Looking for a certain style of Wordpress theme

November 18, 2015 11:23 AM

I'm looking for a Wordpress theme that is similar to the style of a certain page, and I'm coming up with nothing.

The website in question is this one. It doesn't have to be anywhere near exact, but the simplicity and the general structure are what I'm looking for. I've been searching for music- and arts-related themes for days, but everything seems aimed at performing musicians who are wanting to sell downloads and merch, while I'm looking for a more biographical and subdued site like this one. That said, it still needs to be in WP, because I want to be able to plug in calendars and photo galleries and all that, within the WP architecture. Have you seen anything similar that might fit the bill?

posted by jbickers to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Could you clarify what you like about the site? What do you mean by general structure? Are there particular elements or design choices that you want for your site?

For what it's worth, this site is very dated in design and functionality - that's why you aren't finding Wordpress themes that are similar. The fixed width design is pretty awful on mobile devices and tiny on high resolution devices.
posted by ssg at 11:56 AM on November 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

That site is not responsive. Since you can expect 40% of traffic to arrive from tablets and phones, that means that site is not something you want to emulate. I would guess you want a "split screen" theme? That one is Borderlands but there are others.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:20 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't know a theme off-hand that you could just plug in and have work, but if you're willing to put some time into customizing, you might try evolve.

The evolve theme has a free version with built in support for slideshows and shortcodes, and is highly customizable.

It won't be plug-and-play, but it might be worth playing around with. The paid version has more features, of course, and they also offer the alora theme for $49. Comparison chart here.

(FYI, I changed my quick-n-dirty hobby comedy nerd blog to the evolve theme, and I'm putting finishing touches on a client's site I just did using alora.)
posted by The Deej at 12:24 PM on November 18, 2015

Response by poster: I'm building this for a friend, who likes the site I linked to because they perceive it to be clean and to-the-point. I don't think responsiveness or mobile users has crossed their mind. I like the Borderlands theme so far, but am eager to see others. Thanks!
posted by jbickers at 12:44 PM on November 18, 2015

Seems like a style that would probably be pretty easy to emulate with Divi, while retaining lots of mobile-friendliness and social media ability.
posted by stormyteal at 2:17 PM on November 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

If it were me, I'd just start with a blank template structure like underscores and build it myself. The time it would take to do something relatively simple like that would probably be less than hunting and fiddling with something similarish, and you'd end up with good, modern infrastructure and no cruft.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:07 PM on November 19, 2015