[pthumb][/pthumb]Who said you have to stick with 2 columns or 3 columns WordPress Themes? We all love Twenty Twelve Theme but i believe WordPress Themes can be more than just using a Magazine Grid or Traditional 2 and 3 Columns Blog. With the recent revolution in WordPress themes designs, we can see many websites using WordPress as directory, WordPress as photo blog, WordPress as marketing platform and many more.
WordPress had growth rapidly since first release, now WordPress core allowed users to have “Custom Post Type” or “Custom Post Format” which eased the publication of different type posts by blog authors. Evolutionarily of its Back end UI that greatly improved admin dashboard and site overall load time speed.
In this article, check out some of the best examples of Custom Websites using WordPress as their content management system.
01. Entyce
The independently-owned design and digital marketing agency Entyce, based in Chester has shown its worth in salt even on its own portfolio site. Creative director Jane Entwistle reveals that, for the site, they used the world’s most popular CMS, WordPress.
02. Bluelounge
Bluelounge designs and creates innovative and sleek products that support the customers’ digital lifestyle including cable management, chargers, iPhone/iPad accessories and soft goods.
03. Ghosthorses
Ghosthorses is the portfolio site of Stephen Fairbanks. This lovingly crafted site, laden with visual treats appealing to both the casual observer and the web-savvy, serves to delight as well as showcasing his works.
04. Olly Sorsby
Olly Sorsby is a student who’s just breaking into the world of web design. Olly’s portfolio site enables him to show off his work and introduce himself to the wider community.
05. Design the Planet
Marketing agency Design the Planet is a group of self-described ‘planetary engineers’. Based in New Orleans, they claim to be able to break your brand free from ‘generic mediocrity’. Looking at the DtP portfolio site, they’re definitely the folks to do just that. To make it, Design the Planet chose WordPress, the world’s most popular content management system (CMS).
06. Toronto Standard
Digital creative agency Playground was behind the design of this redesign for the Toronto Standard. Creative director at Playground Ryan Bannon explains, “The client was an investor who had purchased the rights to an old Toronto news brand and wanted to reinvent it as a purely digital, fresh voice in the Toronto editorial scene. That was about it; purely digital, fresh voiced editorial.
07. Harvey Nichols
This site for international luxury fashion destination Harvey Nichols was created by digital agency Pod1. Fadi Shuman, co-founder of Pod1 explains, “The brief was an exciting ecommerce proposition to deliver the luxury shopping proposition, to be flexible in its design for campaign imagery and themes.
08. Captain Creative
A true superhero of the web world has finally revealed himself. And he has a website! Brad James is a self-described “mild mannered designer and art director” based over in New South Wales, Australia. Although he works for agency, iQmultimedia, James has set up as his own online identity named Captain Creative.
09. 42Below
Digital creative agency Gladeye has developed a site for the iconic New Zealand brand 42Below Vodka. Interactive director Tarver Graham explains, “42Below is one of the coolest brands in the entire world. So you could say we felt a little bit of pressure to deliver on design.
10. Poster Roast
Poster Roast is a platform for UK artists to promote their screen-printed gig posters. The site first came about when Telegramme was commissioned by Alex Curtis and Chris White. Director of Telegramme Studio Robert Evans explains, “I met them last year at various gigs and exhibitions they were putting on. We got chatting about the emerging gig poster scene in the UK, and the idea arose of giving all the artists an easy way to get people to see and buy their work.”
11. Viewport Industries
Viewport Industries makes digital and analogue products for web professionals. Founded by Elliot Jay Stocks and Keir Whitaker in 2011, the company chose WordPress as its CMS. “I’ve used WordPress for years and have developed a way of working that means it’s easy to get up and running with a new theme,” explains Whitaker. “Adding a page, new post or custom post type is straightforward and allows flexibility.”
12. Tornobambino
Tornobambino is a small Italian agency comprising designer Fedrica Cau and developer Pasquale de Luna. For their cool and colourful site, WordPress was the obvious choice, Cau reveals. “We think WordPress is the best option for small websites that need to be modified and tweaked often,” she explains.
13. E&E
The E&E agency mostly works in the music industry, but has been known to flex its considerable talents in other areas of the digital realm. When it came to crafting its award-winning site, WordPress ticked all the boxes.
14. Jess Marks Photography
Brisbane-based wedding photographers, Jess Marks and Steve Bliesne’s online home is a fun, whimsical website bristling with personality. When it came to revamping the site, Bliesner says that they, “actually moved from ExpressionEngine to WordPress. We searched for a long time to find the right design house to do this project. We settled on Simple as Milk, and WordPress is what they worked with, so we transitioned.
15. Work by Simon
Work by Simon is the design studio site of Simon Carr and Elijah Wasserman. The website serves as their online portfolio and blog. The studio focuses on design and development for HTML5, CSS3, mobile websites and WordPress – which has been their preferred CMS over the last four years.
16. Branded07
Branded07 serves as a fantastic example of how elegant a blog can be. This beautiful site, designed by Rob Palmer, is clean and devoid of clutter. What fascinates me most about the design, though, is all the attention to detail.
