Day: September 22, 2021

A personal blog can go a long way towards establishing your thought leadership and authority in a certain niche. It can also be a great place to showcase your skills and promote your services.

However, you will need a personal blogging theme packed with the right features and attractive design that will help you stand out. Finding the right personal blogging theme can be time-consuming. That’s why we’ve done the research for you and compiled the best free personal blog themes for WordPress.

If you’re looking for free magazine-layout WordPress themes, take a look at this round-up.

Nuria Responsive Blogging Theme (Free)

The Nuria theme is suitable for a variety of personal blogs. It features a minimal design paired with gorgeous typography. It’s easy to customize and comes with built-in SEO optimization, loads fast, and several widget areas.

Ocean – Exquisite WordPress Blog (Envato Elements)

The Ocean is a elegant theme for personal blogs with a feminine design. The homepage features a grid layout that displays your blog posts and you can easily add an Instagram widget. The theme is fully responsive and translation-ready.

Bootstrap Blog Theme (Free)

The Bootstrap Blog theme is a lightweight, minimal, and free WordPress theme. You will find plenty of customization options, several layout options which include a slider layout as well as a standard blog layout, WooCommerce integration, and more.

Norge – Responsive Blog WordPress Theme (Envato Elements)

The Norge theme combines minimalist design with clean typography which makes for a very pleasant reading experience on all devices. The theme with sidebar and full width layouts, numerous widgets, shortcodes and support for different post types.

Boxstyle Personal Blog Theme (Free)

If you’re looking for a personal blog theme that has a unique design, consider the Boxstyle theme. It features a unique boxed layout with social media icons in a colorful sidebar so it’s sure to make your blog stand out.

Ezy Blog Theme (Free)

The Ezy blog theme is compatible with Elementor and Gutenberg which means you will have no problems creating a unique layout for your pages. On top of that, the theme includes features such as modern and creative design, SEO optimization, slider section, featured post columns, footer options, and plenty of customization options.

Lightly Responsive WordPress Theme (Free)

The Lightly theme is a perfect choice if you want your blog to look like an online magazine. It has a grid based layout and bold typography that makes your content pop. The theme is also fully responsive and easy to customize.

Lovecraft – Two-Column WordPress Blog Theme (Free)

The Lovecraft theme comes with a stunning header image which allows you to easily give your readers an immediate glimpse into your personality. The theme has a standard two-column layout and allows you to customize the colors, upload your own logo, and more.

Good – Responsive Blog Magazine Theme (Free)

The Good theme has an interesting grid-based layout on the homepage. It allows you to upload your own logo and set your own brand colors. The theme is SEO-friendly and loadst fast.

Olsen Light Blogging Theme for WordPress (Free)

Try the Olsen Light theme if you’re planning on launching a fashion or a beauty blog. With an elegant and feminine design, paired with custom widgets, customization options, and SEO-friendly code, the Olsen theme has everything you need to create a captivating blog.

Versaille – Personal Blog WordPress Theme (Envato Elements)

This premium theme has a unique curvy design on the homepage and includes additional page layout for your portfolio. You can customize the theme using the built-in Live Customizer.

Eighties Theme – One-Column WordPress Theme (Free)

Eighties is a bold, one-column theme that’s perfect for personal blogs. The theme supports various post formats and you will also find large featured images that make it easy to share your stories in a visual way.

Stylizer Blog Theme (Free)

The Stylizer theme is perfect for anyone looking for a unique design. The theme is responsive so it will look great on all devices and it also comes with features such as related posts and post navigation, dark and light color switch, and more.

Beetle Go WordPress Theme (Free)

Consider the Beetle Go theme if you want a blog and the ability to showcase your portfolio and past projects. You can also use it as a resume theme. The theme comes with a plethora of customization options and elegant parallax scrolling.

Hoffman – Minimal WordPress Theme for Bloggers (Free)

The Hoffman theme is a beautiful minimal WordPress theme that’s best suited for personal bloggers or authors. The theme has a strong focus on typography and offers a responsive design and beautiful galleries.

