Design Review: Two Magazine Themes
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We are going to look at two, magazine-style, premium themes from Adii. The first is Block Magazine, and the second is Your Revolution. They’re both sold at Unique Blog Designs for $79.
And lastly, Adii paid me to review these themes, but that’s not going to influence my opinion (as you’ll see ;) ).
There has been a fair bit of hype about magazine style themes for blogs lately, but are these two worth the cash? I’ll start off by looking at my favorite of the pair, Block Magazine.
What Has Been Done Well?
- Structured layout. The layout just fits. Everything has its place, and it doesn’t feel cramped. The regular, grid-like, columns give the sense of structure that is crucial to the newsletter feel.
- Ajax “Recent/Popular/Comments” widget. These widgets are a great way of showing 3 extremely popular blog widgets, in a small amount of space. The widget used in the Block Magazine theme is a pleasure to use, and fits in perfectly with the rest of the theme.
- The header. It is as well structured as any other aspect of the design. I love the simplicity of the title and navigation background and how the RSS and search sections have been positioned. Adii has made great use of the header area.
What Could be Changed?
- Perfect the structure. The page isn’t laid out with a grid. It is just well positioned, e.g. Whilst the page is nearly split half and half horizontally, it’s not exactly. Minor details like this can make a fair difference.
- Jazz up the “Welcome” box. The Welcome box feels like a gray blob on the page. There’s no life to it. Perhaps a new design or color for it would be a little more interesting?
All in all, Block Magazine is a great theme. It’s colorful, easy to read and navigate from, and has that newspaper feel that so many are after. If you’re looking for a good template to start your blog on, I have no problem recommending Block Magazine (Provided you still make a few of your own customizations to it of course!).
“Your Revolution” Theme
I’m not going to do the normal review style for this one, because I don’t really like it as much. It’s plain, but not in the minimalist sense of the word. It’s just plain.
There is nothing in particular that’s wrong about the theme, but there’s nothing too right about it either. It doesn’t have anything that makes it memorable, and it’s not even a great layout. It’s lacking spirit.
As a theme in itself, it’s not bad, and a normal blog would look fine with it. However, with so many great WordPress themes available for free, I wouldn’t say that Your Revolution is actually worth paying for.
In conclusion, we have two very similar, but very different themes here. Block Magazine has had a lot of attention spent on detail and positioning, which has paid off big time. Your Revolution is a fine theme, but it’s just not in the premium caliber.
Your turn. What do you think of the two themes? Which do you prefer?
PS – Adii is running a competition at the minute, with each of the themes as possible prizes if you’re interested (Ends 29th October).
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About the Author
Michael Martin
Michael Martin is the founder of Pro Blog Design. He works as a freelance web designer, loves WordPress, and has an unhealthy addiction to smilies.
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Those are cool themes. I especially like Block Magazine with its DOM Tabs.
Thanks for the kind words and constructive crit Micheal! :) Good constructive feedback seems hard to come by and I will definitely implement these when I release V2 of these themes.
I prefer “Block Magazine” too, though I wouldn’t have chosen that blue :D And the Ajax “Recent/Popular/Comments” widget saves a lot of space on the main page.
I agree with Michael that “Your Revolution” is too simple a theme, and because it has 4 columns, the font size used cannot be too big, or there will only be a few words on each line. But small font size will only keep people away because readers have to strain their eyes to read the text.
Redwall – So do I. It definitely sets the theme apart from some others. :)
Adii – No problem, and I look forward to seeing v2. Good to know that you’re open to feedback and making updates to your products. :D
Pelf – lol – Pink would have been better? ;)
Thanks for adding your opinion though. Fonts are a tricky thing to get right. I know that even the font size here may be a little too small as well. :(
I agree with you Michael on both themes, however one issue not only with these themes, but with all themes that are out there is a question of how they work in other browsers.
When I first started playing around and looking at themes, some of them looked great in firefox, but in IE, they sucked.
One suggestion I can offer for themes is to test, test and test again! Make sure they work in the different browsers, and after you get your widgets, etc set up, be sure to validate it, both with html and css.
That’s true Elliot. Cross browser compatibility is one of the most frustrating things that a designer has to do, but also one of the most important. It’s all too easy to forget that the browsers are very different, and that not everyone will be using your one.
Frankly, Brian Gardner’s revolution theme is much better than both of these themes in terms of quality. “Your revolution” just fails in so many departments.
“Block Magazine” is OK, but I wouldn’t want to pay for it. It’s simply a lot of colors without any detail whatsoever.
What could be improved in Block Magazine?
1. The extra white space shouldn’t be there on left and right margins.
2. Welcome box is drab and boring. Remove it. It’s taking up the most important space.
3. Search box and welcome box have rounded corners, while the rest of the boxes aren’t. Make them consistent.
4.Post headings use all caps font and are almost unreadable. Either change the font or keep them normal.
5. The text in content area is too gray. black would look nicer.
6. “FEATURED ARTICLES” box looks so odd up there aligned to the right side. It would look better floated left.
That’s about it for my gripes. Overall, I don’t think these should be premium themes.
Mohsin – Good comment. I enjoyed hearing your views and suggestions there. :)
I noticed the “Featured” box as well tbh. It takes up a fair bit of space in a prominent area, no matter how you align it.
