Vintage and Blues WordPress Themes
In this post we release 2 free high-quality WordPress magazine-themes. The themes include full PSD-templates and can be used without any restrictions whatsoever. The themes were commissioned by Smashing Magazine exclusively for our readers and designed by Wendell Fernandes. As you may know, since the beginning of the year, each release on Smashing Magazine has been dedicated to a specific theme or topic that could be useful in your next project. This release focuses on the vintage-look and on the magazine-style.
Vintage: A Free WordPress Theme
As the title suggests, we wanted to release a WordPress theme that would reflect the vintage, old-style look and thus look attractive, unusual and memorable. We discussed retro and vintage designs already, but we wanted the theme to literally stand out – not through its style, but also through its structure. Therefore we were more than happy when the designers suggested a design with a magazine-look.
The result is the Vintage WordPress theme, a 2-column theme with various illustrations and icons. Please notice that the theme requires WordPress 2.7 to work.
The theme is available for free download and can be used for any purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.
- full image preview
- live demo
- download the theme (.zip, 0.4 Mb – now widget-ready, thanks to Basilis Kanonidis)
- download the psd-sources (.psd, .zip, 9.3 Mb)
- release post on Dellustrations.com
Behind the scenes
As usual, here are some insights from the designers themselves:
The reasoning behind this theme is simply, taking us back to an old-school look and feel, reminding where our fathers came from and the fathers of our fathers. It’s simply remarkable to think, that people lived a full and abundant life inside a “vintage” world and brought us all here to this date and day.
Today we can look back and watch and admire their struggles, fights, victories, failures, submission and humbleness. Today we can see how far we’ve come and how far we can reach. This theme brings us back to the beginning of it all, and remind us of 2009 as a year of reflection for all we’ve accomplished, and what we can achieve moving forward. We would like you to enjoy the theme.
Yours truly,
Dellustrations
Blues: A Free WordPress Theme
This theme is a variation of the theme presented above; however, it tries not to focus on the vintage look but on a simple, clean, and user-friendly design. This theme was commissioned by Smashing Magazine exclusively for our readers and designed by the Dellustrations design agency.
The theme is available for free download and can be used for any purposes without any restrictions whatsoever. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.
- full image preview
- live demo
- download the theme (.zip, 0.4 Mb – now widget-ready, thanks to Basilis Kanonidis)
- download the psd-sources (.psd, .zip, 3.3 Mb)
- release post on Dellustrations.com
Thanks, guys, we appreciate your efforts!
Suggestions for particular WordPress themes?
What themes would you like to be released on Smashing Magazine next? What are you looking for? Or, more importantly, what kind of themes shouldn’t we release any more? We appreciate your input in the comments to this post!
mattyoungmark
April 26th, 2009 8:12 amThis theme is working nicely for me (on a brand new wordpress 2.7.1 install), but I d have a couple of small bugs that I’m wondering if anybody has any insight to (I’m kinda posting this all over town now).
1) When people post comments, they are attributed to my name on the page, rather than the poster’s name, even though the poster’s name is clearly listed in my admin pages.
2) At the bottom it claims that my one and only page is 1 of 38!
Thanks for any help you can provide, and for offering a great theme for free!
MysteryE
May 1st, 2009 12:55 pmAh… just like other had said, these theme had a BIG problem in the header stuff and about the paging list.
These themes aren’t complete, so please make a final release for theme~! >__<”
Sean Callahan
May 10th, 2009 1:26 pmSame thing here…I am working on getting everything out of the hard html and into some dynamic php, I will hit you guys back when I am done and hopefully everyone can use the unofficial finished* version. Sidebar and footer needs to be widgetized, slideshow at top needs to be working and a lot more…
Amy
April 20th, 2010 10:34 pmHey Sean-
I see you were planning on putting together a revised version of this theme without the bugs back in May of last year. Did you ever complete this?
Leon
May 12th, 2009 1:23 amI noticed the following bugs in the blues theme(with wordpress 2.7.1):
1. the graphic of the ad-block Background doesn’t appears in Firefox
2. the same “header was already sent” messages in the admin menu
3. The preview of the theme doesn’t works
I will try to fix them and give you a feedback
JTPratt
May 15th, 2009 7:37 amActually, both themes are NOT widget ready at all. The sidebar code was added, but the proper code isn’t in the functions.php file for the theme.
You have to manually add the 4 lines to functions.php for widgets to work from the official WP Widgitizing Themes page in the Codex.
As stated earlier in MULTIPLE comments – both of these themes (despite being visually stunning) are VERY buggy – you will have to hack the HELL out of them to get them to work properly. I can also attest to the fact that the Vintage them PSD file isn’t even the final version that produced the theme – you’ll have to make some manual changes to make it all line up if you need to change the graphics.
Great themes visually – POOR themes coding wise!