Curver – Personal Blog Theme (Free)

As the name suggests, the Curver is a personal blog theme with a unique colorful and curved look. The theme includes featured post slider, standard or list blog layout, and a unique author header profile.

Arba WordPress Blog Theme (Free)

Arba is a free WordPress theme for personal blogs. It has a minimal design and simple layout. The theme is also fully responsive and uses gorgeous typography for a much better user experience across all devices.

Risa – Personal Responsive Blog Theme (Free)

The Risa theme features a clean and classy look. It offers a number of different customization options and is SEO-friendly and translation-ready. On top of that, the theme includes support for different post formats: Standard, Aside, Image, Link, Gallery, and more.

Signy – A Personal Blog WordPress Theme (Envato Elements)

Try the Signy theme if you’re a freelancer or creative professional that wants the ability to showcase your past projects on top of a blog. The theme comes with 4 different homepage layouts and 6 unique portfolio layouts.

Invenio – Tumblog-Style WordPress Theme (Free)

The Invenio theme mimics the look of Tumblr blogs so it’s a great choice if you’re going for a more unique design. Invenio is also responsive and has support for multiple post formats.

Upright – Responsive Blog Magazine Theme (Free)

The Upright theme is a grid-like theme with a strong focus on bold imagery., It supports a variety of content. You can create galleries and showcase past projects, and allow your visitors to enjoy your content on all devices thanks to the responsive design.

Hemingway – Two-Column Theme for Bloggers (Free)

The Hemingway theme features beautiful typography and a standard two-column layout. The theme is fully responsive and has a minimal and clean design. You can easily customize the colors and fonts.

Editor Theme – Personal Blogging Theme (Free)

The Editor theme is geared toward personal bloggers and photo bloggers. It includes big typography and images, plus a tab-based sidebar with a place for a social links menu, featured posts, and a site logo.

Popster – Blogging Theme for Writers & Authors (Free)

The Popster theme has a elegant layout and design that’s focused on beautiful typography. The theme is SEO-friendly and optimized to load fast. It’s also responsive and translation-ready.

Vito Blog Theme (Free)

The Vito theme is sure to grab the attention of your readers thanks to stunning animations and a minimal design that lets your posts stand out. The theme has a standard, two-column layout.

Justread Minimal WordPress Blog Theme (Free)

The Justread theme focuses on improved reading experience across all devices and fast loading times. It features an elegant blog layout and sticky sharing buttons so your readers can easily share your content.

---

The right personal blog theme will make it easy for your visitors to enjoy your content on any device. With features such as improved typography, responsive design, and stunning featured images, the themes on this list are a perfect starting point for your personal blog design.

The post The 20 Best Free Personal Blog Themes for WordPress appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.jackpinewebdesign.com/?p=743

Millions of us around the world eat at restaurants every day with our family, friends, co-workers, clients, parole officers… just kidding. Restaurants serve an important purpose in our lives – a purpose that has less to do with food and more to do with the way we connect with one another.

The restaurant has been around, in some form or another, since ancient Rome, and its function – to bring people together over a conveniently cooked meal – has changed very little in all that time.

There’s another benefit of restaurants that specifically applies to designers and other creative people, and that is to stimulate your creativity. That’s right – it’s been proven that socializing improves your intelligence. Not just academic intelligence either – interacting with friends and peers actually helps to make you more creative.

When you go out with others, you’re exposing yourself to an influx of new ideas that can’t help but positively influence your creative process. And food is a natural bonding agent, which is why so many creative ideas are born around a lunch or dinner table with other designers, artists, musicians, writers, et cetera.

Today, I’m going to explore the idea generation process familiar to so many designers who eat out with friends: the “awesome idea scribbled on a restaurant napkin” process.

It’s very high-level stuff. No, really! The lowly napkin sketch (or scrap paper or ledger pad sketch) has been used by everyone from babysitters all the way up to top creative executives at Microsoft and Walmart to bring to life important ideas that change the world, or at least bring in more profits.

