“Magazeen”: Free Magazine-Look WordPress Theme
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 Magazeen — a free advanced WordPress-theme in a magazine-llok created by the talented WeFunction Design Agency. This bold magazine 2-col-theme was designed with the main focus being on typography, grids and magazine-look. It was created especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.
Download the theme for free!
The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.
- live demo
- large preview (.jpg, 1.7 Mb)
- download the theme (.zip, 0.3 Mb)
- download the PSD-sources (.zip, 4.5 Mb)
- release post on WeFunction.com
Inspiration behind the design
As usual, here are some insights from the designers themselves:
“We’ve created the Magazeen theme to try and pump as much style and functionality into a WordPress theme to give people something they might not expect from their standard WordPress theme. There really is very few limits to what WordPress handle, so we’ve built in a lot of custom features and options to give people a little taste of what is possible, and how some small functionality tweaks can make a huge difference to the overall experience of browsing a blog. On top of that we’ve wrapped all that functionality up in a really cool and modern theme, with nice big title fonts, and a stylish colour scheme.
The Magazeen theme is packed full of cool features to really encourage your readers to explore new posts and similar items. The first thing you might notice is the jQuery image showcase at the top, which is fully automated and will display the image from the latest post, and the title above it without you having to do anything other than define the image URL in the custom field we have created which will appear on in your admin post area.
Drop-Down Menu
The other cool and fully automated feature is the related posts drop down effect. It’s a simple idea, if you click the category of the full posts a drop down will appear with some related posts from that category. And if you don’t see a post you like you can always view the full category by clicking view more.
Sidebar
The sidebar area’s have been created to give you a lot of control over the featured posts, and recent posts. Once you’ve installed the theme, you need to go to your Widgets area, and simply activate the “Magazeen Latest Posts”, and “Magazeen Featured Posts” widgets. You can easily control how many posts each feature displays, and using this widget will ensure the area is styled correctly with the post image showing correctly.”
Footer
Thank you, guys. We appreciate your great work, your attention to details and the brilliance of the execution.
Related posts
You may be interested in the following free WordPress-themes as well:
Mihai Moscovici
February 23rd, 2009 6:01 amThank you for a great theme.
Despite there are so many WP themes around, you manage to come up with an extraordinary concept – simple, clean, neat, friendly, yet packed with lots of great features. Indeed, Magazeen is an excellent WP theme.
Keep up the great Smashing work!!!
Chris Wallace
February 23rd, 2009 6:03 amVery nice theme. This is excellent.
Niklas
February 23rd, 2009 6:07 amNice theme, gj!
llcc
February 23rd, 2009 6:14 amoh.good!
and download to learn
thanks!
Patrik
February 23rd, 2009 6:20 amNice one! Accept for a few minor JavaScript errors and the fact that it doesn’t seem to work perfectly in IE7. But I like it! Those errors should be fixed to get a 5 star rating.
I’m gonna use this one so I will fix those my self :)
Thanks!
Paul Bennett
February 23rd, 2009 6:21 amVery nice, I like this one a lot. I think the future will see a lot more Javascript integration within WordPress themes, it really can add great new functionality.
Tschai
February 23rd, 2009 6:22 amSimply great…
Diego
February 23rd, 2009 6:23 amBeautiful theme almost perfect, i download right now, :D thanks! guys
415s
February 23rd, 2009 6:23 amWow, that’s an awesome theme!
Floris Fiedeldij Dop
February 23rd, 2009 6:29 amOh wow, this IS a beauty, your tweet Sunday wasn’t lying :)
Ur Artola
February 23rd, 2009 6:31 amCongratulations, good theme.
M.A.Yoosuf
February 23rd, 2009 6:33 amits awesome, but the reply comment feature is not available! :(
Ben Jacob
February 23rd, 2009 6:33 amLooks very cool.. Wonderful freebie !
jaswinder
February 23rd, 2009 6:33 amfrickin sweet!
verheesj
February 23rd, 2009 6:34 amLooking good guys, keep up the good work you sexy things!?
zEEROCKz
February 23rd, 2009 6:36 amA ha, smashing mag again comes up with something new and refreshing….
