Ah, December. For many around the world it’s a time for family, friends, celebration, and a multitude of festive traditions, be it large banquets or intimate meals, extravagant gifts or just spending time with a loved one.
But it’s also potentially the busiest time of the year for many web designers, with clients pushing through last-minute ‘urgent’ requests, projects long-left on the backburner needing to be completed and a new year with new ideas and inspiration beckoning.
There’s no doubt about it, December is absolutely chaotic; your time, and your budget, is stretched beyond all belief. So as a designer, the last thing you want to be thinking about is where you’re going to be sourcing the creative assets you need for your final projects of 2017.
Is it little wonder then that free themes are so popular? A simple Google search reveals millions of results with countless free items on offer across the entire spectrum of genres, seemingly catering to every need and want a designer may have. And while free items may have previously had somewhat negative connotations among some in the design community – the argument being that the paid versions were of superior quality – the fact is that in many instances they are perfectly suitable for the task at hand.
With WordPress now powering 29 percent of the internet, and the much heralded Gutenberg composer soon to arrive, it’s a great time to be a designer as theme creators around the world push themselves to deliver items that are of premium quality – and for free – that continue to build esteem, trust and even excitement for the wider WordPress creative community.
This festive season, why not treat yourself to one of the many outstanding options out there and get more time back! Here are a few examples to get you started:
SYDNEY, available via aThemes
As discussed above, time is absolutely of the essence at this time of year, which makes Sydney such an attractive proposition. Upon download of this aThemes item, you can have a very professional-looking business page ready to go. Its flexible too, equally at home as being the landing page for a solo freelancer as it is the main front page for a bigger company, with plenty of customisation options and a nice, large feature image.
ACTIVELLO, available via Colorlib
Having a blog that stands out from the crowd might be the definition of a first world problem, but in the very crowded blogosphere, it’s a very real issue! Enter Activello, available at Colorlib, a clean and multi-purpose blog theme that’s fully responsive and mobile-ready. It even has WooCommerce support, if your blogging is going down the eCommerce route.
MOCHITO, available via ThemeForest
Envato, the company behind ThemeForest and a number of other marketplaces for digital creatives, has recently started offering free themes from its huge range of authors. The themes rotate monthly, but our pick for December would probably be Mochito, a one-page portfolio theme, tailor-made for showing off your most creative work. Because being able to put your best foot forward in 2018 has never been more important.
Obviously, there’s more to life than free WordPress themes and for many creatives, the numerous theme vendors, marketplaces and more recently, subscription services like Envato Elements, will all offer more choice and greater flexibility for projects.
But that’s 2018’s problem! And what price can you put on a stress-free festive season?!
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