I suppose it is necessary to show that not every article is listed there…
what i would pay $79 for the theme?!
there is no design only marketing.
I’m not too sold on premium themes yet either Wallace. In the review, I’ve tried to ignore that and just treat it like any other theme.
Whether or not it’s worth paying for is up to each individual. :)
Uh, I really like the tabs on the first theme… Especially because comments, posts etc got something to do with each other. It seems very logical to group them…
I might just add this onto my little list of addons/adjustments for my own site.
Nice review.
Hum, it’s just paid marketing…
If looking for a REAL magazine look I’d consider high class graphics and line up like the Tag Heuer Journal or DesignTide, with a clean and straight layout with multimedia built in.
Online magazines without multimedia? There is none. Period.
Dominik – Me too. They’re a nice touch. :)
milo – They can have their multimedia in the content. The layout itself doesn’t need any, and is often better off without it I’d say (It’s distracting, and gets boring to regular visitors). You’d have to keep changing it to keep it fresh. :(
Insert a flv player driven with a xml script to let then users choose which movie to watch.
Or use the domtabs to show different flv videos (again xml driven) by category.
I’m thinking of a premium theme with more extensions, not only nice looks, clean codes and some domtabs…
Those are pretty nice themes.
But I don’t really like Unique Blog Designs.
They claim to be unique, but most of them look very similar.
But that’s just me.
Milo – Ahh, you mean you want more to set it apart from a normal theme. To make the cost justifiable? I can understand that. I don’t think that all blogs need video players as such, but having options like that included would definitely go down well. :)
Brian – Fair enough. I think they’ve been getting a little more attention that they may deserve as well tbh, but you can’t fault them on their marketing I suppose. xD
Not long ago one of my free “magazine” themes with some specials built was sold exclusive…
There is definitely a market for those highly customized works, but highly customized in terms of tech features.
Congrats on your success. I suppose it makes sense; you’re opening up a whole new set of options for the publisher, which they may not have been otherwise able to do.
Thank you so much for all the feedback… As I mentioned in an earlier comment – some objective, constructive criticism is hard to find and it is so needed to improve one’s work.
I’m specifically intrigued by the comments that premium themes needs a bit more under the hood. So this is definitely I’ll be considering and adding in my future designs.
I was very interested in that as well Adii. I think it relates very well to something you’ve discussed before on your blog; that premium themes are new to WordPress. The community is used to themes being free, so to justify it to them, you need to do something that the free themes don’t.
The extra functionality that milo has mentioned would definitely come under that blanket.
@Michael: Err.. I think pink only goes well with females and a handful of males :)
I agree with your observations Michael.
I agree with some of Moshin’s gripes – the corners should probably be consistent in the Block Magazine theme. I don’t think there’s a problem with the caps in headings though. I think black text in the post areas would be too heavy for the theme, the gray is consistent with the rest.
I really like in Block Magazine how the sidebars and post sections are independent from each other, the page is halved, but then the box for the recent/popular/comments separates that section from the far right sidebar. As opposed to Your Revolution where they’re all just there – I’m not really sure which parts to look at first.
That popluar/recent/comments box is sweet too!
Of course I’m too stingy to buy any theme (Sorry Adii!). I still haven’t bought a single piece of software for my MacBook – I’m fully open source/GNU/freeware at the moment.
I think both have a solid framework as far as design, but they’re a bit too generic for me. I know that the idea is to customize it for your own site, but still, I’d prefer these themes to have a little more “oomph” before I dish out the dough.
I’d just like say thanks again for all the feedback – I believe it will be really valuable when I release V2 of these themes.
I’ve considered most of your comments about these themes and I’ve started the development of a new Premium News WordPress Theme. Have a look at it and I hope you will be just as generous with some constructive feedback about that design! :)
Pelf – But in October, we can all get away with it. :D
Kristarella – Thanks for the comments. It’s good to hear your take on the design, and I can agree with a fair bit of it. :)
Nathania – I know what you mean. A premium theme can’t just be as good as a normal theme; it has to be better.
Adii – Going to check it out now!
Placing an external developed plugin(sic!), where tech knowledge is needed might NOT be the right way…
@ Milo – what do you mean?
Anyone can add a plugin, but the tech knowledge might show the developers pro status.
e.g.: there are several free flv players (no plugins!) available for customising the personal use.
That Block Magazine theme is really really nice, I think the best on that website. It’s very unbias too, like I mean it could work for a whole lot of different topics.
I could see a News blog, blogging blog, design blog, art blog, and if you throw some black on there with some tattoo background art, it could even be a Goth blog lol
I do not agree that both themes would be up for sale. With Darren’s Nimo2 theme, it’s free of course, you can tweak the CSS and layout style to have the look that even better than them both.
I don’t also like much the navigation bar of the site. It is good if it will be resign. A good navigation bar can help in convincing visitors to explore more your site.
For me i much like the Block Magazine. I like its theme and navigation. Its was well designed.
The review that was posted is quite relevant and specific. Perhaps, a lot of users will benefit from it because of its accessibility.
Nice theme I’m gonna use it on my next site. I loved the layout and design of the site. Share it to each other is my current website and I am constantly conscious of it’s design factor. Thanks.
For me i much like the Block Magazine…