Top 12 Premium WordPress themes of 2008

Posted by Jean-Baptiste Jung on Dec 29, 2008 | 55 comments

2008 has been a very profilic year for the premium WordPress theme market. In the following article, I have compiled a list of my 12 favorite premium themes released this year, to give your blog the profesionnal look it deserve!

Author : Jean-Baptiste Jung

Jean is a 27 years old self-taught web developer and WordPress specialist who lives in Wallonia, the French speaking part of Belgium. In addition to Cats Who Code, he also blogs about WordPress at WpRecipes and about Photoshop at PsdVibe.

» Website

Ambience

Perfection

Busy Bee

Wp Showcase

Industry

Open Air

Newspaper

Fresh News

BSocial

Revolution Office

Flexx

MyHomePro

And you, what is your favorite premium theme from 2008?

55 reactions

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1 - Tschai on Dec 29, 2008, 11:06 am:

There are a bunch good ones, but no great ones…considering they’re premium.
2 - Catrin W on Dec 29, 2008, 11:26 am:

I think they are really great ones..
Tschai, if you want something really special, then you should customize them, or order custom designed one.
3 - Agolf Cartson on Dec 29, 2008, 3:00 pm:

What parameters did you choose from? Pure layout or did anything else influence your choice?
4 - Jean-Baptiste Jung on Dec 29, 2008, 3:16 pm:

@Agolf Cartson: They’re just my favorites. No other criteria except the fact that I love them!
5 - Reza on Dec 30, 2008, 4:31 am:

wow , very cool nice .
6 - Edy on Dec 30, 2008, 8:33 am:

I like WP, I think that WP is a really innovative platform, allowing most of bloggers, designers, artists to communicate to familiar audiences, it has a lot of interesting themes.
I have been using WP for a couple of months. I find those themes very delight and more useful. happy new year and Glad to see you.
7 - Honour Chick on Dec 30, 2008, 11:19 am:

all very cool themes, thxs
8 - Rainbow on Dec 30, 2008, 5:03 pm:

I think, the best theme are made by woo theme.
9 - Jean-Baptiste Jung on Dec 30, 2008, 5:08 pm:

@Rainbow: Indeed WooThemes are great! The one you’re using on your blog is awesome. What the theme name?
10 - The Poker Jerk on Dec 30, 2008, 5:36 pm:

What’s so great about these? I mean they look fine, but not much better than a decent free theme.
11 - Rainbow on Dec 31, 2008, 11:23 am:

@ JBJ

It’s name is typebased and it’s free !
12 - Evyta SEO on Jan 1, 2009, 12:11 pm:

@ rainbow, yes I agree with you. Woo themes gives the best premium theme. besides the lay out, design also amazing there
13 - cooiky on Jan 2, 2009, 10:35 am:

i like wordpress,and there are many themes we can use for free
14 - Valentino on Jan 2, 2009, 2:35 pm:

Great themes, but I’ve never use paid themes
15 - Neil | Bartul on Jan 2, 2009, 9:14 pm:

That Ambience theme is just lovely. And I like how the Newspaper theme looks. Quite similar to what I’d expect a major newspaper site, with a good aesthetic sense, would look. Cool.
16 - Armen Shirvanian on Jan 3, 2009, 3:16 am:

These themes sure do have some positive elements about them. The industry theme has some futuristic-looking sections to it, as the colors fade out into the distance. Ambience has quite a designer’s look to it. Open Air looks like a clean way to present content in a relaxed fashion.
17 - dofollow backlinks on Jan 3, 2009, 6:22 am:

The newspaper theme is awesome. Clean but detailed!
18 - Atniz on Jan 5, 2009, 3:53 am:

It is awesome! All I can say is that you did a wonderful job. My favorite of all is Flexx
19 - The printable calendar dude on Jan 5, 2009, 7:28 am:

Thanks for the great themes… What about doing some Wordpress photo blog themes next? Be great to have a list of the best of these…
Thanks
Martin
20 - Todd on Jan 5, 2009, 5:28 pm:

For whatever reason I am digging the newspaper theme. Clean, simple, archetypal… It’s like everything a newspaper site should be!
21 - Geoserv on Jan 7, 2009, 1:53 am:

STUMBLED!

Good list, but I have seen some better looking free ones.
22 - Wei Liang | Earn Money Online on Jan 7, 2009, 12:24 pm:

Have you forgotten Elegant Themes? I think they provide one of the best themes at a decent price. No doubt, some of the themes you have choose are nice as well.

Wei Liang
23 - Sean (Get your free wordpress setup) on Jan 7, 2009, 6:08 pm:

I think that there is a big hole in the premium wordpress theme scene. These themes are good but not really usable in most cases. As a heavy wordpress user and developer I could not find premium themes to use for our clients and end up designing a theme from scratch.
24 - Mikael on Jan 8, 2009, 12:41 am:

The best thing about Elegant Themes is that Nick (the designer) is really helpful in the forum that is attached to signing up. That’s a great benefit if you’re not a designer yourself.
25 - Jean-Baptiste Jung on Jan 8, 2009, 1:17 am:

Indeed Elegant Themes are great! I should have included some of their theme in the list.
26 - Susan on Jan 8, 2009, 7:30 am:

This is an awesome list of themes you’ve put together!
27 - David on Jan 8, 2009, 10:20 am:

The “Newspaper” is awesome. Others are not so good as premium ones. By the way, Woo themes are really great.
28 - MobiDhoom on Jan 8, 2009, 8:33 pm:

Hey, I need a theme for my new entertainement portal site…Im gonna try with one of above but i think i need a better theme bcz i have to put a lot of stuff there..so help me to suggest for a better theme plz..
29 - Margaret on Jan 9, 2009, 3:49 pm:

While I agree with you that these are attractive looking themes, you haven’t provided a reason why they are GREAT themes.