Michael
February 23rd, 2009 6:36 amThis is truly a remarkable theme. I’m quite surprised after review of the demo that it is a “free” theme, a gift if you will. Only thing I couldn’t see was the “related” posts feature as described in the review above.
Given from what i can see of the CSS, looks as though this theme would be highly customizable as well.
I want to see more from this author, which is a great indication as to why provisioning readers with “free” items is such a great marketing idea.
Thanks SM, and thanks WeFunction. Bravo!
pocky
February 23rd, 2009 6:41 amA very good template. Nice work!
Dave
February 23rd, 2009 6:43 amQuality theme, thanks for this
Luca
February 23rd, 2009 6:45 amVery cool theme. I would like to see on the official list of WordPress
Daniel
February 23rd, 2009 6:48 amThis is a great design but minor tweaks are necessary.
What kind of design firm builds HTML pages with the H2 element in front of the H1?
Demedes
February 23rd, 2009 6:50 amWOW! Thanks you guys! You are the best! Please, publish more WP themes!
Tim
February 23rd, 2009 6:51 amVery very nice looking. The most authentic “magazine” style Smashing Magazine theme so far I think.
Cinnamon
February 23rd, 2009 6:52 amAmazing stuff, thanks!
Loky
February 23rd, 2009 6:55 amGreat looking theme. Even if i don’t use WP this is a great inspiration thingy ;)
Kurak
February 23rd, 2009 6:59 amamazing minimalistic design, great!
Vavai
February 23rd, 2009 7:03 amThanks for offering nice themes
antipix
February 23rd, 2009 7:03 amreally nice, thanks ^^
Enk.
February 23rd, 2009 7:10 amWow! A Premium WP Theme Free for download.. Great Work !
Amanda
February 23rd, 2009 7:20 amWonderful creations!! Thank you for sharing this.
MD
February 23rd, 2009 7:23 amGreat work! this is awesome!
Beppone
February 23rd, 2009 7:32 amThank you.
Grazie :)
jurica
February 23rd, 2009 7:36 am…drop down will appear with some lag… it is loading to slow for something with over state.
Very nice theme btw. Thank you.
xQlusive
February 23rd, 2009 7:40 amWauw, very nice clean design with awesome colours.
Sinoun
February 23rd, 2009 7:43 amThis is amazing – I love it!! Thank you so much. Will definitely be using this for my blog!
gs
February 23rd, 2009 7:47 amthank you !!
Emmel
February 23rd, 2009 8:01 amVery cool!
Adrian | Rubiqube
February 23rd, 2009 8:02 amThis is an awesome theme! Liam and the crew have done it again. We all have to thank them for allowing us to “pick their brain” once again, for FREE! :)
robj
February 23rd, 2009 8:15 amGreat theme! I don’t think it’s a magazine-look (or layout), but it’s certainly a nice theme.
Navdeep
February 23rd, 2009 8:16 amWooo! amazing theme…
rajesh kannan mj
February 23rd, 2009 8:19 amExcellent functionality. Is the theme conversational reply enabled on comments?
aldrin
February 23rd, 2009 8:23 amone of the best theme release…. great, thanks a lot….
Creamy CSS
February 23rd, 2009 8:35 amyou are the best, guys! good work!
Andres
February 23rd, 2009 8:38 amAmazing theme, thanks. Don’t you have a joomla template too??
Joshua Schaible
February 23rd, 2009 8:40 amLooks great but I get an error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function post_class() in XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/themes/magazeen/index.php on line 21
Any idea guys?
Spencer
February 23rd, 2009 8:47 am@Joshua
Make sure you are on the latest version of WordPress and that you’ve fully installed WordPress without any corrupt files.
Susanne F
February 23rd, 2009 8:58 amWOW and without restrictions.
