This category-as-super-nav based theme from ThemeSpinner has a three-column HP layout and a two-column article layout.  Design features of note include a robust footer (most recent, most popular, recent comments), as well as some nice touches put to pages that are normally afterthoughts.

Article level pages feature the author (with gravatar), comments and page views – all which serve to set up the article nicely. The contributor pages, category-level pages and the search results pages all show thumbnails.

Overall, a great, cheaper premium theme for a content-focused site.

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By the same maker as minimalist Visualization and the Gridline series, Monochrome is a visually arresting theme that places a lot of emphasis on images. So if your photos are not as great as the ones featured on the site, then you may way to think again. Monochrome has a lot of solid magazine-style features, like category-based-navigation (with dropdown subcategories), as well as category representation under the main feature and above the big footer. Check out variations Monochrome Gallery, Monochrome Author and Monochrome Lite.

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This paid theme’s primary magazine feature is a featured articles capability — articles categorized under “featured” occupy the main well. While that’s a neat way to deal with the issue of which stories get prominent/more real estate, the downside of this approach is that articles are bucketed under one category instead of perhaps the categories that they would more naturally fit in. Category navigation is in the big footer.

Sites utilizing the theme:
http://jaypeeonline.net/
http://www.outlawdesignblog.com/

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Gorgeous and clean Wordpress theme with a two tiered-navigation menu — page-based and category-based. The majority of the homepage is taken up by the featured story (appears to be the latest story). Nice features include a slick “most popular” sidebar with popular, comments, latest and tags. Another unique feature is the robust footer which manages to pack in six stories in three selected categories. Currently does not come with advertising already implemented.

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This minimalist theme takes a pyramid approach to content display — one feature story/large image, beneath that three smaller features (with smaller images), then as the base, five thumbnail features bolstered by a big footer. The main nav menu is a bit different than many themes in that it incorporates both pages and categories (sub pages and categories in drop down). An upper nav repeats the categories. Overall a nice theme, but the white space beneath the main story seems underutilized. If you like this theme, you may also want to check out Gridline, a theme by the same maker, Graph Paper Press.

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Free Wordpress theme with page-based navigation (dropdown menus) with a category-list in the right-hand sidebar. The HP is 3-column while article pages are 2-column. With built-in advertising.

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One of the first magazine-style Wordpress themes that I came across, and judging from the comments, hugely popular. Maybe because it’s free, or maybe because it’s a great starting off point. Those of you looking for pre-built top-menu category-based navigation, (admittedly, a very specific thing), will have to look elsewhere. Mimbo’s top navigation menu is page-based; category-based-navigation is via the right-hand menu, which displays both categories and subcategories. Also no “most popular” (pages, comments etc) built in. You may also be interested in the paid theme, Mimbo Pro.

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The Revolution Wordpress Theme series (comes in different flavors, Revolution Magazine, Revolution Tech, Revolutions Sports, etc) is a nice jumping off point for anyone interested in content-rich sites.

Standard mag-style features include two-tiered top-nav: page-based for the first tier and category-based for the 2nd tier (with subcategory drop downs). Touches which distinguish this theme from others in the Revolution series and other mag-style themes in general is a large call-out to subscribe (hugely important to get return visitors), as well as a tabbed treatment for the main HP feature. Another nice thing with the Revolution series is that there are phpBB3 forum templates included.

One nitpick: I would like to see some “most popular” type features and more advertising out of the box.

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What I like about this paid theme is the great job it does showcasing a lot of content very effectively. The HP manages to squeeze in 13+ article options (1 main well, 5 recent stories, 4 secondary stories with image (in slider), and then 3 more articles (with 3 links each!), yet maintains a clean and balanced feel. Same goes for category/subcategory landing pages, which very gracefully highlights one story, gives another four stories less emphasis, then finally offers up 8 story headlines. Some other very nice touches include a breadcrumb, except in English — i.e. instead of Category > Subcategory > SubsubCategory, this theme has “You are here: Home -> Election ’08 -> Huckabee Angling for Debate With McCain”. Another nice touch is the article -level pages, where color zoning highlights “More from this category” and “More from this author.”

Comments are currently located in the robust footer, which may not be ideal for some, but is probably easy enough to change. Another benefit is the auto image resizer described as follows: “custom script that automatically crops and resizes images – no more creating two or three versions of each image.”

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