Themes are skins which are implement on top of WordPress installations. The way WordPress works makes it possible to switch from one theme to the other without affecting the content of a site.

The beauty about WordPress themes is that there are thousands available, both free and for less than $100.

We often tell clients that we can develop a custom theme from scratch, which we price at between $1,500 and $2,000. We also mention that modifying an existing theme can be done at a fraction of the cost and time, and it has the further advantage of being tested across browsers.

Here are some places where you can find free (open source) themes:

• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/08/100-excellent-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes/
• http://www.toptut.com/category/free-wordpress-themes/

And here are some fee-based themes we like:

• http://www.revolutiontwo.com
• http://www.woothemes.com/
• http://diythemes.com/

How to choose a theme?

Think about these two aspects when you are looking at themes: functionality and design.

Functionality is more important, because it defines the type of theme which will best fit your site. Is your site a content-heavy informational portal? Then go with a magazine-style theme such as Arthemia:

Arthemia from Indonesian designer Michael Jubel

Looking for a theme to run a fully-fledged blog? Then go for blog-friendly themes with blog functionality in the side columns such as Acamas:

The Acamas WordPress Theme

How about a simple business site? An elegant theme with a few links and information boxes on the homepage such as Several3 may be perfect:

Several3 WordPress Theme: it's clean

Once you’ve chosen a few possible themes, then look at the design. In particular, the color scheme and logo placement are important as they should fit your company’s look and feel. Let’s assume you already have a logo at this point.

Keep in mind that everything within the WordPress theme is flexible and can be changed: the banner photo, the placement of the columns, the height of the banner, the size of the headline fonts etc…

Last, here are a few sites which we have developed based on free themes:

• AshtangaNews.com, a blog about yoga
• HuangConsulting.com, a 10 page business site
• ForeclosuresIntel.com, another 10 page business site

The much awaited 2.7 was released.

Much-awaited because it is a giant leap for the backend admin interface, which should make it easier than ever to introduce newbie clients to updating content.

Also it has a built-in upgrade function for both the WP install and the plugins, saving a lot time. Talking about plugins, you can search and install them via the interface – no more searching for download links, unzipping, FTPing…

Plugin directory from within Admin dashboard

Anyway, this should have been called 3.0, but they are against “version number inflation”.

Another intriguing  features is the integration of Google Gears with WordPress when you click on the “Turbo” link in the top right. It crashed my FireFox 3 but worked on Chrome. Supposedly it speeds up posting and admin. We will write more on this later. 

Flash file upload now works, and here's another goodie: pretty Akismet spam comment stats

I would wait a few days for the inevitable security patches and aim to roll out installations in the beginning of 2009.