These new magazine and news style WordPress themes for 2013 are the perfect solution for anyone starting a website that will be featuring a lot of content and growing in size all the time. As they can generally accommodate lots of posts and images on the homepage, these themes are ideal for showcasing a range of stories and entries to new visitors upon their arrival at your site.
Most of these themes are responsive so they will work equally well on small screen devices as they do on full sized computers. As the majority of these themes feature advanced image sliders and other bespoke features, they offer great value compared to assembling your own list of premium plugins to create the same effects.
1. Voxis
Voxis is a great choice for a news or magazine WordPress website. It features support for ads and is fully responsive for use on a variety of screen sizes from desktops to smartphones. It comes bundled with 20 functional widgets to help you get the most from your website.
2. Magazinly
Magazinly has a very clean and easy to read appearance and the drag and drop page builder makes setting up your site a breeze. This WordPress magazine theme has been built with SEO in mind and boasts fast loading times. It also comes with a review system to allow your readers to leave feedback on the content of the site.
3. Grider
Grider features an infinite scroll system which continually loads new posts and entries as your users scroll down the page. This allows your readers to eventually see every article posted to your WordPress site without having to click on any extra links or buttons. Grider is also a retina WordPress theme which means it can be displayed in high resolution on supported devices, as well as resizing to fit smaller screens like those found on smartphones.
4. News Plus
NewsPlus looks great and is ideal for any news or editorial style blogs or sites running on WordPress. Thanks to its responsive design, the layout restructures to best suit whatever device it is being viewed on. NewsPlus, available at Theme Forest, also supports Google Fonts giving you lots of control over the typography used on your site. There is also a flex slider and image carousel to help showcase your best posts and content.
5. Flying News
FlyingNews is another popular magazine theme for WordPress. In keeping with the current trends it is retina ready and features a responsive design. The FlyingNews theme can be setup to use as many sidebars as you want and it also includes a rating system which your readers can use to evaluate your content. The theme can also be used with the WooCommerce plugin to allow you to sell items directly on the site.
6. Madidus
The Madidus magazine theme supports unlimited colours allow you to easily match the appearance of the site to your existing branding or just pick the colours you want to use on your site. Blog posts can be easily filtered so they are shown or not shown in certain areas of the site, depending on your preferences and you can choose from over 600 fonts thanks to its use of the Google Web Fonts service.
7. Yamidoo Magazine
Yamidoo is available from WPZoom and is great for displaying informative articles or building a complex news portal. The design is plain and unobtrusive making it ideal for those who like a clean canvas from which to post to. It runs on the Zoom Framework and comes with a tabbed widget area which is great for displaying multiple widgets in one location on your site. There is also a featured slider for the homepage and the theme works across many devices thanks to its responsive layout.
8. Scoreme
Scoreme features a full width homepage image slider for creating a strong first impression on your readers. Users can leave feedback using the post rating system and the minimalistic design works well with bold images used in your news items and blog posts. There are seven post formats with the Scoreme news theme for WordPress that cover video, audio, galleries and image posts as well as links and quotes.
9. PowerMag
PowerMag is ideal for anyone building a magazine site or review website and who is looking for a bold and memorable theme. This magazine theme avoids the recent trend for minimal designs and delivers a visually striking appearance that will surely catch the attention of new readers. PowerMag features a very effective social media widget which shows the number of fans and followers on your chosen networks such as Facebook and Twitter providing great social proof for your content.
10. Bolid
Bolid is another excellent example of a responsive news and magazine WordPress theme. It has lots of positive feedback from users on Theme Forest where it is available from. Bolid supports a header leaderboard banner ad of 728x90px as well as ad spots in other locations on the homepage. It also features a number of sliders and shortcodes and works with Google Web Fonts giving you plenty of control over the typography of the site.
11. Effective News
Effective News is a good choice for those looking for a serious theme for use on their news or magazine WordPress site. It includes a drag and drop homepage builder and colours can be easily chosen using the colour picker. Custom colours can also be applied to individual categories and the theme also comes with six colour skins.
12. Compasso
The Compasso WordPress theme features a masonry layout which fits all the different sized images together in a fluid layout. The layout is also responsive so it can be displayed on a range of different sized devices. If you have a lot of content for your blog or plan to create a large amount, then this magazine theme is a good choice.
13. Reportage
Reportage is another magazine theme available from Theme Forest and one which is compatible with the WooCommerce ecommerce plugin, allowing you to easily sell items and services from your blog or site. The Reportage theme can happily accommodate unlimited sidebars and it comes bundled with 23 custom widgets. There is also a drag and drop homepage builder for extra simplicity.
14. Metro Magazine
Metro Magazine is a popular responsive WordPress theme for news or content rich websites. It comes with 21 unique custom widgets and you can choose from unlimited colour schemes. Your contact page can be integrated with the built-in contact form and Google Maps as well as providing a captcha service for spam-proofing your contact details.
