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Free Portfolio WordPress Theme: Creative by Nature

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In this post we are glad to release Creative by Nature, a unique and flexible high-quality portfolio WordPress theme for artists, photographers and designers. The theme was designed by .css{mayo} and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Release in Free Portfolio WordPress Theme: Creative by Nature

Download the theme for free!

Creative by Nature is a free portfolio theme created by CSSMayo.com and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The designers created a funky theme, particularly useful for artists, photographers and designers who are looking for a flexible portfolio solution. The theme’s .zip-package includes all necessary files, server installation guide and a help file which describes how to add entries to your portfolio section. Besides, a PSD source file is available for free download as well.

The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions. Please link to this post and also to CSSMayo Release Post if you want to spread the word. You may modify the theme as you wish.

Preview in Free Portfolio WordPress Theme: Creative by Nature

Installation guidelines

  1. Download the latest version of “Creative by nature” theme either here or here
  2. Unzip and upload the theme to your “wp-content/themes/” directory
  3. In WordPress, go to “Appearance > Themes” and activate the “Creative by nature” theme
  4. In the theme archive you’ll find file creative_by_nature-export.xml. Import it to your WordPress installation from “Tools > Import > WordPress”
  5. Go to “Settings > Reading” and:
  • Check “A static page (select below)” in “Front page displays” field.
  • Select “Home” in “Front page: ” drop-down menu
  • Select “Blog” in “Posts page: ” drop-down menu

Adding Portfolio Entry

Here are instructions for adding portfolio entries:

  1. Go to “Pages > Add new”
  2. Enter Portfolio entry title
  3. Insert your image into the post(preffered image size: 290×230 px), then add “more” tag. Add short description for the entry, then add one more “more” tag. Then enter the remaining text. (Check out test portfolio entries for example)
  4. You may also enter custom fields “url” if you want to add additional information to each portfolio entry.
  5. You’ll need to setup few things in “Attributes” section:
  • Choose “Portfolio” page for page parent
  • In “Template” field select “Portfolio Item”
  • You may also enter position field if you want to specify the order of portfolio entries.

Thank you very much, folks! We appreciate your efforts.

The team here at Smashing Magazine. Mostly Sven & Vitaly.

Post Rating
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  1. 1
    Courtny Cotten
    July 30th, 2009 12:54 pm

    Rockin!

  2. 2
    Imad Sid
    July 30th, 2009 12:57 pm

    Amazing

  3. 3
    Nicolas TAFFOREAU
    July 30th, 2009 1:04 pm

    Amazing theme, thank you for the share.

  4. 4
    Zoltan Sebestyen
    July 30th, 2009 1:05 pm

    Great work. Thanks!

  5. 5
    Enk.
    July 30th, 2009 1:12 pm

    Wow cool..
    Not pretty sure, but I may use it soon !

  6. 6
    Tomi
    July 30th, 2009 1:20 pm

    Great!

  7. 7
    Martin Nissen
    July 30th, 2009 1:23 pm

    Very inspiring. Thanks!

  8. 8
    Mehrdad Nassiri
    July 30th, 2009 1:35 pm

    Beautiful but client-side files are about 1.2mb !
    It’s too bad for slow-internet users …

  9. 9
    Shibi Kannan
    July 30th, 2009 1:53 pm

    Beautiful theme, lost of graphics in the background, the typography needs a little touch up. xml file was something new and wasn’t really sure what that was for. Thank you again Smashing Magazine and CSS Mayo

  10. 10
    yasin
    July 30th, 2009 2:15 pm

    Of the creative themes out on the net, this has to be one of the top ones I’ve seen. Well done on a fantastic job.

  11. 11
    Jenna
    July 30th, 2009 3:39 pm

    That’s really beautiful. Good work, creators.

  12. 12
    jesse
    July 30th, 2009 4:45 pm

    really good…so good my website im working on looks similar ..haha.. im patting my own back now.. good job as usual SMASH!

  13. 13
    Patrick Sweeney
    July 30th, 2009 5:13 pm

    Never understood the point of someone “creative” using a prefab design. sort of defeats the purpose.

