Short introduction from Smashing Magazine:

..we release a yet another freebie: JournalCrunch WordPress 3.0+ theme, a theme for magazines or portfolios with an integrated journal. The theme was designed by Site5 and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Features:

• Widget ready (footer and sidebar)
• Easy to setup, Theme Options Page
• Custom Homepage with 2 different views (featured posts or slider)
• WordPress Post Thumbnail Enabled
• WordPress 3.0+ Menu Management Support
• Latest Tweets Built-in Widget
• Built-in Pagination
• 9 shortcodes
• Grid and standard posts listing
• Ninvo Slider, easy to setup from Admin panel
• JQuery Drop-down menu
• JQuery PrettyPhoto Lightbox
• JQuery Forms
• Ajax based contact form
• Live form email validation

Screenshots:
Featured Posts View

Grid View

Slider View

Options Page

Aside from the beautiful design and layout, the numerous options and features usually found on premium WordPress themes, the Journal Crunch theme also has a very nice typography. If I had an extra blog, this theme would definitely be my first choice/option. Another cool feature I like in this theme is the built-in shortcodes that enable the user to customize the content style and how it should be displayed. With its flexibility (multiple layout styles), the Journal Crunch can be used not only for online portfolios or magazines but also for different types of blogs or websites.

The Journal Crunch theme is available to download for FREE and is released under a GPL license. The theme can be used and modified for any type of project without any restrictions. For the installation guide and complete documentation, click here.

Kudos once again to the folks of Smashing Magazine and Site5 for creating and sharing this beautiful theme to the WordPress community!

Preview or Download the Journal Crunch WordPress Theme for Portfolios and Magazines.

NOTE: This theme was scanned using the Theme Authenticity Checker and doesn’t contain any hidden or encrypted code.

The Sight WordPress theme is a widget-ready, WordPress 3.0.1-ready theme that features a modern and minimalistic design.

Here’s some insight from the theme authors/designers regarding the inspiration and motivation behind the theme design:

Sight is a powerful WordPress theme, best suited for Magazines and Blogs. The theme was designed in modern minimalistic style with Golden Grid usage. It has two views to get information in the way you want — a standard blog view and a grid view. A big image slider on the top gives you extra ability to show the most important content.

The theme supports the newest WordPress versions and has 2 Custom Menu Locations. 2 pagination types are available: Default with WP-NAVI support and Ajax-fetching, like in previous Twitter interface. The Sight theme supports Social Media. It has links to share each post to Twitter, Facebook, Delicious Digg, no plugins needed. It is also Search Engine Optimized, so you don’t need to care about it, just set it up and get love from Google.

Features:

• WordPress 3.0.1 Ready
• Theme Options page
• Two Pagination types (Default + WP Page-Navi support & AJAX-fetching posts)
• Valid XHTML 1.1
• jQuery-powered Featured Post Carousel
• Custom Widgets
• 2 Custom Menu Locations
• jQuery-powered Drop-down menu
• Nested comments
• Two post view types: standard blog view and a grid view
• Google Analytics Ready
• Custom Logo Upload
• Gravatar support
• Search Engine Optimized
• Browsers compatibility (IE 7 , IE 8 , Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome)
• Built in support for Social Bookmaking on Blog Posts – tinyurl.com API support for URL shorting

Screenshots:
Standard View

Grid View

Post Page

Custom Widgets

The Sight WordPress theme is a cool theme that has lots of options and features – standard view, grid view, custom widgets, etc. which I’m sure many WordPress users would love. It. is released under the GPL license. It is available to download for FREE and can be modified or can be used for any project without any restrictions.

Preview or Download the Sight WordPress Theme.

NOTE: This theme was scanned using the Theme Authenticity Checker and doesn’t contain any hidden or encrypted code.

This free photoblogging theme for WordPress that I’m sharing with you today is called Mansion. This theme was created and released by Graphic Paper Press, the same site that gave us the Work-A-Holic portfolio style WordPress theme.

Here’s a short introduction from the theme authors:

Mansion is a free photoblogger’s theme for WordPress. It features a flexible-width thumbnail grid for both images and photo journal entries. Mansion is perfect for those who want to primarily showcase their photographs and occasionally write blog posts.

Basic Features:

• Clean grid layout
• Post thumbnails
• Menu customization
• Fully widgetized
• Compatible with IE 7 & 8, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox

Screenshots:
Homepage

Blog

Post page

IMPORTANT: Graph Paper Press requires users to sign-up with a valid email address to download their themes.

My Take:
The Mansion photoblogging theme is another beautiful freemium WordPress theme from Graphic Paper Press. It has all the features and options that most photobloggers need in a WordPress theme. I really love the design and look of the homepage with the thumbnails and I also love how it has a flexible width layout, making it compatible with any screen size/resolution. I’m in the process of creating and uploading my photoblog and will be using the Mansion theme for it.

