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The Best WordPress Designs I’ve Ever Seen

I’ve personally built over 350 websites and I got hooked on WordPress in 2008. I had seen blogs or weblogs since they were invented, but in 2008 I stumbled on a site that was designed by Brian Gardner and it changed my game. There are a number of reasons why I do 4 out of 5 websites now on top of WordPress blogs:

• The WP framework is simply perfect for SEO.
• I can build a basic website in an hour and then “skin it” with a custom WP Theme and then go to town building out pages and categories.
• Whenever I needed to add a web page I can add a blog post instead. It’s much faster and I can do it from anywhere without using Dreamweaver. I can make a website that’s 10 pages or 20, 50 or 100 pages just by adding blog posts. The more unique content, the more SE’s show their love.
• No hassles with tables, css, and cross browser compatibility which leads to instant web building gratification. All that is taken care of by the WordPress developers – thank you !!
• Finally, many of the things I wanted to do with the site programming wise are already done for me in the form of open source free “WP Plugins”.

I’ve looked at thousands of WP Designs over the last 2 years and I gathered a short list of the best designs I’ve discovered. This is the criteria I used to make the list:

• The site has to be visually stunning.
• The header and top part of the background have to wrap around and display below the top menu bar and the text area of the blog.
• The footers and bottom part of the background have to wrap up around the bottom text area of the blog.
• Any artistic deviation from standard menu bars and headings is greatly appreciated.
• I give extra credit for moving images above the fold.

This is Matt Mullenweg’s personal site. For anyone who does NOT know this is guy, he’s the founder and driving force behind WordPress.

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This is one of Toronto designer Nick La‘s sites. Nick is one of the best Adobe Illustrator designers in the world today, and he has tons of over the top CSS tricks on the site, many of which I’ve been fortunate enough to adapt.

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The Lifecruiser blog was designed by Leanne Wildermuth and it’s like looking at a painting with the functionality of a blog.

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Tribal is a WP Theme by Carlos Aguaron at Gorilla Themes. It features a very artistic no scroll background and integrated MP3 player. Another nice feature… the area between content blocks is opaque and transparent. Very cool.

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I don’t know who the designer was that made these but I’ll try and find out. If you’re looking for something in a WP Theme that’s super artistic and FREE, this place is like hitting the jackpot.

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This is a Studio Press Theme done by KickStartMedia.org.  I think the owner is a super talented designer named John Flynn… and at one time he was on the StudioPress.com team with Brian Gardner. Anyway, his professional site is very cool and there’s a beautiful showcase to stroll through for ideas with some wow factor.

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This is another Studio Press Theme. Not sure who did this one but it’s part of Brain Gardner’s showcase on Studio Press and its very creative.

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The 3rd Studio Press example I put in my favorites list. This was created by Jeff Milone who is one of the moderators on the Studio Press support forum and an outstanding designer. This site was one of the sites that got me to switch to WordPress as my website framework of choice. The other was Brian Gardner’s original “Revolution” Theme.

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This site is on almost every “Best Wordpress Designs” list and it was done by Miguel Ripoll. When I look at the site I’m immediately hit by the artistic nature of the work. I’ve been using Photoshop professionally for 15 years but I’m more of a mechanic with style. This site was designed by an artist.

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