Where To Find The Best Minimalist WordPress Themes
We started WP Stack (a weekly newsletter for Wordpress Users) to make it as easy as possible to find great content about WordPress, the CMS that powers 24% of the web. Since design is such a key part of WordPress, we thought it would be great to start by sharing our favourite resources on where to find minimal WordPress themes.
There are hundreds of WordPress theme shops around the web offering themes that range from gaudy and complicated to sleek and modern. We’re all about building websites that focus on content, so it felt natural to focus on minimalistic, content-driven design in our first guide.
There are lots of reasons to choose a minimalistic WordPress theme. Light, minimal themes load faster, make navigation quick and simple and make it easier for users to find, read and share your content.
They’re also a lot easier to tweak and modify than complicated themes, making a minimalistic theme the ideal building block for your website.
The 10 sites listed below are great resources for finding clean, minimalistic WordPress themes that are designed with content, not complexity, in mind.
The Theme Foundry
The Theme Foundry offers a great mix of minimal WordPress themes suitable for product sites, personal blogs and portfolios. Most of their themes are priced under $80. You can also get all of their themes (13, as of September 2015) for $199 with a Foundry Pro membership.
As well as their paid themes, The Theme Foundry has Make, a free drag and drop WordPress theme that’s been used by more than 380,000 people.
Founded in 2008 and listed as an official WordPress partner, The Theme Foundry themes use professional grade Typekit® fonts and clean code. They’re also light and quick to load, making them great for landing pages and other sites where every millisecond counts.
Elmastudio
Elmastudio make simple but beautiful WordPress themes with lots of white space, most of which are named after neighborhoods in Japan, New Zealand and Bali. Despite their German domain name, Elmastudio is based in Auckland, New Zealand.
Elmastudio’s themes are competitively priced (most are available for 12 to 18 euros) and built for simple customization. There’s also a theme bundle, which costs €24 and includes all 24 of their currently available themes.
If you’d like some inspiration before choosing a theme, you can view Elmastudio’s showcase here.
Array Themes
Array Themes has been creating high quality WordPress themes since 2009. Right now, they have 15 minimal themes ranging from digital store templates to photo blogs, all of which have responsive designs and simple customization.
Their themes are priced from $19 to $89, with a $199 Theme Pass providing access to their entire catalog. Array Themes also offers Editor, a stylish typography-driven theme that’s ideal for long-form content.
Pixel Revel
Pixel Revel makes clean, simple and beautiful themes for Tumblr and WordPress. Although the bulk of their themes are designed for Tumblr (18 vs. three WordPress themes) their WordPress themes are beautiful and impressively versatile.
Pixel Revel’s themes are heavy on white space and extremely minimalistic, making them perfect for long-form content and photo blogs. Their simplest theme, Thoughts, is free of charge. All of their themes are easy to customize without any HTML or CSS knowledge.
Graph Paper Press
Graph Paper Press offers a huge selection of minimal WordPress themes suitable for business, blogging, e-commerce and more. With 56 themes, their catalog is one of the largest in our list of minimal theme websites.
Most of Graph Paper Press’s themes are heavy on photography and white space, making them great for visual content. Unlike the other sites on our list, Graph Paper Press doesn’t sell themes individually — they’re all available for $99 to $149 per year as part of a membership package.
Themezilla
Themezilla makes simple, stylish WordPress themes with a focus on businesses, agencies and freelancers. From photography to app development, their catalog of 23 themes has something to suit any type of creative or digital professional in search of a great looking online presence.
Like most of the other sites on our list, Themezilla offers individual themes (most of which are priced at $59) and an annual or lifetime membership that provides access to all of their themes for $199 or $399, respectively.
All of Themezilla’s themes are responsive, retina-ready and built for easy customization.
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Themes Kingdom
Themes Kingdom offers a massive range of WordPress themes aimed at restaurants, small businesses, creative freelancers, photographers and more. While not all of their themes are minimal in design, all are light, responsive and built for quick and simple customization.
All of the themes in Theme Kingdom’s catalog come with a range of page templates, making them easy to modify for any purpose. Like the other websites in our list, they offer a choice of two pricing options — you can buy individual themes for $45 each or a membership from $97.
ThemeTrust
ThemeTrust makes light and minimal WordPress themes for small businesses, digital agencies, photographers, videographers and more. They also have a selection of clean and simple single page themes that are perfect for portfolios and résumés.
All of ThemeTrust’s WordPress themes are responsive and built to look just as good on mobile as they do on a full resolution display. They’re easy to tweak and modify to your standards using the WordPress customizer.
Unlike the other providers on our list, ThemeTrust doesn’t offer a membership. Instead, themes are available at a fixed price of $59 each.
Viva Themes
Viva Themes makes minimalistic and responsive themes for freelancers, non-profits, creative agencies and more. Their themes are heavy on white space, easy to customize and designed for quick load times.
Most of the themes in the Viva Themes catalog include a selection of homepage and internal page layouts, making them easy to customize for your business or personal website. Themes are available for $45 each or as part of an All Themes Pack for $129.
DesignOrbital
DesignOrbital offers a great selection of minimal WordPress themes aimed at online news and magazine websites, creative agencies, freelancers and more. All of their themes are responsive, retina-ready and optimized for fast load times.
A good selection of page templates make DesignOrbital’s themes easy to customize to suit your needs. Most of DesignOrbital’s themes are priced from $45 to $75. You can also buy complete access to their entire catalog for $149.
