Minimal is the New Black: 20 Fresh Free WordPress Themes from January 2014

Continuing with our monthly series, today we bring you a new edition of the most recent and beautiful themes available. All our new entries sport a minimal style, which is undoubtedly growing in popularity. In order to improve their websites' speed, to ensure that visitors focus on content and - not least - granting a perfect experience on mobile devices, many website creators are switching to minimal themes. Reason enough for us to lay a focus on clean, flat and all around more simplistic designs.

We are sure you'll find your next blog layout among the following. All these themes are free, though some have commercial variants available. We stated that where applicable. Enjoy!

Music: Fully Widgetized Theme for Music Sites

Genre: Blog
Responsive: No
Features: Fully widgetized sidebar
License: Free

Greensun: Clean Theme for Nature Related Sites

Genre: Business
Responsive: Yes
Features: Social share bar, dynamic content loader
License: Free + commercial

Wallpress: Minimal Theme with Full Width Grid Style

Genre: Magazine
Responsive: Yes
Features: Sidebar menu, external sources media support
License: Free

Homeblog: Stylish Clean Theme for Interior Design Sites

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: SEO optimization, Google Maps shortcode
License: Free + commercial

Pieces: Minimalist Grid Based Theme for Portfolios

Genre: Portfolio
Responsive: Yes
Features: Threaded comments, grid based layout
License: Free

Parallax Effect: Feature Rich Theme for Portfolios

Genre: Portfolio
Responsive: No
Features: Custom menu, fading slider background
License: Free

Bootpress: Minimal Theme Based on Bootstrap 3

Genre: Business
Responsive: Yes
Features: Custom post formats, 12 layout styles from Bootswatch
License: Free

Sassy-Starter: WordPress Starter Theme Based on Sass

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: Completely hackable, Sass stylesheet
License: Free

Kwikload: Ultra Fast Loading Theme for Technology Sites

Genre: Magazine
Responsive: Yes
Features: Full width layout, ultra fast loading
License: Free

Opus: Simple Elegant Theme for Personal Blogs

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: Custom header, post formats support
License: Free

Flato: Simple Blogging Theme with Flat Design

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: 4 Footer widgets, sticky posts
License: Free

Gimliii: Clean White Theme for Magazines

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: Custom menu, columns number options
License: Free

Reviewgine: Review Sites Theme for Monetizers

Genre: Magazine
Responsive: Free
Features: SEO optimized, star rating app
License: Free

Times-teel: Powerful Theme for News Sites

Genre: Magazine
Responsive: Yes
Features: Bootstrap based, several sliders included
License: Free + commercial

Preus: Magazine and Portfolio Theme Built on Bootstrap 3.0

Genre: Portfolio
Responsive: Yes
Features: Bootstrap 3.0, Retina display compatible
License: Free

Actipo: Minimalist One Column Theme for Bloggers

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: HTML structure, microblogging format
License: Free

Boldly Go Green: Sibling WordPress Theme for Boldly Go Blue

Genre: Business
Responsive: Yes
Features: Social bar, CSS transitions for hover states
License: Free

Euclid: Multipurpose Two Columns Theme

Genre: Magazine
Responsive: No
Features: Post formats support, plenty of shortcodes
License: Free

Kepler: Nice Clean Child Theme for Stargazer

Genre: Blog
Responsive: Yes
Features: Theme options panel, post format support
License: Free

BizSphere: Flat Business Theme

Genre: Business
Responsive: Yes
Features: HTML5 / CSS3 structure, premade skin schemes
License: Free

These are our new entries for January 2014. If you can't get enough, check out the previous installments:

2013: December, November, October, September, August, July, June/May, April, March, January/February,

2012: December, November, October and September!

Don’t forget the Best of 2012 collection and our Summer-Special 2013. Have fun and let us know if we missed out on important new entries. Which ones are your favorites?

About the Authors

The shock family is a group of web enthusiasts, designers and developers dedicated to the creation of all kinds of resources for the web. They are well known for their various projects, such as themeshock, a site with quality WordPress themes and useful freebies, iconshock, the largest icon repository with more than a million icons and WPthemegenerator, the online creation tool for WordPress and XTML themes.

(dpe)