One of the primary reasons that WordPress is the platform of choice for most bloggers is the incredible variety of themes that are available for its users. With thousands of existing free and premium themes to choose from (and plenty of designers willing to create custom themes), there is no need to settle for a one-size-fits-all solution.
There are a growing number of specialty WordPress themes available that have been designed for specific industries or for specific types of websites. These specialty themes in combination with the CMS capabilities of WordPress provide businesses, website owners, and bloggers new and improved opportunities to quickly and easily build and manage an effective website with substantially lower costs than just about any other option.
As WordPress continues to become a more popular choice for content management and users become more familiar with all of the possibilities, I believe specialty themes will only become even more common and higher quality.
In this post I’d like to take a look at 20 specialty WordPress themes that can help users to accomplish a very specific purpose with their website or blog. Some of these themes are free and others are premium. In many cases, you will still need a bit of customization to suit your needs and to help your site stand out a bit, but these themes give you a great foundation.
SPORTS THEMES
Revolution Sports Theme - Brian Gardner is one of the most well-known WordPress theme designers, and rightfully so. His Revolution line of premium themes includes one that is specially designed for sports-related content. The single-use license for this theme costs $79.95.
Template Xtreme - If you want a theme for any sports team, they will create one for you for $30.
Sk4t3 - This free theme features a grunge-style design that is intended for skateboarding and other extreme sports.
REAL ESTATE THEMES
Cory Miller’s Premium Real Estate Theme - Real estate agents can show off their listings with this premium theme for $59.95.
Real Estate Appraisal Theme - This free theme is intended for the industry of real estate appraisal.
MICROBLOGGING THEME
Prologue - This free theme was recently released from the people at Automattic. It is ideal for a group of people who need to be able to communicate brief messages while working in various locations.
NEWS AND MAGAZINE THEMES
Revolution News - Another piece of Brian Gardner’s Revolution line, the news theme is flexible enough to use for just about any type of news site. A single-use license costs $79.95.
Morning After - This free theme is attractive and has plenty of features for a magazine or news-style website.
Premium News - Another premium option for news sites, a single-use license for this theme will cost $99.95.
Mimbo - Darren Hoyt offers Mimbo, a clean, basic magazine theme that allows users to apply their own customizations. Darren will soon be releasing a premium version that is more styled. More importantly, the theme gets its name from Seinfeld, so you know it has to be good.
WP Magazine Theme - This premium theme is currently selling for$79 for a single-use license.
Branford Magazine Theme - Another quality option for free magazine themes, Branford features a clean and attractive look.
CHURCH THEME
Delta - This free theme is the only decent-looking church theme that I could find (not counting a Revolution rip-off that charges more than double the price of Revolution).
PHOTOBLOG THEMES
Neshita - A free theme that allows the emphasis to stay on the photos.
Nautilus - Another simple and free option for photoblogs.
PhotoPress - A free photoblog theme from Performancing.
Photo Blog - A dark theme, free theme.
CAR THEME
Ferrari Theme - This free theme shows that specialty themes exist for just about anything you could possibly want.
CSS GALLERY THEMES
Showcase - If you are interested in starting your own CSS gallery, this premium theme offers 8 different layouts and 5 different color schemes. A single-use license costs $70.
CSS Gallery Theme - This free theme is another option for starting a CSS Gallery.
46 comments from readers
1 Goal Setting College Feb 11, 2008 at 7:03 pm
These are some marvellous selections. I particularly liked BrandfordMagazine. If I hadn’t bought mine already, I’ll definitely go for that theme. Especially since it’s free!
Thanks Steven.
Cheers,
Ellesse
2 5 notas rapidas sobre recursos | frogx.three Feb 11, 2008 at 7:11 pm
[…] 4.- 20 themes para Wordpress de Tematicas Especiales […]
3 Vandelay Design Feb 11, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Ellesse,
I think your theme looks great as it is. Revolution is never a bad choice. And thanks for the stumble.
4 Dwayne Charrington Feb 11, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Thanks for the themes. You highlighted my choices for using wordpress as my blogging platform. The ability to download a lot of great quality themes and plugins.
I was going to code a blogging engine from scratch but what’s the point when you have Wordpress which gets the job done nicely?
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://www.dwaynecharrington.com
5 Aurelius Tjin Feb 11, 2008 at 11:11 pm
The themes are very well done. Thanks for sharing all these. I have bookmarked your site.
6 ma7moud Feb 12, 2008 at 12:54 am
very Well
but i look for a job board theme
7 Freelance Writing Feb 12, 2008 at 2:44 am
While looking for a new theme to use on my personal branded site I came across the Branford theme myself. I love it and I reckon it will look just neat to showcase myself to potential clients.
Besides, I can only vouch the highest for Brian Gardener’s themes as I’m using the Magazine one myself.
Monika
8 James Chartrand - Men with Pens Feb 12, 2008 at 3:51 am
We used Brian’s Revolution Magazine theme for our new site at Men with Pens, and we’ve had some rave reviews on it. Customizing it to our tastes was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had.
Plus, we did a rockin’ job
9 David Airey Feb 12, 2008 at 4:11 am
Excellent selection, Steven. Bookmarked and all the rest of it.