JTPratt
May 15th, 2009 2:09 pmI just had to come back and post again – because anyone downloading this theme should know how to fix all the BUGS it comes with. As I said in my last comment – great design, but this is some of the worst WordPress theme code I’ve ever seen from a “pro” release.
BEWARE:
the footer.php file doesn’t even contain closing body or html tags, and there is no wp_footer call. Unless you add that many plugins (WP Stats) won’t even work. It’s obvious this theme was never validated – the closing tags would’ve been immediantly found.
Also – the sidebar right_column has no style attributes in the stylesheet, and on pages with short content in the left column, the sidebar will actually WRAP AROUND into the content area if you don’t set a #right_column float:right in the style.css file.
I’m certain there are more bugs and errors I haven’t encountered yet…
Jon
May 20th, 2009 1:09 amShame there appears to be so many problems with the vintage theme :(
Have any of the commenters who have said they have been working on the theme been able to get something which could be “released”? I really like the theme, but making some of the changes above are a bit beyond me…
ankur
May 22nd, 2009 2:38 amhow to install this theme
DillionFox
July 28th, 2009 6:46 pmSleek , adaptable theme
I would love to see an adaptable 1 column theme without any side bars that allows the user to easily add their own header image.
In an ideal world the columns background would be white and the surrounding background a nuetral darkish grey so as to compliment any image I might like to use in the header. Now ,I know I’m getting ‘greedy’, but I also dream of having a theme without any page menu or search function beneath the header image…..afterall, when it comes to SEO I want to rank for the Keywords in my post’s title and not the words on a menu ‘button’…such as “About” or “Contact”……
In short,,,,just something that I can adapt and use on multiple projects and which is designed with SEO in mind………
That is my ‘dream’…….the ideal template !!
Someone ‘pinch’ me……I think I’m dreaming !!
Kindly ,,,,Dillion Fox
Raffaele
August 6th, 2009 1:39 amthe psd file of the brown theme is really caotic!!!
Susan
August 17th, 2009 8:44 pmA great list of themes, although I would also try looking at the site: newwpthemes.net (NewWPThemes. There is a color tag selection to easily search through themes.
Vikky
September 11th, 2009 10:34 amFirst, may I congratulate everyone behind this website, for such a extraordinarily great job of sharing these designs with us. I keep on referring to these pages and the invaluable information as guide for my web business.
You ask what type of WP themes I’d like to see more of. I’d really like to be able to use more themes that work with the e-commerce plug in. So far, only one theme really works, and it still has its quirks. Other themes are not able to display the shopping cart.
Thank you for considering my comment.
graphic bob
September 21st, 2009 7:47 pmhey, guys…if anyone with errors on the backend(login page, etc) is still reading this post, i think i solved the problem…..
the errors referred to functions.php…so, i deleted everything in that file and saved it to see what happened……..
the errors were gone, but then the site wasn’t ‘widget ready’ and under ‘widgets’ it said, ‘no sidebars defined’…..realizing that the problem was definitely in that php file, i undid the delete so it returned to the original code, found blank lines before and after the php code, deleted the blank lines, and saved…….all the errors were still gone and the site was widget ready…
such a trivial issue, but it was almost enough to make me scrap the theme…..but, now i’m back in business….
let me know if this helps you….
maggie
April 12th, 2010 6:49 pmgraphic bob can you help me fix it? contact me through extrememaggie.com
also, the rss is broken and if u put www. before the domain it errors.
52ndwest
September 22nd, 2009 7:29 am@ graphic bob: can you share the final functions.php files with deleted blanks? or feature them in a post for copy/paste?
Much appreciated!
graphic bob
September 22nd, 2009 10:54 amnot sure if the php code will go through in the post, but here’s what i have(copy just the characters, and no spaces above or below
”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
?>
graphic bob
September 22nd, 2009 11:40 amthe code didn’t come through…i’ll link to a screen shot…
https://www.getdropbox.com/gallery/848403/1/functions?h=0cd5b5
graphic bob
September 22nd, 2009 2:27 pmThe above code is not correct – the submission didn’t go through…
Shah Hussain
September 22nd, 2009 6:23 pmvery nice theme
52ndwest
September 23rd, 2009 1:56 am@ graphic bob: thanks for your help! the theme just runs perfectly now I’ve done the changes you recommended on functions.php. FYI, the submission worked perfectly. I’ve indeed noticed that the first line of the code which begins with
graphic bob
October 1st, 2009 12:53 pmglad to have helped….when i said, ‘the submission didn’t go through’, i was referring to the post above the link to the screen shot(#115)…when i tried to paste the code into the comment, it didn’t show up…..(which is why i showed the screenshot, #116)
enjoy…
Angelo
October 5th, 2009 5:02 amplease post correct function.php :-(
Andres Gomez
October 12th, 2009 8:30 amTo fix header, it’s easy
You need to remove the spaces on functions.php.. that’s all!