  14. 14
    Martin
    July 30th, 2009 5:32 pm

    Please, can anyone explain what that template should say? I have no clue… looks to me like just another grunge style template.
    Even worse the license statement: “The theme is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions.”
    You really should know it better – don’t release such sentences out to thousands of readers. The GPL never was and will never be a “do what you want” license… and its for sure not a good license for art work like templates.
    @SM: You should really push the featured artists to use a Creative Commons here…

  15. 15
    Kim
    July 30th, 2009 6:15 pm

    Never understood the point of someone “creative” using a prefab design. sort of defeats the purpose.

    Ditto. Okay, I get it if you’re an illustrator, or something else non-designy (I am, and our graphic design teacher hammered it into our heads that we’re NOT designers and if we ever actually design anything she’ll kick our asses) but if a webdesigner used a free design for their portfolio… that’s just cheap as hell.

  16. 16
    Dele
    July 30th, 2009 6:32 pm

    it doesnt do it for me – i dont like it

  17. 17
    John Lalor
    July 30th, 2009 10:16 pm

    hi
    I am new to wordpress and love this theme – at the moment I am using the wordpress hosted version – I asume I can’t use this theme. What do I have to have in terms of wordpress to be able to use these themes. It would be good if wordpress made them available

  18. 18
    Luis Lopez
    July 30th, 2009 11:14 pm

    Excellent theme, i like it.
    It looks really professional and easy to use

  19. 19
    stope
    July 30th, 2009 11:51 pm

    looks pretty cool. even with that huge amount of pictures =)

  20. 20
    All for Design
    July 30th, 2009 11:54 pm

    Hello,
    To my mind this template is quite good even if I’m not kind of the design style…
    I just wanted to give you a feedback about the search result’s page. I don’t know if it’s normal but there is no background so it’s quite difficult to read the text and the title is hidden under the leafs.
    But globally thanks for sharing this template for free, you must have spend a lot of time to create it.
    ps : sorry for my poor english language…

  21. 21
    Listoric
    July 30th, 2009 11:55 pm

    I don’t like it in general, but I really love how awesome the polaroids look :D

  22. 22
    nuewo
    July 31st, 2009 12:04 am

    I don’t like this design. I agree with “All for Design” dificult for reading I prefere clean design

  23. 23
    MaTYO
    July 31st, 2009 12:04 am

    this has been posted about 4 times now. BORED

  24. 24
    clement
    July 31st, 2009 12:09 am

    nice !!!!

  25. 25
    ?
    July 31st, 2009 12:19 am

    Is it Turkish Money? :D

  26. 26
    fleacool
    July 31st, 2009 12:55 am

    nice theme
    thanks for share ^^

  27. 27
    Heya
    July 31st, 2009 1:18 am

    Thats Amazing!

  28. 28
    garuda
    July 31st, 2009 1:34 am

    Can the theme be used for a professional project ?
    Thx !

  29. 29
    jon
    July 31st, 2009 4:23 am

    Patrick beat me to the punch. The irony is delicious :D

  30. 30
    Evshi
    July 31st, 2009 11:17 am

    Cool!

  31. 31
    Mike
    July 31st, 2009 1:09 pm

    While I always appreciate your site’s hard work and contributions and thank you for giving this away for free… I got to say, not really feeling it. I think a portfolio design should be less words, more pics and more focused on the work. And not so naturish, more clean and less background. Like I said, focused on the work and not distracted by the surroundings.

    But thank you for the theme. I’m sure it will make someone happy.

  32. 32
    Annouss
    July 31st, 2009 3:05 pm

    Hi.
    What’s the name of the plugin you’re using to share posts on Twitter, del.icio.us … plz ?

  33. 33
    @23Kazoos
    August 1st, 2009 1:15 pm

    I just got a new wordpress theme on my site. Now I want this one!! These things are like shoes to us, we’ve got to have a lot of them!

  34. 34
    Vanesa
    August 2nd, 2009 7:30 am

    That theme looks fantastic!

