Premium WordPress Theme Sites Released

WP Designer and Cory Miller, in partnership with Brian Gardner each released new premium theme sites on January 24th, who are both considered some of the top web designers. The theme websites were eagerly anticipated by many devoted WordPress fans as they can be looked at as revolutionary in terms of their goals.

First, we’ll take a look at WP Designer’s Themes Club.

The Themes Club offers at least twelve themes over the course of the year, all for the low price of $5. You receive unlimited access to the theme downloads without the need for a developer license. Use the blog themes on as many sites as you want, but don’t redistribute them or infringe on the terms and conditions. Unlike many other designers, he doesn’t require you to keep the footer links in, and there is no fee if you want them removed.

Support is available through a ticket system (available through the themes account) and through the forums.

The main approach to the Themes Club is to prove that there are valuable, high quality blog themes for a minimum price, with free support (provided via ticket system if you purchased a membership).

To get the club started, a theme has already been released (preview here). 

An overview of the Gossip WordPress Theme properties:

• 3 column theme
• Styled for gossip and celebrity-related blogs
• Text styles – for downloads, alerts, notes, and info – with different colors and images to represent each category
• 4 widget-ready sidebars
• Advertisement template preloaded as a text widget (300px by 250px)
• Sidebar search form – expandable, so it fits in any column
• Advertisement template – ideal for inserting banner images/AdSense between posts
• Templates customized for archives, links, and gallery pages
• Plugins integrated into theme – Author Highlight, Comment License, WP-PageNavi, and WP-PostRatings to make the theme work right after downloading
• Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, Opera, and Safari compatible
• More features coming soon to the theme such as celebrity A-Z listing template, more theme and plugin options/integrations

The Themes Club looks extremely promising, offering a way for more bloggers to access “premium” WordPress themes for a cheaper price.

iThemes is a more typical premium WordPress theme creator/distributor with several top WP designers working on themes. However, more support is given with the themes in the form of free WordPress video tutorials to get your theme working, as well as introductions and overviews of the WordPress blogging platform. 

For the launch, they released a theme series called Essence , which was designed to give small companies a blog that still had a unique feel to it instead of being a corporate/monochromatic theme.

Features of the theme series include:

• 5 color themes to choose from – dark, red, silver, blue, and golden (Previews are available on the main demo of each color)
• Static home page
• 7 inside page layouts
• Integrated blog templates
• Two header options – text or graphic

All iThemes feature: easy customizability, easy to use, clean and valid code, widget ready, and search engine optimized.

Single-Use Package - $99.95 – Footer credits must remain intact, ideal for people who use the theme on a single website
Multiple-Use Package -$249.95 – Footer credits may be removed, ideal for people who use the theme on multiple websites

Add-on services can be purchased for $150 for installation and optimization and one hour modifications.

These two new premium WordPress theme websites should prove to be a valuable resource for people that want a semi-unique blog theme, but have a little cash to invest in their blog.