There’s nothing much else to say about the Mansion WordPress theme because the theme speaks for itself. Kudos to the folks of Graphic Paper Press for creating this beautiful photoblogging theme and releasing it for FREE to the WordPress community.

Preview or Download the Mansion photoblogging theme for WordPress.

NOTE: This theme was scanned using the Theme Authenticity Checker and doesn’t contain any hidden or encrypted code.

The Unstandard WordPress theme is released / shared with the intent of breaking the typical blog mold. Farewell to the blase reverse chronological text heavy front pages, and hello to visuals & imagery to lure visitors deeper into your website / blog. A WordPress theme comprised of a – grid aligned – images for forward facing pages, and clean textual presentation on the inner pages. Originally developed for personal use, and modified for release, I felt that an update to the WordPress themes made available on 5thirtyone.com was due.

Basic Features:

• 2 columns
• Right sidebar
• Footer
• WP 2.3 – 2.5 compatible
• Works on Firefox, IE & Opera
• XHTML compliant

Screenshot:

NOTE: The Unstandard theme requires the use of WordPress custom fields for it to display the lead and secondary images displayed on the home page, index, and search results. Derek provides a detailed instruction and a screenshot in the theme page.

My Take:
I’ve always been a fan of Derek, 5thirtyone and his WordPress themes. The Unstandard theme is no exception. I love this theme! If I still had a personal blog, I’d install this theme right away.

The Unstandard theme, like it’s name is unique and a bit “unorthodox” WordPress theme. Instead of the normal index page filled with lots of text, this theme uses images as its “post excerpt”.

There are three things IMO that makes the Unstandard theme less “marketable” or appealing to WordPress users. The first being that it’s not a widget-ready theme meaning that WordPress users who rely heavily on widgets would have to pass or wait until it gets widgetized. Second would be the required use of custom fields and I know for a fact that most WordPress users aren’t familiar with this WordPress feature. Last but not least, the need to create two separate graphics for each post. Not all users have the time or resources to do this and for any blogger, this process can be time consuming.

As mentioned earlier, this theme was originally developed for Derek’s personal use, meaning this theme wasn’t created for the public or to cater to most WordPress users. I know there are still a lot of folks who are more than happy to see this theme released. I’m sure that in a matter of time, we’ll see several customized versions of this theme out in the wild.

Overall, I still think that the Unstandard WordPress Theme is one awesome theme. Kudos to Derek for creating another inspirational theme and for sharing it to the public. I give the Unstandard a 4.5 out of 5.

Preview or Download the Unstandard theme for WordPress.

UnGrid is officially here, and it’s the first truly grid-based theme that I have designed. The theme also marks the new journey, which I’m embarking on in releasing free themes with a few premium features. After establishing a great business model based on WordPress, the only thing I can do is to give back to the community…

Screenshot:

Basic theme features include:

• Integrated Banner-ad Management
• Featured About Section
• Modified Homepage Layout
• Widget-ready Sidebar

Plugins Needed:

• Recent Posts
• Recent Comments
• Most Commented
• Popularity Contest

My Take:
When I saw this theme, the first thing that came into my mind was Derek Punsalan’s Grid Focus theme. I’m not saying that this theme was based on it because the UnGrid is totally different not only in design but also in features. I don’t know why I automatically associate any grid based theme to Grid Focus but it’s probably because (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the first released WordPress theme that’s grid based.

Back to the topic at hand, UnGrid is a very nice minimalist theme that has a simple, yet solid design. It comes in three colors, Green which is the default theme color, Pink and my favorite color Blue. Although, it can be used for personal blogs, I believe that this theme would work nicely for an information blog or website. Adii picked very nice fonts to go with this theme. They’re clear and easy to read. However, the problem I have with it is the font color which IMO makes it hard to read the text especially on a white background. This issue can be easily corrected via the stylesheet.

If you’re worried about the required plugins, you don’t have to install them just to use this theme. The UnGrid was coded in a way that it would work without those plugins. But if you want to use the same format and content to be displayed especially in the footer section, then you definitely need them plugins.

As I normally do with all WordPress themes that I review, I checked the UnGrid on several browsers. It worked great on Firefox and Opera, but with Internet Explorer, I found out that the sidebar is not properly aligned with the left sidebar and content area. I’m not sure if Adii is aware of it but I’m sure this can be fixed easily.

Before you go and download this theme, make sure that you have some background knowledge in HTML/CSS or have someone who can help you customize or tweak this theme because due to time constraints and busy schedules, the authors have clearly stated that they will not provide any support for this theme. It’s good to see Adii release good quality WordPress for free inspite of his success with Premium themes. I give the UnGrid theme a 4 out of 5.

Preview or Download the UnGrid WordPress theme.