• Responsive: Yes

Origin is a premium, fully responsive WordPress blog theme with a minimal, clean design that allows visitors to focus on content. Origin lite is the only free version of this theme, which features a fixed two-column layout, responsive gallery and custom widgets for categories and social media networks.

09. Clean Retina

• Download and demo: http://themehorse.com/preview/clean-retina/
• Category: Blog, website
• Responsive: Yes

Clean Retina delivers exactly what it says on the tin. The theme is simple, clean, responsive and retina-ready. There is a selection of nine homepage layout options, as well as a large homepage slider with space for supporting text. This theme would work nicely for bloggers or small business owners.

10. Shuttershot

• Download and Demo: www.web2feel.com/shuttershot
• Category: Photography, website
• Responsive: No

Shuttershot is another free WordPress theme that lets the content speak for itself. If you have less than stellar photographs or graphics you may want to use a different theme. Allocating the entire homepage to a single image will pressure you to highlight your best work. Make sure your content can support this really well made theme before you move forward with it.