Do they all validate CSS, and Code? What features does each one have that makes it better than others that are similar in color scheme and layout? Are they all WP2.7 compatible?

“Perfection” is the least perfect looking to my eye — too much wasted space, so I’m particularly interested in hearing how it made your list as it’s sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the others that use screen real estate fully and for the most part effectively.

I do notice that they all have a blue/grey color scheme, so perhaps that’s why you think they are so wonderful. Not that I have anything personal against blue/grey — it’s an easy-on-the-eyes combination that is also neutral or soothing. Someone with a political blog may want to use oranges or reds as those colors are more incendiary which would go along with the controversial aspects of their subject matter. Other niches would want to use greens or even pinks. Do these themes allow for changing the color schemes?

I’ve been following the themes at http://www.nice2all.com and think Lyndi has created some pretty great themes that all validate and she provides an awesome set of support methods for anyone who uses the themes. Her latest one “Tweaker” is especially cool.

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30 - Valentines Quotes on Jan 10, 2009, 4:23 am:

My dream WP Premium Theme is the Fresh News Theme. Unfortunately I don’t have enough money yet to purchase one.
31 - Milo on Jan 10, 2009, 2:22 pm:

very nice, I especially like ambience and busy bee
I saw this theme, and thought it was pretty slick (not, this is not my theme, and this is not an ad):
http://www.mangoorange.com

Nevertheless, very nice themes there
32 - Webmaster Radio on Jan 13, 2009, 12:42 am:

I love the Revolution Office theme. I’ve used it for several clients and they were all very happy.
33 - canggu on Jan 15, 2009, 5:29 am:

all great themes i like it …!
34 - foot on Jan 16, 2009, 10:27 am:

Newspaper themes is incredible !!!

Thank you
35 - Web 3.0 on Jan 16, 2009, 11:00 am:

Beautiful themes but they are all premium!
There are a lot of free beautiful themes, too.
36 - Edouard on Jan 17, 2009, 2:38 pm:

As usual this is a very good article and great selection ! Nice one JBJ !

Personally I begun using Flexx. It works great, has SEO and most importantly looks great and professional.

Keep up the good work !
37 - Joseph Hollak on Jan 19, 2009, 7:39 pm:

I agree the the Busy Bee theme from Woo deserves to be on the list. Great call.

If you do pick the Busy Bee theme, and you want to change the logo in the header that comes with the theme, I’ve written a quick tutorial on how you do it. The tutorial explains how you can use an unlimited number of your own custom logos and get them to appear randomly so each new visitor to your WordPress blog gets a fresh new logo.

Here’s the link:
http://hollak.info/2009/01/customizing-your-woo-themes-header/

Great list, can’t wait to see what 2009 brings and the trends that will dominate the WordPress theme “look.”
38 - ri108 on Jan 19, 2009, 11:07 pm:

Free themes is better.in order the people can use.So you will good person.
39 - Boyz II Men on Jan 22, 2009, 4:03 pm:

WP Showcase has an interesting appearance but it looks a little too crowded. I can’t decide how I feel about it. I have a feeling it’s terrible for SEO though with the heavy image driven layout.
40 - Danny on Jan 22, 2009, 6:14 pm:

I personally develop free themes for WP, premium themes are only for clients who needs something special.
41 - virtumonde on Jan 22, 2009, 11:51 pm:

These are absolutely gorgeous! I think it is about time that I update my wordpress blogs with new themes. This couldnt have come at a better time!
42 - Seguros Medicos on Jan 26, 2009, 5:34 pm:

WP Showcase is awesome.
43 - izwan00 on Jan 27, 2009, 8:58 am:

Thanks for compiling the list. You maybe forget to add Arthemia, Citrus, and other great theme released last year right? I think those themes are popular too.
44 - Catrin on Jan 30, 2009, 5:45 pm:

I like revolution the best.
45 - remove antivirus2009 on Feb 6, 2009, 4:01 am:

I am not sure which I like better these or the “elegant” themes from your other blog post. What I do now is I am going to be busy implementing these awesome themes.
46 - fx trading on Feb 12, 2009, 1:47 pm:

Flexx is very good. It’s very clean and has inner intergity.
47 - CMDG on Feb 13, 2009, 4:38 pm:

Awesome list! I like the colours of Ambience…
48 - Listen To Hip Hop Music on Feb 16, 2009, 4:32 am:

classic picture of Sarah Palin in the newspaper theme, lol. I like the BusyBee theme best.
49 - Local Marketing on Feb 24, 2009, 11:25 pm:

Industry and fresh news are week. I would look for other themes.
50 - Money Fellas on Apr 20, 2009, 7:05 pm:

hmmm busy bee,ambience,my home pro are very good……..but free themes are mostly used……..so offer more…….
51 - Rainbow on Apr 29, 2009, 12:05 pm:

Very interesting. Thanks a lot
52 - Carleen, from ars logo design on May 11, 2009, 10:52 pm:

all of them are nice templates; however I´m not crazy for any of them. Anyway, it’s a good selection.