Thanks a million :-)
mochal
February 23rd, 2009 9:28 amawesome dude nice work
ESD
February 23rd, 2009 9:56 amVery, very nice . Good job
Arthur
February 23rd, 2009 10:04 amLooks GREAT!!! Congratulations, its very beauty… thanks!!!
Dead Robot
February 23rd, 2009 10:10 amI had a couple problems with this theme:
Mac created file naming conventions made opening the file on a PC a bit of a chore, not sure why but unknown files named the same as a folder (IE: the Zero KB file “cache” and the cache folder) would not copy over.
When I did get it transferred, the jQwerty gallery didn’t work and I’m getting a smaller permanent post link just under the Comments box. Not sure if this is because of some file transfer I missed…?
rex
February 23rd, 2009 10:11 ammagazine-”llok” misspelled? just fyi :-)
love the article! thanks once again.
Ryan D-C
February 23rd, 2009 10:25 amStunning! Love everything about it. (especially the sidebar + post)
Martinique
February 23rd, 2009 10:37 amAre there threaden comments?
Dennis
February 23rd, 2009 10:47 amWow, I am really astonished! I am so impressed of that you sharing this great theme with the community! Thank you, I really appreciate this! <3
David Morin
February 23rd, 2009 10:51 amCongratulation again for another terrific theme. This greatly contribute to help the cause of the blogosphere; to give a voice to passionate artists, despite of the medium they chose.
From all of us, Thank you!
acidcloud
February 23rd, 2009 11:00 amWoah this is one awesome theme!! :D
Jenny
February 23rd, 2009 11:00 amThis is beautiful, thanks so much!
Nathan
February 23rd, 2009 11:03 amSimply beautiful.
Smashbase
February 23rd, 2009 11:14 amNice!!! This theme is the nicest free WP Theme I’ve seen yet!
liam
February 23rd, 2009 11:15 amGlad everybody loves our theme, and although not activated on the demo it does support threaded comments.
@Martinique, read above. Thanks :)
Sean
February 23rd, 2009 11:39 amGREAT theme. Im getting this error when clicking to make a comment … anyone else?
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_previous_comments_link() in /home/content/s/e/a/seanbaugh/html/wp-content/themes/Magazeene/comments.php on line 53
UPDATE: Fixed. Needed to upgrade.
Kevin
February 23rd, 2009 11:53 amAwesome theme, very beautiful.
Sean
February 23rd, 2009 12:00 pmFixed the issue – - needed to upgrade :)
daredanger
February 23rd, 2009 12:07 pm@Sean – I too am getting the same problem you were getting
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_previous_comments_link() in /home/content/s/e/a/seanbaugh/html/wp-content/themes/Magazeene/comments.php on line 53
You said that you have fixed the issue — needed to upgrade. I could not understand what you mean to say. Did you upgrade WordPress version or you downloaded the theme again.
Please help.
daredanger
February 23rd, 2009 12:14 pmFixed the issue. I had to update the WordPress Version from 2.7 to 2.7.1
Fokus
February 23rd, 2009 12:47 pmnice theme
Joshua Schaible
February 23rd, 2009 12:56 pmNo, I guess i’m at 2.7 as well. I will update and hopefully it will be fixed! Thanks guys!
Mitchnash1
February 23rd, 2009 1:44 pmI love these free wordpress themes – keep them coming – I can’t get enough of them.
Gavin
February 23rd, 2009 1:55 pmThis is really nice, I cant wait to see the code! Great work!
Sefa Bingöl
February 23rd, 2009 1:56 pmthanks (:
canute
February 23rd, 2009 2:55 pmcoments are not working
Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_previous_comments_link() in \wp-content\themes\magazeen\comments.php on line 53
Spencer
February 23rd, 2009 3:03 pm@canute
Upgrade WordPress to 2.7.1
chriskalani
February 23rd, 2009 3:08 pmIt looks really nice… but good god the comments link is massive.