Michael
October 27th, 2009 10:56 amwhat is the complete list of corrections to this theme? It’s all a bit piecemeal right now :-/
bogdan
November 7th, 2009 8:19 amDo Not download unless you’re a highly experienced php coder.
The theme is not finished!!
Search doesn’t work, no help text offered, no nothing.
Just a nice design, that’s all you will get!!!
kim leyba
January 9th, 2010 8:13 pmI’ve been looking for a long time on the internet for simple wordpress themes that don’t look like blogs. It would be great to find a resource that has a collection of them. My clients always want a wordpress but they don’t want it to look like a blog.
thanks.
kddesigners
February 5th, 2010 8:11 amLindas as peças, Thank you .
Nos trabalhamos com formatura aqui em Belo horizonte e curtimos emcontrar trabalho bem feito como os nosso.
abraços
dsfhgdsfh
February 5th, 2010 1:07 pmerreure des l’installation du theme :/
Warning: fopen(/homez.330/philippekm/www/wordpress2/wp-content/themes/blues-wordpress-theme/style.css) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /homez.330/philippekm/www/wordpress2/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3598
Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /homez.330/philippekm/www/wordpress2/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3601
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /homez.330/philippekm/www/wordpress2/wp-includes/functions.php on line 3604
Sherice Jacob
February 22nd, 2010 9:15 amFor such a solid, reliable source of great WordPress themes, it looks like some more work needs to be done on the user’s end to customize them (or get them to work right in the first place)!
I mentioned the Blues theme in my blog along with some other very nice blue WordPress themes here: http://ielectrify.com/design/blue-wordpress-theme/
Again, visually stunning work – please post updates to the code to make sure it works in most browsers, otherwise it’s useless to novice coders/bloggers.
Chycoo
March 11th, 2010 7:21 pmVery Nice Themes.
Thanks.
Artefeito Design Studio – Sites em Curitiba
cecilia
March 22nd, 2010 3:40 amlovely but I don’t understand how can work the CAROUSEL..
iamrone.com
March 25th, 2010 11:42 pmnice i like it..:)
maggie
April 12th, 2010 6:47 pmI LOVE the vintage theme and so badly want to keep using it on my site (http://extrememaggie.com) but I am having so many problems with it I think I may have to give up. error after error after error.
Dellustrations should really fix these things to be taken seriously as a web design company.
maggie
April 12th, 2010 7:06 pmOK I fixed the error message by deleting the extra spaces in the functions.php, but does anyone know how to fix the rss feed error?
maggie
April 12th, 2010 7:08 pmAnd how to fix the page navigation at the bottom, I can’t get to any older posts!
Teamkiller
April 27th, 2010 12:01 pmсоздам себе тоже бложег и буду там писать свои мысли
ziosandro
April 30th, 2010 10:03 amI don’t understand how to do to change the images in the header with the arrow.
Someone can tell me ho does it work? this is the code…. (I’m sorry for my bad english)
Prev
<img src="/images/banner.jpg” alt=”" />
Next
CSSilize
July 13th, 2010 8:38 amThe demo links should be pointed to:
Vintage theme: http://www.cssilize.com/project/vintage
Blues theme: http://www.cssilize.com/project/blues
Christiane Rosenberger
July 13th, 2010 1:47 pmFixed! Thank you, CSSilize.
Ahmed
July 14th, 2010 12:39 pmVery nice theme included in my recommended set of free themes in my website
Good work
anez
September 21st, 2010 1:30 pmexcellent!
thanks
Abrenk
October 7th, 2010 9:53 amGreat job, nice theme bro. I have been using tihs theme in my site :justinbieberfans.org
Nilambar Sharma
December 12th, 2010 3:22 amVery nice them. Thanks.
Shane
February 11th, 2011 5:09 amThis is the perfect theme that I’ve been looking for! I wanted to ask what browsers is this compatible with and is it webmaster friendly, easily customizable?
Darren
February 13th, 2011 5:42 pmSome great looking themes here, thanks for letting us take a look
lilly
February 24th, 2011 5:50 amI would like a more soft, light, happy and flowery version of Vintage. I love the layout but I found the content a bit sad. (Please no protesting, I am a free human being entitled to my opinion and I am giving a suggestion as per requested.)
keepone
April 6th, 2011 2:30 pmto resolve problems, just put this in the functions.php :
”,
‘after_widget’ => ”,
‘before_title’ => ”,
‘after_title’ => ”,
));
?>
this is the right functions.php : with no space before and after
I hope this works for everyone, it does for me ;-)
to resolve the pb of pagination, just install the wp-pagenavi and the code in place of the hand code
Denish Verma
May 20th, 2011 4:55 amGreat Theme.
Like Blue.
Thanks WP Experts.
pimsainnum
July 3rd, 2011 8:14 amThank for share.
I love first template .