![]() ![]() If you have a good design sense I think you can go far with it. You can rely on its quality based on their other products. PootlePress also offers a free plugin with some additional Gutenberg blocks, called Caxton, but that’s not required.ġ8tags offers an impressive selection of options for a free theme. 2 1.4 width columns and a 1/2 width column). You can choose up to 4 columns, which may be equal width, or you can select from some presets that have varying width (e.g. Google Fonts are built in and you can select them for the headings, body text, site title, tagline and navigation. You have control over the header and background colors as well as buttons, links, texts, each aspect of the navigation menu (text, background etc). For single posts you have 3 different layouts to choose from, including a pretty cool full-width image with the text laid over the top. There’s a also a choice of columns so that you can arrange the posts in a grid layout. You can also activate a “header bar” which allows you to place widgets in an area above your logo/navigation.įor your blog homepage you can choose a thumbnail featured image to the left or right, or the image above the post. There are 2 navigation areas, one at the very top of the page in addition to the primary navigation. These kinds of details are pretty unique to find in a free theme. There’s even the option of a vertical menu on the left of your page, for something a bit more unique.įor the navigation itself, there are some nice touches, like a choice of animations for the drop-down menus and an easy way to create mega menus. The header area is very customizable, allowing multiple options over the placement of your logo and navigation. There is also a Page Customizer option which allows you to further control specific pages by applying different backgrounds, headers, footers, sidebars, or hiding any of these elements. And you can choose whether or not to show the sidebar on your blog archive page, single posts and pages. You have few standard options here -boxed or full-width, no sidebar, left/right sidebar. ![]() Or you can just use the extensive option set to customize your site. Design-wise, I would say that Astra and Neve have nicer looking pre-built templates, but with the variety of options available in 18tags, you can tweak to your heart’s content. There are a couple of free skins you can import as a starting point, and more available in the Pro version. This free theme is designed to give you a lot of control over almost every element on the page and it is pretty impressive! PootlePress is also the developer of the WooBuilder blocks plugin and numerous other WordPress plugins. Honorable mention: Mission News by Compete Themes 18tags by PootlePress. ![]() The themes I’ll be looking at are: GeneratePress, Astra, Blocksy, 18 Tags by PootlePress, Neve by Theme Isle, Make by Theme Foundry and Evolve by Theme4Press. But these themes are free, so you can try them for yourself at no risk! I’ve tried to point out the features that are useful and/or unique, but that doesn’t mean I’ve included every possibility. I’m not saying they will do anything and everything you want, but for free, they are pretty extensive. Needless to say, people like free themes and they also like flexibility. The power of themes seems to be tending toward the set of blocks and pre-made layouts they can provide. The theme landscape is evolving, and at this particular moment, it’s still figuring out what it’s going to become. It’s still being improved but it’s already a very powerful tool, giving site owners a lot more control in laying out their pages. Now, as I write the update, Gutenberg is in full force. If you are not an actual designer, then there are many downfalls to this approach. But, nowadays users want to be able to control every aspect of their site’s look and feel – basically design their site themselves, without doing any code. You used a theme because you didn’t have the design and/or coding skill to create your own. A few years ago, a theme used to simply be a pre-made design that you could apply to your site – an overall look and feel, not a “website in a box”. I must start with a caveat – I don’t believe any one theme should be all things to all users. Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share on Pocket Share on Email ![]()
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