  35. 35
    Tom
    August 2nd, 2009 5:53 pm

    Why are smashing mag themes always over designed? You guys always release themes that do not have “Lasting appeal”, they always looks tacky.

    Look back at this theme in 6 months time and you will see how irrelevant the design style is, no disrespect to the designer, but come on now, another grunge theme?

    I havent yet seen 1 smashing mag theme that has any lasting appeal, you guys are so called experts aswell, surely you can muster up a decent theme for the community.

    This is just my opinion, but honestly, maybe you should release something that you would actually be happy to use yourself.

    Elegant, timeless design is where its at! A good example of a decent theme is the one you use on this site, simple, clean and has lasting appeal. Why not make something like this for us?

  36. 36
    guille
    August 2nd, 2009 10:03 pm

    Excelente template, muy bueno, lo voy a usar. Es re moderno y perfecto.

  37. 37
    Ömer ARI
    August 3rd, 2009 2:55 am

    Turkish Lira (; Fantastic theme!

  38. 38
    David Lari
    August 3rd, 2009 4:18 am

    While I have to agree with a lot of folks about this being overdesigned, (and a bit ironic), I think the real value of this theme would be to use it as a starting point for creating your own portfolio theme. Swap out the graphics with your own, tweak the typography, etc. It could be a real time saver and isn’t it all about productivity?

    Of course there are those that like it just the way it is and that’s fine too.

  39. 39
    Ege
    August 3rd, 2009 4:47 am

    What’s the deal with the Turkish Lira? Yes, I liked it but just wondering where did the idea come from…

  40. 40
    Patareco
    August 4th, 2009 6:29 am

    Ok, i will be using this theme as a base but I have to implement custom thumbnails first, and get rid of those small portfolio images, and spice up the blog sections, and of course change the background!

  41. 41
    Kre8iv
    August 4th, 2009 9:14 am

    This is a nice design… looks like a lot of work went into it (as well as the dozens of others that have been posted here). But why do people continue to want to distract people from viewing their work with so much stuff in a design?
    I for one would prefer people to view the sum of my work … un-distracted by the environment I have placed it in. Web design in portfolio sites is what makes the first impression… what if the viewer decides they don’t like the design and boogies on out of the site? IN that case, no matter how good your work is you won’t have the chance to show it…

    IMO… simple black Rules… (Doesn’t mean you can’t sweeten it up a bit tho :) )

  42. 42
    Gao
    August 4th, 2009 2:48 pm

    Amo este diseño, este tema en general… y publicar el .PSD es una gran ayuda, tanto para aprender como para modificar y adaptar el trabajo a nuestras necesidades.
    SM son geniales! los sigo hace un buen tiempo a traves de RSS y Twitter e introducen a la “gente común” (ni me considero Geek) en el terreno del diseño. Logrando que la internet sea más bonita cada día.
    Esta clase de publicación me deja entretenido por semanas y seguramente utilice este tema, mientras sigo profundizando mis conocimientos.

    Gratz keep up the good work!
    (from Argentina)

    English:
    I love this design, this theme in general… and the .PSD realese helps us a lot: to learn and modify this to our needs.
    You are great SM, I’m following you a long time ago (RSS & Twitter) and you introduce to normal people (I’m not even a Geek) into the design. You make the internet prettier every day!
    This kind of publication helps so much, and expands my mind in so many ways!
    Gratz keep up the good work!

  43. 43
    camu
    August 5th, 2009 5:55 am

    Why it is not available on the official repository?

  44. 44
    Jarvis
    August 5th, 2009 6:09 am

    Ultimate theme for wordpress……
    Thanks for sharing

  45. 45
    Premium Theme Info
    August 5th, 2009 9:36 am

    Very beautiful theme. I can’t believe it’s free!

  46. 46
    nicusor @ Nickoo Shore
    August 6th, 2009 4:09 am

    Simply…. beautiful!

    Thank you!

  47. 47
    tessa101
    August 9th, 2009 12:10 pm

    Is this theme widget ready? Can’t get them to show up.

