Overall, I think the Live Wire series does a good job of presenting a lot of information with balance. Critical items like category and page-based navigation are taken care of (though I would prefer that colored portion of the menus highlight the categories rather than the pages). I love that they all come equipped with prominent search and rss/email. Two nitpicks — personally, I do not find the flickr images a good use of HP real estate, and the bottom of the HP seems to falter a bit with the video and the whitespace next to it. A robust footer would be a nice addition.

There are also two other variations on the Live Wire theme (Live Wire 2.0 is shown below) — Live Wire Edition, which is blue and more newsy, and Live Wire Style, which is red and more men’s magazine.

More Info/Live Demo

NewsPress defies the logic that columns must be differently sized. The theme manages to present two columns of equal width on the HP and it works well. I also like that the featured stories on the HP are not just the latest stories but the latest story by category. A++ for that. Not a huge fan of the ad implementation, but I’m sure that can be easily changed. The search box is in a bit of a weird place, but overall, a very nice theme!

More Info | Live Demo

I already droned on and on about the brethren of this theme, so you can read all about it here or here.

More Info/Live Demo