DamirK
February 23rd, 2009 4:21 pmI upload images, add URL but I can’t get them to display on my blog.
lilidmu
February 23rd, 2009 4:39 pmgreat theme!!!
winsmith
February 23rd, 2009 4:49 pmHi, I can’t get the “Featured Articles” widget to work correctly: Regardless of what I select in the widgets admin panel, it always defaults to the first category in my category list. Any ideas?
winsmith
February 23rd, 2009 4:51 pm@DamirK: You need to enter the uploaded URL into the text field below your post where it says “Enter article image here”. Note that the URL must begin with your domain.
eddie
February 23rd, 2009 4:56 pmvery very beautiful~~~
Kris
February 23rd, 2009 5:01 pmOn a mac, the jquery gallery images will not load, and neither will the sidebar images…
Hmm.. any ideas? Everything was installed properly and the links are live and correct.
-Kris
Ps – for anyone will to respond, I’ve tried uploading the images to the wp gallery as well as directly linking to my images folder via my site. Neither work. :(
DamirK
February 23rd, 2009 5:22 pm@winsmith that is what I am doing, but there is tomething missing or maybe some plugin/setting is stopping it from working. Can’t work it out.
This is what my URL looks like:
http://mydomain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/photoname.jpg (ofcourse mydomain is replaced with the real domain)
I have checked, the URL is ok, image on its own loads with no problems.
Spencer
February 23rd, 2009 5:23 pm@Kris
Make sure in the theme’s directory, the folder named “cache” is CHMOD to 777.
Kris
February 23rd, 2009 5:36 pmI’m going to sound retarded, but how do i activate that?
Wani
February 23rd, 2009 5:47 pmwow! It’s very stylish theme~
Thank you sooooooo much!
Kris
February 23rd, 2009 5:50 pm@Spencer, that didn’t work.. I changed those permissions and still nothing.
Lysender
February 23rd, 2009 5:52 pmSeems like I have to change my them again!
Great as always!
Kris
February 23rd, 2009 5:58 pmCan someone go to
stuffbykris.com/blog
and right click one of the broken images and decrpyt all of that nonsense? There’s something not loading correctly at all. It should have been a painless installation like everyone elses, but this is proving to be a major task.
-Kris
Sal Azad
February 23rd, 2009 6:13 pmi l o v e i t ! ! ! ! Thx Smashing!
Jose Rojas
February 23rd, 2009 6:39 pmWhere is the readme.html ?
Spencer
February 23rd, 2009 7:01 pm@Kris
In the “cache” folder, are there any images?
Anto
February 23rd, 2009 7:43 pmThe readme.html might come in handy here =) For the people that dont know.
James
February 23rd, 2009 7:51 pmIs there a drop down menu of any sort on this theme?
Seangz
December 5th, 2010 2:57 pmHey James, did you figure out the drop down menus issue?
I’ve been searching for a solution for that also, but nothing so far…
Kris
February 23rd, 2009 7:59 pm@Spencer.. yes there are images in my “cache” folder.
Malaika Morris
February 23rd, 2009 8:01 pmFor those having problems getting the pics to show:
I took off the “http://” in the picture URL and it finally worked.
Austin
February 23rd, 2009 8:04 pmThis is very nice! Thank you, I plan on using it for a new tutorial website I have been planning.
Spencer
February 23rd, 2009 8:10 pm@Kris
This is most likely an issue with your server. Please make sure you are running the latest version of PHP, GD, etc.
Uplink
February 23rd, 2009 8:55 pmDo I need to install the PSD-sources to get the Theme to run? and if so where do I put the PSD sources?
Thank you
Thomas Norsted
February 23rd, 2009 11:25 pmReally nice theme! However i’m running the latest version of WordPress and getting
Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /mounted-storage/home51b/xxxx/xxxxx/xxxxxxxxx.com/wp-content/themes/magazeen/functions.php on line 107Any ideas?
Robert Heine
February 23rd, 2009 11:56 pmWow, this theme could also be cool for Joomla. I think i will try to convert it, if i may…
DamirK
February 24th, 2009 1:07 amYeap… cache folder was a problem!
Thank you