Some experts say that the business sector is too dependent on language to express ideas that really should be expressed using visuals (i.e., sketches). That’s good news for us designers, but how exactly do we adapt it to our working process to make things easier for ourselves and our clients?

We designers all know the advantages of sketching: it’s a way to sort out our preliminary ideas and eliminate the ones that aren’t right for the job.

Of course, you don’t have to sketch on a napkin, but any kind of sketch is more useful than just thinking about the idea, because it requires you to use a different part of your brain.

Image Source

When you think, or read, or write, you’re nurturing the connections your brain makes between the different thoughts you have (called ‘neural pathways‘), and increasing your brain’s “elasticity.” When you add drawing to that process, you’re exercising important motor skills that can actually feed your creativity.

Personally, I prefer to sketch on paper. Why? Because it allows me the opportunity to step away from the computer for a brief moment and collect my thoughts on something I can touch and hold in my hands.

That’s important to me, and to a lot of designers whose work almost always ends up on the computer one way or another.

We humans respond to things that are interactive, and that allows us to make a direct impact on something. Ever wonder why more and more vending machines are see-through, rather than opaque?

The working mechanisms of those machines are engaging to our brains – we love to put our money in the machine, and literally see our desire (to have a refreshing beverage or snack) being fulfilled right before our eyes. It’s fun.

And guess what? Your clients are the exact same way.

Image Source

If you’re a designer or art director redesigning a company’s brand identity, how do you make sure everyone there understands the creative vision you have?

Well, you could tell them. But most people aren’t going to take notes and will end up misinterpreting what you said at some point or another.

You could show them a presentation, which might work for some people. But I think that printing out handouts of your sketches, and walking people through them is the best way to involve them in the decision-making process.

Sometimes, sketching can be used to effectively communicate ideas to people – designers or non-designers – in ways that far surpass, say, a PowerPoint presentation.

Think about what you’d rather have in a department meeting: a dry, preachy collection of slides, or a sketchbook to work out your ideas about the company’s creative direction?

Just like a clear-windowed vending machine allows us to see the effect our money has on it, involving people with live sketching gives them a democratic insight into how design decisions are made.

It can turn a lofty, complicated mess into something that’s easy for everyone to understand. And we all know that an informed client is a happy (and oftentimes repeat) client.

You don’t want to just talk at your clients and lecture them about things that are going to go over their heads. Your clients aren’t stupid (well, hopefully not).

They are running a company, after all. Clients like to feel creative, or at least like they’re contributing to something to the creativity of their businesses. And what better way to make grown adults feel powerful and in charge of something than by handing them some paper and making them draw like grade-schoolers?

All joking aside, people love that stuff. It creates a feeling of harmony and democracy in the company, as anyone, from the janitor to the CEO, can make a sketch.

As Lou Levit explains in his article, How Sketching Will Take Your Design Process to the Next Level, sketching allows you to “dig deeper” with your idea process, uncovering more design solutions that often work much better than the initial ideas you start out with.

Image Source

Another downside to simply absorbing information via presentation is that it tends to lead your client through the design process with minimal challenge to their own imagination.

Because of this, your client may not really understand your reasoning behind a more nuanced design solution, and may fight you on it. Presenting sketches is one way to quiet those feelings of misunderstanding. The more your client can see of your process, the more likely they are to trust your judgement.

The key to engaging your clients with sketching is to think of your design meeting more like a restaurant date with friends. Obviously, you should probably keep the celebrity gossip and alcohol consumption to a minimum, but the general feeling of creative camaraderie should be the same.

Engage your clients with spontaneous sketches, draw things out for them that you might otherwise just dryly explain, and observe the difference yourself in their level of understanding, engagement, and trust.

You don’t have to make them draw too, though, as I mentioned before, many people do love that. But just like passing around a napkin at the restaurant table to your friends can result in weird and wonderful new ideas, incorporating sketches in your meetings with clients can propel your projects to heights that you never would have expected.

The post The Idea Generation Process of Scribbling on a Napkin appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.jackpinewebdesign.com/?p=737