15. Typegrid
Typegrid for WordPress is another minimal magazine theme that is Retina-ready and is fully responsive working equally well in portrait of landscape modes on tablet devices. It comes with 10 post formats for displaying video, audio, images and many other popular types of content. The sidebar can easily be switched to either the left of the right side of the page and it comes with a range of useful shortcodes.
16. Metro
Metro is available from StudioPress and runs on the Genesis framework which can be purchased together with this theme for a special price. The frame has a spacious width of 1152 pixels making it great for filling the screen and showcasing large photos that accompany your posts or news items. You can choose from five colour styles and six layout options as well as setting your own custom background and header images. Despite its fixed width, it is also a mobile responsive theme. Other Genesis child themes can be found here.
17. Magazon
Magazon is an advanced responsive WP magazine theme that it ideal for those with a lot of content they want to showcase on the homepage of their site. The homepage features a pretty unique post slider that gives your users instant access to a selection of personally chosen posts. There is also a more traditional image/post slider on the homepage as well and the theme comes with tabbed widgets. Magazon also features plenty of ad space for monetising your site.
18. Reganto
Reganto is a Retina-ready responsive theme available at the popular theme vendor Theme Forest. It works equally well as on a magazine style site as it does on a more traditional blog website and every category gets its own colour indicator. The theme also comes with a visual page builder making it even easier than ever to get the exact layout you want without having to look at any code.
19. City News
The City News magazine theme for WordPress has a clutter-free layout and design that makes it easy to see the current news stories on your site. The design and layout is also responsive for users on a range of devices and the theme comes with 18 widgets to help improve the functionality and usefulness of your website. Google Web Fonts is supported giving you even more display options than before.
20. Style Mag
Style Mag has a minimalistic layout and appearance that still manages to include unobtrusive social network buttons and an image slider to showcase your best posts. While the theme works great as a magazine or news style site, it can be used as an online store thanks to it being fully compatible with the free WooCommerce plugin. This makes it ideal for those who have lots of great content to share as well as products and services to sell.
21. Sportimo
Sportimo has been designed for sport and tournament news blogs using WordPress but it could just as easily be used on sites covering other topics. The theme includes over 30 shortcodes to allow you to easily insert interesting elements into your posts and pages. The gallery works with Lighbox to ensure your images look great when clicked on and there is a countdown timer which can display the amount of time left until a particular event or tournament begins.
22. MH Magazine
MH Magazine, from MHThemes has a great look that includes a full width image slider on the home page with a generous text overlay to display post descriptions along with the images. There are places for adverts on the homepage too and featured posts get a big area to grab attention. A wide menu area makes it easy for your readers to find their way around the site making it more likely they will stick around for longer.
23. Hot Topix
Hot Topix has an attractive homepage that is perfect for displaying posts with that feature strong images. The design is bold and the tabbed widget area makes it easy for your readers to quickly see your most popular posts, the latest posts and most recent comments, all in one place. The sidebar has room for a Facebook like box which shows how many fans your page has and the footer widget area can easily show post tags and a lengthy about page description.
24. Reader
The Reader WordPress magazine theme has a unique homepage design that showcases a number of posts in a way that is sure to draw-in readers. Beneath that area, there is a post slider menu which shows the featured image as well as the post title and this theme also supports a post rating star system to let your readers leave feedback. The footer area of the theme can support four columns allowing you to display plenty of information.
25. Staggerly
Staggerly is a good choice for magazine and news-style websites but can equally be just as suitable for a content heavy blog. The design is responsive for display on mobile and tablet devices and there are three slider styles available right out of the box. Standard ad sizes are supported to suit your promotional and advertisement needs and you can easily insert shortcodes using the built-in button.
26. Supreme
Supreme has been designed to be Retina-ready ensuring it will look excellent on the high resolution screens now hitting the market. Content can easily be colour coded to make it easier for your readers to find their way around the site and keep track of what they’ve read. Disqus integration is also included to make leaving comments on your posts an even easier prospect for your readers. Readers can also leave ratings on your content using the star system should you choose to enable it.
27. Ciola
Ciola is a premium responsive theme for WordPress that is perfect for news and magazine-style sites. It features a bold grid module layout which is image-heavy creating a big first impression with visitors. The drop down menus works well and makes it easy for readers to see what is on offer. There are big animated social network buttons for helping you increase your followers and there are also ad spaces on the homepage.
28. Newses
Newes has an accommodating homepage that can display a wide range of posts in a number of different styles including a large image slider, featured posts with images, post titles and tabbed widgets. The background and layout is very clean in terms of clutter. The Newes theme has also been designed with SEO in mind as it supports Google Authorship making it easy to get your profile picture displayed in the Google search results pages.
