Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Designers are facing a great year. A handful of very interesting design trends points them into distinct directions. Hero areas, ghost buttons, Material Design, parallax scrolling, are the craze in 2015. People with lesser design know-how and a WordPress blog need not step behind, however. Rely on the WordPress themes community, and you won’t get disappointed. Talented people have already come up with just what would spark your envy weren’t it available to you, too. By the way, if you are a designer in search of an excellent foundation to build that client’s site upon, the themes are also for you. Take them as inspiration or use them as they are. All you need is a self-hosted WordPress, and you’re good to go…
All these themes are free though some may have commercial variants available. We noted that where applicable…

Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Parallax scrolling, colorful and dynamic, animation effects
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Anders Norén
Features: Pinterest-like with a Masonry layout, infinite scroll support, social menu
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Paper Tree Design
Features: Ultra minimal look ideal for writers, widgets, galleries
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: aThemes
Features: Straightforward design, threaded comments, custom widgets, responsive design
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Faster Themes
Features: For business or personal sites, Bootstrap-based, custom widgets and theme options
License: GNU General Public License, paid version with extended feature set available

Creator: ThemeShaker
Features: Ideal for landing pages, simple and effective design, perfect to showcase products
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: FabThemes
Features: Customizable featured posts slider, social options
License: GNU General Public License v2 (Non-commercial), paid version for commercial use available

Creator: FThemes
Features: E-commerce oriented, built-in options page, SEO optimized
License: GNU Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Full-width slider, neat color scheme, social buttons
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: WP Dev Shed
Features: Great for big images, hover animations, menu area with widgets
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: ThemeCot
Features: Extremely simple and clean, perfect for magazines and blogs, Font Awesome, post formats
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Shufflehound
Features: Custom color schemes, very simple and lightweight, custom slider and admin panel
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Themeora
Features: Highly customizable, Bootstrap-based, Google Fonts included
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Themes&Co, released by Free WP Themes
Features: Cool hover animations, very versatile, fully responsive
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Perfect for law firms and attorneys, display contact info right away, icons and testimonials
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: New WordPress Themes
Features: Easy to customize, shortcodes and widgets, SEO optimized
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Cohhe
Features: Download through WP to avoid social share, highly customizable, clean and user-friendly
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Think Up Themes
Features: Various layouts, SEO optimized, screen-wide slider
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: WebMan Design
Features: Perfect for personal and small business sites, header slideshow, filterable portfolio
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: Ryan Sommers
Features: Supremely fast, responsive and minimal, only content without anything else
License: Unspecified

Creator: Anariel Design
Features: Minimal, content-focused, nice typography
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: aThemes
Features: Aimed at photographers, wonderful animations and grid layout
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)

Creator: ThemeShock
Features: Simple, colorful layout, HTML and WordPress version, responsive
License: Personal use only; paid commercial license available
Source
All these themes are free though some may have commercial variants available. We noted that where applicable…
Business One
Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Parallax scrolling, colorful and dynamic, animation effects
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Garfunkel
Creator: Anders Norén
Features: Pinterest-like with a Masonry layout, infinite scroll support, social menu
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Charlene
Creator: Paper Tree Design
Features: Ultra minimal look ideal for writers, widgets, galleries
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Hiero
Creator: aThemes
Features: Straightforward design, threaded comments, custom widgets, responsive design
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)
Laurels
Creator: Faster Themes
Features: For business or personal sites, Bootstrap-based, custom widgets and theme options
License: GNU General Public License, paid version with extended feature set available
Appz
Creator: ThemeShaker
Features: Ideal for landing pages, simple and effective design, perfect to showcase products
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)
Oceanus
Creator: FabThemes
Features: Customizable featured posts slider, social options
License: GNU General Public License v2 (Non-commercial), paid version for commercial use available
TheStore
Creator: FThemes
Features: E-commerce oriented, built-in options page, SEO optimized
License: GNU Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Italian Restaurant
Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Full-width slider, neat color scheme, social buttons
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
OMG
Creator: WP Dev Shed
Features: Great for big images, hover animations, menu area with widgets
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Aileron
Creator: ThemeCot
Features: Extremely simple and clean, perfect for magazines and blogs, Font Awesome, post formats
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Maskitto Light
Creator: Shufflehound
Features: Custom color schemes, very simple and lightweight, custom slider and admin panel
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Atwood
Creator: Themeora
Features: Highly customizable, Bootstrap-based, Google Fonts included
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Customizr
Creator: Themes&Co, released by Free WP Themes
Features: Cool hover animations, very versatile, fully responsive
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Lawyeria Lite
Creator: Free WP Themes
Features: Perfect for law firms and attorneys, display contact info right away, icons and testimonials
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
FreshHealth
Creator: New WordPress Themes
Features: Easy to customize, shortcodes and widgets, SEO optimized
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Everal
Creator: Cohhe
Features: Download through WP to avoid social share, highly customizable, clean and user-friendly
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Renden
Creator: Think Up Themes
Features: Various layouts, SEO optimized, screen-wide slider
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Modern
Creator: WebMan Design
Features: Perfect for personal and small business sites, header slideshow, filterable portfolio
License: GNU General Public License v2 (free for personal and commercial use)
Qwerty
Creator: Ryan Sommers
Features: Supremely fast, responsive and minimal, only content without anything else
License: Unspecified
The Thinker Lite
Creator: Anariel Design
Features: Minimal, content-focused, nice typography
License: GNU General Public License (free for personal and commercial use)
Katori
Creator: aThemes
Features: Aimed at photographers, wonderful animations and grid layout
License: GNU General Public License v3 (free for personal and commercial use)
Mustard
Creator: ThemeShock
Features: Simple, colorful layout, HTML and WordPress version, responsive
License: Personal use only; paid commercial license available
Source