17. Circa
Paul Mosig from Racket selected WordPress to power the website for Circa, a restaurant situated in Melbourne, Australia. Paul has captured the spirit and distinct feel of the restaurant’s decor to create an equally distinct online presence.
18. Web Courses Bangkok
Web Courses Bangkok is an English training centre providing beginner-to-advanced web and graphic design courses in Bangkok. Carl Heaton, founder of the company and designer of its newly relaunched site, decided to use WordPress as its CMS.
19. Iron to Iron
Iron to Iron is a two-person company founded by designer Kevin Richardson and developer Jonathan Christopher. Of their own site Kevin says: “We needed to effectively display our brand as well as our philosophy.”
20. Eddie Diaz Design
Eddie Diaz is a South Florida-based web and graphic designer. When asked about his CMS choice, he replied “Using WordPress as the CMS allowed me to focus more on the design and layout, since the CMS made the populating of content a snap.
21. Yoke
Yoke is a studio based in Bristol. The design and build of the site was a team effort by co-founders Jay Bigford and Alister Wynn. “The key to the success of our website as a marketing tool for our business is to have valuable expertise-based content on there,” explains Bigford. “We’re constantly adding blog posts researching into topics that relate to our target clients.”
22. Grind
Grind is the gateway to a new workspace platform that lets “talent collaborate in a new way: outside the system”. The site provides information about their platform, including what it is like to work at Grind and how to join.
23. Guy Gungell
Our next site is a showcase for Guy Gyngell, a music producer/songwriter. It was designed and built by Adam Allaway at Flint & Tinder. Adam also selected WordPress as the CMS to power Guy’s site.
24. Myjive
Myjive are a digital experience agency. The launch of their new site was a team effort between Krista Engler (interactive designer), Ron Edelen (creative director), Albert Banks (technical director) and Linsay Guinaugh (copywriter).
25. Rodesk
Rodesk is the website of a newly created interaction agency who provide brand identity, concept design, web design and marketing campaign services for ?their clients.
It was co-founded by Laurens Boex and Jasper van Orden. They selected WordPress as the CMS to power their infographic-?focused design.
26. Ribot
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Ribot is a Brighton-based company that creates simple mobile products to inspire and assist, and was started over four years ago by brothers Antony and Jerome Ribot.
27. 6Wunderkinder
6Wunderkinder’s website shows off its first product, the free and easy- to-use task management tool, Wunderlist. The site was designed by Jan Martin and the team selected WordPress for the job. “It’s the most commonly used CMS; there are millions of websites that use WordPress,” reasons Martin.
28. Girl With a Camera
Girl With a Camera is the photo blog of Ashley Baxter where she shares photography of her life and her commissioned work. The site was designed by Matt Brett, who migrated Baxter from Tumblr to WordPress.
29. Tinkering Monkey
Tinkering Monkey is an online shop that sells simple wooden goods for everyday living. Everything is made in the garage-turned-woodworking-studio of Mike Cheung, product designer and creator, and Paula Chang, who manages the business and developed the site.
30. Intellidogs
This digital downloads store is run by Karen Wild, and enables users to build their own personalised dog training manual based on the needs of their pet.
31. Jenny Bristow
Love food? Love HTML5? Then look no further than the home of Ireland’s Good Food Ambassador, Jenny Bristow. Created in WordPress by the team at Web Design Northern Ireland, it’s refreshing to see HTML5 being used for client work.
32. Obi Media
Designer Christian Senior was given the task to bring the Obi Media site up to date. “I’m a big advocate for the WordPress platform and since the site was going to be updated by various people we agreed that this was a good base for us. This would give us the freedom to customise everything, right down to the admin panel, and make managing the site an easy task.
33. 42BELOW
Digital creative agency Gladeye developed this site for iconic New Zealand brand 42BELOW Vodka. Interactive director Tarver Graham spills the beans.
34. CRACK Magazine
CRACK Magazine is a monthly paper publication and online platform that offers the latest in cutting edge music, art, reviews, and listings. They asked design agency Fiasco Design to create a flexible site that works as a desktop and mobile website, with an easy-to-use, intuitive content management system.
35. Derren Brown
“Derren Brown is a witch!” According to some, this is all we need to know about England’s foremost head fudger. But millions of people want to learn more about this leading illusionist, mentalist, hypnotist, painter, writer, and skeptic, and with his site often pushing past two million monthly page views, it’s clearly the web that people turn to to find more info.
– source via creativebloq
Final Thought
Unlike Free and Premium Themes, custom themes have a vibe of personal graphic elements. You may see some of the examples above use a “hero” image of blog or site owner themselves. Other than that, the custom website may or may not be using a WordPress Framework which available to download free. One other thing you might notice is the fonts, with the availability of using paid web fonts services like Typekit and Free web fonts using Google web fonts and CSS3 @font-face embed nowadays, you can easily embed a custom fonts in your WordPress Theme for more customize and unique look.