29. Avanti
Avanti is a responsive WordPress theme that is well suited to magazine style sites but is a versatile so can be put to other uses too. It includes the Revolution slider which is a premium plugin in its own right making Avanti a great value choice. As the theme works well on a wide range of screen sizes you can ensure your site isn’t excluding users viewing it on an iPad or smartphone.
30. Flavor
The Flavor theme is a good choice for those building a content rich website that needs the same advanced features as the professional magazine sites. It comes with a powerful minisite builder to make setting up the theme a breeze and the layout is of course 100% responsive. The theme uses a range of icons and badges to make it easy for your readers to find their way around the site and it also features a fully-integrated Ajax tracking system to rank posts based on their stats which could include likes, shares and overall ratings.
31. Upright
Upright comes with three very different pre-sets that govern the background colours and fonts used, or alternatively you can create your own custom appearance. As well as working on the latest devices, the Upright theme still looks good on older browsers allowing you to connect with the greatest number of web surfers by not excusing anyone. The theme is also bundled with six custom widgets and it has a high average rating on Theme Forest.
32. Pacific
Pacific includes user ratings for your posts, choice from unlimited colours and a whole raft of shortcodes. There are also 16 quality widgets bundled with this WordPress magazine theme and the sidebar can be easily switched from left to right. There is room for adverts on the homepage and there is also a breaking news ticker available for those who want it. Featured posts can be showcased using a slider as well as the main image slider on the homepage. Pacific is just as happy working in magazine mode as it is in blog mode making it ideal for dual purpose sites.
33. Blog Mag
Blog Mag has an easy to navigate and uncluttered layout that is also responsive for use on multiple screen sizes. It has been built using the Twitter Bootstrap framework and features improved social interactions and there are six custom widgets to play with. Ajax has been used to enable live searching of the website content and there is also the facility for readers to leave reviews on the site. Setting up the theme once it’s been installed is not a problem thanks to the easy to use but extensive theme options.
34. The Gossip
The Gossip theme can display many blog posts and news items on the homepage giving it a real magazine style appearance. The large image slider on the home page makes showcasing your newest or most popular posts an easy task and the tabbed widget can display a range of posts in one place. There is room for adverts too and the theme footer can support a number of widgets allowing you to easily provide more information or links to other areas of the site.
35. Patterns
Patterns is another great theme that has a grid style homepage layout to showcase posts and their featured images. The theme has been built using the Twitter Bootstrap framework for a sleek and responsive layout. The Patterns theme also includes a news ticker for displaying breaking news or important announcements to your readers. There are also four post templates to choose from when adding a new blog entry to ensure your content is displayed in the right way. You can also display category based adverts to help target promotions and services more effectively.
36. Jarida
Jarida is another responsive theme designed for news and magazine sites that features an intuitive homepage builder for easy setup and arrangement. It also includes a selection of fullscreen backgrounds to help your site stand out from the crowd. When it comes to page templates there are seven to choose from and with over 30 shortcodes, quickly adding elements to your content isn’t a problem. For further customisation options there are unlimited colours to choose from and the theme can support many sidebars.
37. Prologue
Prologue is a clean looking theme from WPZoom that is great for showing off high quality photos that accompany your blog entries and news items. There is a featured slideshow that can handle videos and images and can be displayed on the homepage. You can also add a carousel to the footer of your site using this theme that will display a selection of posts of your choosing. This is a great way to draw users back into your site once they reach the end of an article. Prologue is a great theme that can be bought as part of a developer package with two other bonus themes.
38. The Chronicle
The Chronicle is another news-style theme from WPZoom that features a responsive layout. The clear design makes the written content easily readable and browsing through the posts to find articles is a simple process. There are eight widgetized areas on this theme with five residing on the homepage and three on the individual post pages. There are also three ad locations for easy insertion of banners, which can be done via the intuitive theme options page.
39. Grand News
GrandNews is a subtle theme that is perfect for anyone wishing to start up a news heavy site on any topic. The large main navigational menu features space to include a short description under each menu item making it even easier for your readers to find what they are looking for. There is even a nice custom error 404 page that displays lists of the pages and categories on the site to ensure your readers don’t simply close their browser tab when otherwise they would’ve got the ‘page cannot be found’ error. Flickr streams can be displayed in a sidebar widget and the other sidebar widgets can be displayed using tabs.
40. Coverage
Coverage is a news or magazine child theme for the iThemes Builder. As well as coming with a number of post layouts, there is also a built-in widget to help you create your own. The main horizontal navigation menu has great functionality and the clean design doesn’t detract from any of your posts or pages. There is also space for banner ads and the theme can be bought as a bundle with 59 other themes for a great price.
Hopefully there has been something that meets your needs on this round-up of the best WordPress themes for news or magazine websites. As most of these themes can be easily customised they are also ideal for a range of other projects where the sites will feature a large amount of content.