Comments on: Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over.

By: Ivor

Ivor — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:09:03 +0000

PS: Your intention was the best I am sure, I’m a regular reader of WPShout – sorry if I sounded a little bit harsh talking about your theme.

By: Ivor

Ivor — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:05:43 +0000

Sorry Alex but I dissagree with you. Thet theme Biblioteca just fail standing out, first of all ‘Biblioteca’ means ‘Library’ and there’s nothing about it inside the theme, the concept of the theme is just a mess, I’m sorry but someone had to tell you that

All the WordPress themes are increasing in quality – I’m talking about Free and Paid themes – is not just about a poor jQuery slider and thousands of options is about a beautiful site/blog with cool features. Just to give you an example: http://demo.wefunction.com/?wptheme=Magazeen also Css-tricks always release quality themes and those themes are really popular.

So, Free WordPress themes are alive. Is not over at all.

By: Come On Down The Tavern | WPShout.com

Come On Down The Tavern | WPShout.com — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:39:26 +0000

[...] launched their own theming careers off creating and learning from free, themes. They’re not dead after all then It was also good to hear Brian, Jason, Cory and Matt all agreeing that they all stood to [...]

By: The Best of Theme Lab in 2009 | Theme Lab

The Best of Theme Lab in 2009 | Theme Lab — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:43:16 +0000

[...] Free WordPress Themes Dead? – This post of mine was a response to a post at WPShout entitled Free WordPress Themes? Forget it. It’s Over. Basically, I disagreed that all free WordPress themes were dead, but rather lame, boring themes [...]

By: Peter Huntley

Peter Huntley — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:43:10 +0000

On thinking further, I believe that in the last 2-3 years, the number of WordPress users have increased manifold. In this state, if the theme is good, there are likely to be many WordPress sites who will use the theme. Many serious bloggers, including me, wouldn’t like that. However, I think that your theme would do well, as it looks good.

I believe that if the theme is good, it will eventually be used by many bloggers. It needs to be simple and elegant(read: super easy to install and configure) in addition to be being good looking.

By: Free WordPress (Portfolio/Personal Blog) Theme: Happy Go Try | WPShout.com

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:55:12 +0000

[...] recent discussion about the future of free WordPress themes and some criticism of the quality of said free themes, [...]

By: Alex Denning

Alex Denning — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:44:30 +0000

Hey Jean. Good to see you here

It’s true that the repository has a lot of crap on it, but that doesn’t mean all free themes are awful, not to any extent.

By: Alex Denning

Alex Denning — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Fair point. Whether SM is paying for those themes is another matter, but see your point.

By: Alex Denning

Alex Denning — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:55:59 +0000

Glad to see someone agrees with me

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:35:26 +0000

In my opinion people aren’t ignoring free themes. Well, they aren’t ignoring good free themes, and that is the main point. As mentioned in the comments above, the bar has been raised to an extremely high level. So much so, that a person looking for a theme will look for high quality themes and ignore the less than satisfactory ones.

Just look at the response Smashing magazine has with their free themes.

I’m afraid it’s the same in the big wide world. If you want to be noticed then you have to produce exceptional work. Simply shouting “look at me, look at me I can do that too, but not quite as well” no longer cuts it because of the sheer number of people doing that and the superfluous noise they are creating.