Best 15 Free Magazine Themes For WordPress 2017

WordPress is one of the best content management systems available. It is highly extensible and offers everything you need to run a content-based business. This makes it the perfect choice for starting an online magazine. When you use WordPress for your online magazine site, you get hundreds of features for free. Not to mention, all the security updates, themes and plugins you get for free.

When you run an online magazine, you need to take care of your brand’s perceived value. If you are using a crappy design for your website, your brand will lose credibility. If your design sucks, most people won’t even look at your content and bounce away. So, if you want more eyeballs on your content, you need a great design that suits your company’s branding needs.

When looking for a WordPress theme, you will come across literally hundreds of thousands of free themes. But being honest, most of them offer a crappy design. Even if the theme you choose offers a great professional design, chances are it doesn’t offer much (if any) customization features. And if you don’t get any customization options with your theme, you won’t be able to customize the design to suit your branding needs.

When looking for a WordPress theme for your online magazine, look for the following:

• Responsive Design: If you don’t know already, most people use the internet from their smartphones. And most people like to read articles on their phone while they are commuting. And if your website isn’t responsive, you will not be able to cater to these people resulting in a high bounce rate. Moreover, modern search engines like Google prefer websites that are mobile-ready. So, if you ever want to get to the first page of Google, you need a responsive design that adapts to all screen sizes and looks good on all devices.

• A Clean, Minimal Design: The more distracting elements you have on your website, the less will be the chances of people actually reading your content. And when you are running an online magazine, your revenue depends on more and more people reading your content. Even if you offer the best content in the world on your website, it’s worth nothing if no one reads it. A clean, distraction-free design will help focus the user’s attention on the main content of your website.
• Customization Options: If the theme you are using isn’t customizable, you will only have two options, either use the design that comes with it or shell out thousands of dollars to hire a web developer to customize it. I am sure you don’t want the former. I am also sure you aren’t interested in the latter. A customizable theme will offer you easy customization options to help you customize the design to suit your company’s branding needs.

Finding the perfect theme for your online magazine can be difficult. So, to save you hours of research, we have compiled a list of the best free magazine themes for WordPress. If you are interested in premium themes, have a look at this collection over at Colorlib. If you are interested in more free themes, check out our collection of free magazine themes Colorlib.

Newspaper X

Newspaper X is a free theme by Colorlib for Magazine/News style websites. It comes with a stunning design to help you stand out of the crowd. It offers dozens of customization options to help you customize the design to suit your branding needs.

This theme comes with everything you would need to run a successful News website. It comes with a clean, minimal grid-based layout. Its clean, minimal layout will help focus the user’s attention on the content. It also comes with configurable advertisement spots on the home page and the header.

Illdy

Illdy is a stunning free WordPress theme. Its clean layout makes it a perfect choice for creating an online magazine. It offers a content-first layout that is fully responsive and looks great on all devices.

This theme comes with tons of useful customization options. It allows you to customize the color of all the theme elements. It also comes with a customizable hero header on the homepage. You can use it to display your best stories or your top news items.

Illdy also comes with support for most free and premium WordPress plugins including Yoast SEO, Contact Form 7 and WooCommerce.

Shapely

Shapely offers a beautiful design that is fully mobile-ready and looks great on all screen sizes. This theme comes with beautiful typography styles that will definitely help you stand out of the crowd.

You can customize almost all aspects of this theme’s design. It allows you to fully customize the color scheme and change the color of all the theme elements. It’s translation-ready allowing you to translate it into multiple languages to create a multilingual website. It also comes with support for WooCommerce making it a painless process to start and run your own stunning online stores.

Activello

Activello is a stunning free theme for WordPress. It offers a modern flat design. This theme comes with a slider on the homepage that you can customize to display your best content. If you want to reach your audience in their native language, you can easily do that with this theme. It is translation-ready making it easy and painless for you to translate it into multiple languages.

Activello comes with dozens of useful customization options including the ability to customize the color of all the theme elements. This theme is fully responsive and will display your content gracefully on devices of all size. If you are interested in running an online store, you can do that too with this theme as it is fully compatible with WooCommerce.

Allegiant

Allegiant offers a clean, minimal design that is fully responsive and looks great on all devices. It offers a modern premium design along with beautiful typography. It’s content-first design will make sure more and more people actually read your content.

This theme offers full control over the layout of your pages and comes with over five layout options. It comes with dozens of customization options and allows you to customize almost all the elements of the design. You can not only customize the color scheme but also the typography styles. It allows you to customize the typography styles and use Google Fonts of your choice.

