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When To Use Magazine-Style Themes For Blogs?

When designing a custom theme or deciding on an already-existing theme, bloggers have a lot of factors to consider and there is no shortage of options, particularly for WordPress users. A growing number of blogs are moving away from traditional blog layouts in favor of magazine-style themes; however, the layout and presentation of content has a major impact on visitors and there is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Magazine themes have a few characteristics that distinguish them from traditional blog themes.

1. Magazine themes only use excerpts or headlines on the front page, while standard blogs will use either full posts or excerpts.
2. A magazine theme functions more as a portal to content on the rest of the site. The magazine theme will give visitors a glimpse at what is available and it will direct them to go in whatever direction they like.
3. Magazine themes make more effort to organize the content of the blog and present what is most important, whereas traditional blog layouts will order front page content based on what is most recent.

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Premium WordPress Themes: Are They Here To Stay?

Over the last few years WordPress managed to become the dominating weblog engine out there. The main reasons behind its overwhelming success aren't that astonishing: WordPress is extremely easy to use, it's absolutely free and it has a huge community. But what is even more important is the fact that WordPress is an Open Source project. That means that everything, from the documentation to the code itself, was and is being created by and for the community for free. Consequently, WordPress themes and plugins have also been released for free in the spirit of the Open Source movement.

Over the last months we've been observing a growing trend towards "premium" WordPress themes — themes designed by freelancers and design agencies, heavily advertised on popular weblogs and offered for a fixed price.

Usually the development of a magazine-style design from scratch would cost $10,000 - $40,000. In these cases "premium" themes might address the needs of clients with smaller budgets.

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