The insanely affordable Elegant Themes has done it again with another theme release that has left me salivating to find a use for.  I’ve always been a huge grunge fan – having lived out some limited dreams of being in a grunge band in high school – and have always admired the unique style (and skill!) that is poored into this type of design.

As mentioned before, Elegant Themes is just ridiculously cheap and has been told on multiple occasions that he could (and should) charge much more for his theme packages.  What you get for his $20 annual pass is quite competitive and actually seriously rivaling what you would get spending 12 times that with his competitors.  Of course, there is always two ways to sell anything.  Sell at a premium price and move fewer units or sell at a low price and go for quantity. But I digress – onto the theme.

Like I was saying, the grunge of this theme is consistent and never lets up regardless of the elements.  As you move through the theme, that feeling that everything is exactly where it was meant to be is confirmed over and over again.  The repeating background is repeating at just the right spot, the header graphic gives me this urban sophisticated look while being youthful and playful all at the same time.

The graphics look as though they were all hand drawn, scanned in and implemented in a complex yet very cohesive design – and in fact, that is exactly how this theme was designed.  The out-of-the-box thinking of this developer is sure to make him stand out from the crowd.

Features List:

• Opera compatible
• Netscape compatible
• Safari compatible
• Wordpress 2.9 compatible
• Four Color Schemes
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox compatible
• IE8 + IE7 + IE6 compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Pricing

Unlimited theme membership for only $19.95 per year.

Demo & Live Preview | Purchase

Smooth and grungy all at the same time, the Deviant theme just released by Elegant Themes makes quick work of showcasing your blog content.  For the price, you can’t afford NOT to be a club member and have access to all their sweet themes.

Feature List

• Opera compatible
• Netscape compatible
• Safari compatible
• Wordpress 2.9 compatible
• Six Color Schemes
• Threaded Comments
• Optional Blog-style Structure
• Gravatar ready
• Firefox compatible
• IE8 + IE7 + IE6 compatible
• Advertisement Ready
• Widget ready sidebars
• Theme Options Page
• Custom thumbnail images
• PSD files
• Valid XHTML + CSS
• Smooth tabless design

Pricing

Unlimited theme membership for only $19.95 per year.

Demo & Live Preview | Purchase

Brought to you exclusively by Aloha Themes, they’ve done it again with a sweet Premium Wordpress vintage theme, PopLive69.  Aloha Themes has made their name known with their unique design style and flare for the good ‘ol times of yesteryear.  With actually a whole series of classic PopLive themes such as PopLife84, PopLife Princess (would be perfect for my daughter ), PopLife56, and PopLife76, they ground the PopLife series to the tune of that specific era for a twist of nostalgia in your blogging nirvana.  It’s fun, the themes are certainly feel-good inducing.

PopLife69 embarks on a very brown journey, reminiscent of the late 60’s when dark brown wooden panel walls were common along with brown shag carpet.  The top of the main page adorns an image rotator that feeds from a featured category that when clicked on any given image, you are taken to that image’s post.

Something I found interesting in this Premium Wordpress theme was the font of the post titles and some of the heading titles in the sidebar.  They are all Flash.  In the desire to preserve some design element through a specialized font, Aloha Themes are using a technique called Scalable Inman Flash Replacement, or sIFR for short.  What this technique does is convert plain text to a flash displayed-text using a pre-determined font.  Normal CSS will dictate font, but if a font used isn’t on the users (you or someone else viewing the font) computer, then it may not display correctly.  Using the sIFR method allows the designer to use the font they want.  Looking at the code, we still find the post titles in plain text fashion as we should which preserves the SEO importance.  All of this is handled through the WP-sIFR plugin, so if you want to make changes you don’t have to sift through any back-end code.

The navigation is broken up with the category nav being along the top and the page navigation being in the “nav-bar”.  This is great so you can keep those two sections separate.

Of course, we can’t go without mentioned a HUGE perk to using an Aloha  Theme is their open-sourced way of thinking.  They have one purchase option on all their themes and it includes the ability to use any theme you purchase an unlimited number of times.  The theme pricing is usually around the $80 or less range.  You pay “user” price and get “developer” usage rights.  Very cool.

So, let’s take a look at this bad boy.  Click here to view live demo.

Some of the many features include:

• Unique, multi-purpose design – easy to customize
• Smart navigation – Showcases categories and pages
• Integrated the WP-sIFR plugin to make managing your sIFR fonts easier (no more editing a config file)
• Comes with PSD files for home page ads, logo and content backgrounds (home page and sub pages)
• Multimedia showcase – add a music player or a YouTube video
• Flickr Integration
• Gravatar Support
• Featured Content Gallery for your featured posts
• Widget Ready
• Feedburner Integration
• Banner ad managment / Adsense

So, what’s the bottom line?

Unlimited Usage No Restriction Price: $77
Multi-use License: Don’t need it, you can use it all you want for $77!!!

Demo & Live Preview | Purchase License

This months WooTheme release is a smooth theme inspired by the social world, and it is so cool, I’m actually considering it for my own personal blog theme.  I don’t know that this has a business application, but this awesome looking theme would be perfect for a personal blog.

I love the social network icon-links in the far left sidebar with the “name” just to the right of it.  The home page layout includes two posts, a calendar, categories section, recent comments section and a tag cloud area.  You’ll just have to preview this theme to see how slick it really is.

I love themes that make me want to start a web site just so I can use them.

Some of the many features include:

• vCard and hCard facilities for accessible contact details.
• 3 completely widgetized zones with 5 custom widgets including a neat re-usable social profiles widget and dedicated zone.
• A neat AJAX calendar widget that is beautifully styled
• A unique comment form with a JQuery plugin that grabs your Gravatar without a page refresh
• Antisocial has been localized and includes a .po file for easy translations to be made of the theme
• 10 amazing colour schemes to choose from!
• Integrated Theme Options (for WordPress) to tweak the layout, colour scheme etc. for the theme;
• Threaded Comments for WordPress 2.7+;
• Custom Page Templates for Archives, & Sitemap;
• Built-in Gravatar Support for Comments

So, what’s the bottom line?

Single-use License: $70
Multi-use License: $150

Demo & Live Preview | Purchase License

Everyone’s so caught up on using Wordpress as a professional blogging platform to showcase not only their business but to write about whatever they want to get paid for.  However, strangely overlooked is the whole idea of personal blogging and using a great looking theme to pour out your heart to the world.  I can’t tell you how many themes I’ve gone through over the years on my own personal blog as styles have changed and trends have brought new design techniques to the surface.

Jason Schuller over at Press75.com has done it again releasing a smoothly designed, well thought out theme that exploits the dynamic feature set of the Wordpress blogging platform. The Urban Elements Premium Wordpress theme looks like your own personal graffiti wall on the web with it’s own set of built in grungy graphics and drop shadows. The theme features drop down menu navigation and comes packaged with the “Simple Post Thumbnails” and “Simple Video Embedder” plugins.

Some of the many features include:

• Site header and background customization
• In line advertisement management
• Social media link configuration
• Post thumbnail options
• “Simple Post Thumbnails” and “Simple Video Embedder” WordPress plugins included with the theme
• Drop down menu navigation
• In-post thumbnail generator right in the post editor
• Obviously Wordpress 2.8 compatible
• Free theme updates
• Fully documented and supported
• Access to all Press75 help forums

So, what’s the bottom line?

Single-use License: $75
Unlimited Theme Package (access to all themes forever): $275

Buy the Unlimited Theme Pack unlimited package and have access to all past, present and future themes released by Press75.com!

Demo & Live Preview | Purchase License