If you just want the basic features, you can get the lite version of this theme for free. But if you want premium support, updates and more features, you can get the pro version for just $59.

Newsmag Lite

Newsmag Lite is the perfect theme for starting an online magazine. It comes with everything you will need to run a successful news site. It offers customizable color coded categories, news tickers and dozens of more features.

This theme allows you to customize almost all aspects of the design. You can customize everything from the layout to the color scheme. It allows you to customize the typography styles by allowing you to use Google fonts of your choice. It also offers lazy loading functionality for both images and ads.

If you just want the basic version, you can download the lite version of this theme for free. But on the other hand, if you want more features and premium support, you can get the pro version for $59.

MH Newsdesk Lite

MH Newsdesk Lite is a free theme by MH Themes. It is fully responsive and looks great on devices of all size. It comes with full support for WordPress Theme Customizer allowing you to make live changes to the design. This theme allows you to customize almost all aspects of the design. You can customize the color scheme to suit your branding needs.

It comes with a modern layout that is perfect for creating a news site. It comes with full support for popular WordPress plugins including WordPress Jetpack, Contact Form 7 and Backup Buddy.

MH Magazine Lite

MH Magazine lite is a beautiful magazine theme for WordPress. It comes with beautiful typography and a responsive design that looks great on devices. It is translation ready allowing you to reach your audience in their native language. You can easily translate this theme into multiple languages to create a multilingual site.

It offers a great layout that is suitable for creating a magazine style website. Its clean, minimal layout will definitely get more and more people to actually read your content.

BresponZive

BresponZive offers a minimal design and a clean layout that is perfect for creating a news site. Its minimal design will help focus the user’s attention on the content. It is fully responsive and looks great on all devices.

This theme comes with full support for WordPress Theme Customizer allowing you to make live changes to the theme. It will allow you to fully customize almost all aspects of the design. You can easily customize the color scheme of this theme with just a few clicks.

Ascendant

Ascendant is a stunning theme for WordPress. Its minimal design and clean typography will definitely help you stand out of the crowd and get more eyeballs on your content. If you want to reach your audience in their native language, you can do just that with this theme. It is translation-ready allowing you to easily translate this theme into multiple languages to create a multilingual website.

This theme comes with over five different layout options and offers full control over the layout of your pages. It also allows you to customize almost all aspects of the design. You can customize everything from the color scheme to the layout. It also allows you to customize the typography styles of the design. You can choose the Google Fonts you want to use for the typography styles of this website.

MesoColumn

MesoColumn offers a clutter-free, minimal layout that is mobile-ready and looks great on all devices. It offers a grid-based content-first layout to make sure more and more people actually read your content.

It comes with dozens of customization options. You can completely customize the color scheme and the typography styles. This theme allows you to select the Google Fonts you want to use on your website. It comes with full support for popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce, BuddyPress, and BBPress. It also allows you to change the background of the design with just a few clicks. This theme also comes with full support for WordPress Theme Customizer allowing you to make live changes to the design.

NewsAnchor

NewsAnchor offers a premium-looking design. It offers a great layout design that is perfect for creating an online magazine. It comes with all the features you will need to run an online magazine. This theme is compatible with most of the popular WordPress plugins including WooCommerce and Contact Form 7.

It allows you to not only customize the color scheme but also the typography styles. You can choose the color for almost all the theme elements. It allows you to choose from over 600 Google Fonts to use on your website.

IsleMag

IsleMag offers a minimal flat design that is fully responsive. It comes with full support for WordPress Theme Customizer. That means you can make live changes to the design of your website.

This theme is designed to create an online magazine and comes with all the functionality you will need to run one. It is fully compatible with plugins such Site Origin and JetPack.

Hueman

Hueman offers a clean, minimal 3-column design. It comes with not one, but two sidebars, one on each side of the blog content. This theme is perfect for creating an online magazine that stands out.

It comes with full support for WordPress Theme customizer, so you can make changes to the design live with just a few clicks. It is fully responsive and looks great on all devices.

Dynamic News

Dynamic News is free magazine theme for WordPress. It comes with a slider on the homepage. You can customize it to showcase your best content. It is fully mobile-ready and works well on all devices, no matter the screen size.

This theme comes with full support for WordPress Theme Customizer. That means you can make live changes to the design of your website. And customize almost all the aspects of the theme to suit your branding needs.

Conclusion

I hope this article helped you find the perfect theme for your online magazine. All of these themes are fully responsive and come with dozens of customization options. You can customize all of these themes with just a few clicks to suit your company’s branding needs.

Moreover, all of these themes come with a clean, minimal design. It will help focus the user’s attention on the content.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments section below.