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Black Magic: A Free WordPress Theme

By Smashing Editorial, November 10th, 2008 in Freebies | 112 Comments | Forum

We love our readers. We respect the hard work of designers and developers across the globe. And we do our best to make the web design community stronger and the Web a little bit prettier. Therefore we ask talented artists and creative professionals to showcase their skills and release something unique and beautiful as a gift to the community. And when designers agree, truly impressive works see the light of day.

Today we are glad to release Black Magic — a free professional Wordpress-theme. The theme has 2 columns and is based on grungy wooden textures and has a cool top menu which includes RSS. The psd source file of the logo has also been included in the package. This can be used for any projects and will be useful especially for portfolios. The theme was designed by Gopal Raju especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the theme for free!

You can use the theme for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. However, it’s forbidden to sell or redistribute the theme without both designer’s and Smashing Magazine’s permission — please link to this article if you would like to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish, but if you are planning to release your modification, please ask our permission first.

large preview (0.4 Mb)
download the theme (.zip, 1.8 Mb)

Thank you, Gopal. We appreciate your work and your good intentions.

Last but not least…

We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists. You may not know it yet, but we might feature you in one of our upcoming posts.

If you would like to release a high-quality free font, a Wordpress-theme, some wallpapers or an icon-set please contact us — we would like to support you (both financially and with the broad coverage on Smashing Magazine).

You may be interested in the following free Wordpress-themes as well:

Published in Freebies, November 10th, 2008
Tags: downloads, free, freebie, theme, wordpress

1.

dirk worring (November 10th, 2008, 1:54 am)

beautifull. thanx to gopal and smashmag!

first post! :)
2.

Julius (November 10th, 2008, 2:19 am)

Very Cool!
3.

Shuuun (November 10th, 2008, 2:22 am)

uff, wont be my favorite ;P
i think the wood textures are a lil bit to smooth
4.

Tekka (November 10th, 2008, 2:31 am)

Not bad, but there are greater themes from SM…
5.

ilham saibi (November 10th, 2008, 2:40 am)

Cooollll
6.

Yuukan (November 10th, 2008, 2:47 am)

Nice theme ! Great work !
7.

ACTIVER (November 10th, 2008, 3:02 am)

Coooool. What a name, what a theme. Awesome. Will surely install it on my blog for readers, they also love nice themes and new apps.

Smashing Magazine always smash me with new and innovative designer things ..

Dear Team, Keep it up
8.

shape (November 10th, 2008, 3:26 am)

cool theme, but it is called BLAKMAGIK not BLACK MAGIC as it is written in the post!

shaperus
9.

BeantownDesign.com (November 10th, 2008, 3:38 am)

looks nice, thanks!
10.

Daus (November 10th, 2008, 3:38 am)

Umm. Not my type ;)
11.

Jedd (November 10th, 2008, 3:53 am)

blogger please :’( how about a little blogger.com love?
12.

neyazsak (November 10th, 2008, 3:56 am)

theme is very nice
13.

Erik Gyepes (November 10th, 2008, 4:00 am)

I don’t know why, but I don’t like some details, however it looks like a solid WP template, especially next to many others free templates out there on the net. Keep up the good work Gopal Raju!
14.

marcinex (November 10th, 2008, 5:17 am)

Thank you for this post… I am always looking for fresh.. WP-Themes.
marcinex
15.

Tom Ross (November 10th, 2008, 5:58 am)

I can’t believe this is free. Nice work!
16.

lazy drunk (November 10th, 2008, 6:33 am)

Looks pretty sweet. Don’t know what I would use it for tho:P
17.

Ahmet Burak Bal (November 10th, 2008, 6:42 am)

Worderful work! I love it. Thank you very much.
18.

vu (November 10th, 2008, 7:11 am)

thank so much, so, i used this theme for my page.
19.

Seri cs (November 10th, 2008, 7:25 am)

very cool thanks for this
20.

SiGa (November 10th, 2008, 9:10 am)

Like it! Especially the navigation in the right corner (top) and the way the date is displayed ;-)
21.

Gopal Raju (November 10th, 2008, 9:53 am)

Thanks Everyone for your replies :-) I have posted a Live Demo at Link [blakmagik.productivedreams.com]

Feel free to explore!
22.

David (November 10th, 2008, 10:28 am)

Wordpress 2.7 ready?
23.

Rita (November 10th, 2008, 10:42 am)

If this product works as amazingly as it looks, I expect to be seeing a LOT of it. Right now, I’m off to be the “first kid on my block.”

Thanks!
24.

Tom (November 10th, 2008, 1:07 pm)

honestly and pls dont be bad, this is not the typical sm style. this theme is absolutely not what sm and the other freebie themes stands for. not that is not my type, its very uninteresting.

dont get me wrong, kudos to this work and designer, but the other freebies are really in another league. my best friend just came and took a look and he loves it, and so too lots others.

is it possible that sm is posting about myspace themes/designs in future?
25.