    Looks like a nice template. Planning to get rid of the “Services” section, “Case study” text at the bottom, change the background. Can’t get the small thumbs at the bottom to show up properly …

  48. 48
    Jasper
    August 10th, 2009 12:55 am

    Don´t work for me, dashboard and blog don´t load after theme selection :-/

    Maybe it´s a problem with memory.

  49. 49
    Wilson
    August 12th, 2009 10:09 pm

    Great theme, but im having trouble with the projects. If i rename them they get jumbled up. They are being sorted alphabetically, i have tried to mess around with the order as well and just cant get it to work. If anyone knows a solution, please help!

  50. 50
    7yuz
    August 18th, 2009 12:12 pm

    I like turkish lira. Why did the person who made this templates, use thish sing? i couldn’t find a answer.

  51. 51
    Stephen Allred
    August 19th, 2009 5:57 am

    To… Much… JPEG… Compression…

  52. 52
    Cihat Çiftçi
    August 22nd, 2009 8:41 am

    Turkish Lira nostalgia:D

  53. 53
    jyoti Chugh
    August 24th, 2009 10:44 pm

    WOW ! Excellent and creative theme have explained everything how to import files, Thanz guys! Keep it up.

  54. 54
    Kevin
    September 8th, 2009 4:03 pm

    Excellent theme and I am sorry but those who mention this is an over complicated and cluttered design, generally you would want tailored orientated websites to stand out rather than a clean one.

    I do have a question regarding the theme itself though I would like to have a logo be represented rather than the blog text. I have no issues removing the blog title and tag line, I just can’t figure out from the PSD itself, how to save just the ‘logo’ section and replace with the current header image in the theme, if anyone can help that would be greatly apprecaited.

  55. 55
    Stephen
    September 9th, 2009 8:33 pm

    @49 Wilson
    I had the same problem.

    It works when I numbered the ones I wanted on the front, 0,1,2 and then I edited homepage. php so that line:
    $projects = get_pages(’child_of=’ . $portfolio->ID . ‘&sort_column=menu_order,post_title&sort_order=asc&number=4′);

    ended with a 6 instead of a 4

    Don’t ask me what that means or why changing it works. Just knew that was the right area of the template and I started messing with it till it worked

  56. 56
  57. 57
    andimiswar
    October 20th, 2009 2:24 am

    excellent theme… great job dude..!!

  58. 58
    Alekos
    November 5th, 2009 1:44 am

    Very nice & beautifull theme and css…
    BRAVO !!!

  59. 59
    dobrier
    November 17th, 2009 8:04 am

    merki

  60. 60
    Razvan
    November 17th, 2009 11:58 pm

    it’s not working for me.
    too bad coz its a really nice theme.

  61. 61
    pakaworld
    December 30th, 2009 3:28 am

    that is awesome keep it up

  62. 62
    Giuseppe Beghelli
    January 9th, 2010 5:25 am

    Excellent template but there is a problem in the Portfolio section. Must include the ability to display a number of projects per page. If I have 100 projects may not appear in a single page, the scroll would be infinite. Sorry for my English.

  63. 63
    Tess
    January 14th, 2010 6:42 am

    I LOVE IT!! I think it’s awesome and am going to use it for a blog I have been wanting to start! Thanks for the share…can anyone tell me what the “PSD-spurce” is for???
    thanks much!
    Tess

  64. 64
    first blast
    January 16th, 2010 1:37 pm

    wonderful site thanks to share a lot of things

  65. 65
    Paige
    January 28th, 2010 3:46 pm

    I love this and I’ve had a great time customizing it. But there is one thing I am trying to figure out how to do that escapes me completely.

    I like the way the projects are listed on the page, but is there a way I can make the images show up larger on the project pages? I have resorted to linking them into my Flickr pages since I can’t figure out how to make them larger if you click on them, or just to simply have them larger on the project page (preferable) …

    Thanks for any help,
    Cheers,
    Paige

  66. 66
    Skogtroll Design
    February 8th, 2010 9:34 am

    Wonderful template! Excellent to customizing:) I allowed myself to the redesign and customizing it of my needs.
    Cheers and thank You!

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