10 Tomash Feb 12, 2008 at 5:06 am
Thank you so much! My old theme was getting … well, old and You just provided me with the change I needed. The Morning After theme really caught my eye.
11 wpjoy Feb 12, 2008 at 9:21 am
new Premium but FREE Real Estate them on wpjoy.com
12 Vandelay Design Feb 12, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Dwayne,
I agree. Building a blog from scratch isn’t really worth the time, and you’ll have plenty of options with WP.
ma7moud,
I’m not aware of any job board themes, but there may be one out there.
Monika,
I agree. Branford is a nice theme and so are Brian’s.
James,
Your theme looks really good.
13 links for 2008-02-13 | The Straight Pitch Feb 12, 2008 at 5:21 pm
[…] 20 Specialty WordPress Themes (tags: Wordpress theme design webdesign) […]
14 Matthew Griffin Feb 12, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Wow! Impressive list, Steven. I’ll definitely be bookmarking it.
15 Vandelay Design Feb 12, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Thanks Matt.
16 Jon - FreelanceFolder Feb 12, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Hey Steven, nice finds
I’ve been playing around with the Prologue theme, and it’s pretty cool, might use it (or something similar) on FF eventually.
17 Tom Beaton Feb 13, 2008 at 6:49 am
Some really great usable themes there! Thanks for pointing them all out.
18 Vandelay Design Feb 13, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Hey Jon,
I thought about using the Prologue theme here to try to add a community feature. At the moment it’s not going to happen, but I think it could be cool on FF.
19 Moucki Feb 14, 2008 at 1:25 am
Vandelay, I always think that YOUR blog theme looks great ! Every time I come here to read your posts my eyes thank my brain for having chosen your blog.
I assume you created it ?
20 Ruchir Chawdhry Feb 14, 2008 at 10:22 am
I really like Revolution and the sports theme. Brian Gardner really rules. Hey Steven, why not come up with a list of the best magazine type themes?
21 Vandelay Design Feb 14, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Mouki,
Thanks for the compliment. Yes, the theme is customized from the default Kubrick theme.
Ruchir,
I have thought about that. Maybe it will happen. Thanks for the suggestion.
22 socialcmsbuzz.com Feb 16, 2008 at 7:22 am
20 Specialty WordPress Themes…
One of the primary reasons that WordPress is the platform of choice for most bloggers is the incredible variety of themes that are available for its users. With thousands of existing free and premium themes to choose from (and plenty of designers willi…
23 moneyblog » 20 Specialty WordPress Themes Feb 16, 2008 at 8:53 am
[…] Source from: Vandelay Design […]
24 JONxBLAZE Feb 19, 2008 at 3:13 pm
These are well designed themes, check out my blog to see my custom made WordPress Theme.
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31 Illinois bowling alley Mar 10, 2008 at 8:30 pm
love the ferrari theme
32 reg gordon Mar 12, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Revolution Sports Theme is as it says ‘insanely customizeable’ (but spelt proper) Im hacking mine up as we speak
http://www.thedailypunt.com
33 Dead Teddybears.com » Blog Archive » 20 Specialty WordPress Themes Apr 10, 2008 at 12:43 pm
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36 Abhishek Apr 30, 2008 at 8:51 am
Hi! thanks for providing these layouts they are really attractive. After watching these blogs I feel like having different blogs and use each of these layouts in them. I think blogs are a good way to enhance your web marketing skills as you can experiment with colors,layouts etc. Blog does improve your creativity and i enjoy blogging.
37 Rajesh Roy May 1, 2008 at 8:14 am
Hi! Thanks for providing such a attractive list of themes. Having a eye catchy layout does help your business do well.
38 NETTUTS - Web development tutorials and links - Which CSS Grid Framework Should You Use for Web Design? May 21, 2008 at 7:52 am
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40 Eric Jun 19, 2008 at 3:16 am
Theme for photography
http://jericosystems.com/2008/06/09/cloudscape-wordpress-theme/
41 mercurythread Jun 19, 2008 at 5:09 am
Cheers for listing the gallery themes. I’ve been searching through Google for these and the two you’ve listed look like they could be just the ticket. I am leaning towards the CSS Gallery theme just now but will keep looking to see if I can find one even better.
42 Vandelay Design Jun 19, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Eric,
Thanks for the additional link.
Mercury,
I’ve toyed around with the gallery theme a little bit and it’s pretty cool. It’s a fairly bare bones look, which is nice if you want to customize it a bit.
43 Effendy lie Jul 1, 2008 at 6:52 am
Thanks for this great resources, bookmarked your site! Well-done!
44 OYUNKES Jul 8, 2008 at 7:09 am
The themes are very well done. Thanks for sharing all these. I have bookmarked your site.
45 Wordpress Plugin Centre - 56 Free Web 2.0 Wordpress Layouts / Design Float Jul 13, 2008 at 4:38 am
[…] 20 Specialty WordPress Themes | Vandelay Website DesignWith thousands of existing free and premium themes to choose from (and plenty of 20 Specialist Wordpress Layouts Especially the Magazine ones are usefull […]
46 OYUNKES Jul 13, 2008 at 6:49 am
Great theme. I gave it a testrun and encountered a small problem. In the featured content carousel are five