GugaAlves.net (November 10th, 2008, 1:37 pm)

Wonderful theme !
I Translated this theme to portuguese and tomorrow anyone who wants to download it, it will be available in tudoparawordpress.com.br !
I also adjusted somethings, so, Smashing Magazine Team, if you want i can send it to you, ok?

Seeya !
26.

igginwah (November 10th, 2008, 2:02 pm)

it’s like a rip off of komodo media’s site…
27.

MattS (November 10th, 2008, 2:48 pm)

For a wooden design, I like it. But still …there’s 13 like these in a dozen. Not saying I could do any better
28.

Illi.Pro (November 10th, 2008, 5:20 pm)

This is a very nice theme, congratulations for the Designer!
29.

Anonymous (November 10th, 2008, 8:33 pm)

I found some inconsisencies in firefox and ie. In FF 3.0 the heading and date are coming under the comments. In IE6 png fixes are not applied and bullets of the sidebar links are not showing up. When we type long text in search box, the design breaks in IE6. The Home/RSS/Contact menu at the top also seems to have problems when hovered in IE6.
30.

Troy (November 10th, 2008, 9:37 pm)

These designs are all awesome but why are they always WordPress? Doesn’t anyone use Blogger? From what I can see Wordpress charge to use a custom template where it’s free to do so on Blogger. Would love to see some new Blogger designs.
31.

ne_o (November 10th, 2008, 10:16 pm)

Very cool wp theme thanks.
32.

bluedee (November 11th, 2008, 12:15 am)

another great wordpress theme….
33.

jonny (November 12th, 2008, 11:00 am)

Am i the only one who finds wordpress to be a bit cookie cutter? Yes there are some really nice designs out there (don’t get me wrong, the one above looks great, kudos to the designer)… but wordpress has always struck me as little more than a glorified blogger or myspace framework (minus the social aspect).

bluedee above nailed it for me “another great wordpress theme….”
I mean, so what? another great wordpress theme… along with the thousands of others out there.

Personally, I think the greatness and the failure lies in the fact that it is so accessible. How do designers expect to stick out in the horde of designers out there when they use the exact same system as every other designer?

What I would love to see is designers actually building creative frameworks, building their art into the way their sites and blogs function, not just another shiny/gradient/wood grain skin on an otherwise completely uninspiring and overused framework.
34.

Chris W. (November 12th, 2008, 12:27 pm)

Jonny, these themes are not meant for designers. They are designed for anyone that uses WordPress, basic users in particular. This designer even included the original PSD so you can make customizations to your theme. It is something to build on. Why be critical of something that is free, anyway? You didn’t pay for it, so be respectful.
35.

Fitz (November 13th, 2008, 1:39 pm)

Hey, I think this is a pretty well designed WP template.

I just got one suggestion on a resolution of 1680 x 1050 (I know the majority of people won’t see it at this resolution) the footer has a background colour of “#EEEEEE” which creates two squares either side of footer as the background image isn’t that wide. Just thought I’d say as its an easy fix of choosing a background colour to match the background.
36.

WebAboutMoney (November 17th, 2008, 12:52 am)

It’s a good theme, I have quote to my blogs. Thank.
37.

Raj (November 23rd, 2008, 6:09 am)

this is really an awesome theme! Thanx a lot 4 sharing :)
38.

antiquarian books (December 11th, 2008, 5:06 am)

Thank you for this information. :)
39.

Amit K (February 9th, 2009, 2:39 am)

Can any one convert this into a blogger template? I just love this one and i am sure many Blogger user would want it.
check out:
Link [freshwebdeveloper.blogspot.com]
Link [lifeonemi.blogspot.com]
40.

wecostumizedweb (February 12th, 2009, 9:31 pm)

cool keep it coming :)
41.

ppat (February 26th, 2009, 12:50 pm)

nice thnks nice theme
42.

hardy (February 27th, 2009, 7:55 pm)

great theme i loved it
43.

Beth (March 10th, 2009, 7:50 pm)

Download link is broken. :’(
44.

kaleem (March 29th, 2009, 9:23 pm)

My name is muhammad kaleem ullah khan. My date of birth is 28/2/1946. I am challenging all the magician in this world. is there any one who can break my magic I am a black magicians no one can beat me in this world .no one can break my magic if some one cast spell to me i will reverse his spell to him I am challenging all magicians cast spell to me and my sons i have there sons mateen , mubeen ,moiz and her mother name is salma if some one cast spell to my son I will reverse his spell to him i am challenging to all magician to beat me
45.

Iconz (April 16th, 2009, 7:54 am)

“kaleem” eehhh! I think your at the wrong place.. This is a wordpress theme.
46.

Indiana web design (May 3rd, 2009, 6:26 pm)

Nice wordpress thems. Very clean and crisp.