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Some WordPress themes are built for legibility. These are built for expression. |
Whether you’re an artist, maker, or creative business owner, the right theme doesn’t just display your work — it is part of your work. |
Here are 10 creative WordPress themes for making a real visual impression. |
How I tested these WordPress themes |
For each theme, I customized the homepage layout (changing sections, images, and text), explored the templates and patterns libraries (pre-built page layouts and design blocks), and tested any built-in features and unique design elements. I then ran a few blog posts through each theme to see how they handled content. |
My goal was to choose themes that make it easier for your website to feel uniquely yours: |
- Sankofa: Best for cultural organizations, museums, and archives
- Memphoria: Best for fashion and design bloggers
- Miko: Best for personal portfolios
- Kawaii-Chan: Best for beauty and style influencers
- Feelin’Good: Best for nostalgic creators and bloggers
- Roblog: Best for gamers and streamers
- Parr: Best for artists, gallerists, and visual portfolios
- Punk: Best for musicians and bands
- Psychedeli: Best for groovy bloggers
- The Jazzers: Best for music bloggers
Let’s look at each of them in detail: |
1. Sankofa: Best for cultural organizations, museums, and archives |
- Setup: Intermediate/advanced
- Who should use it: Museums, cultural organizations, archives, and institutions that publish rich editorial or historical content
Sankofa is a robust theme that draws on Afrofuturist design, with bold colors, original geometries, fractal patterns, and expressive fonts. |
The standout features are its angular image shapes, which appear across page templates, and its customizable About pattern. |
For best results, add your images at the block or archive level rather than replacing them one by one — this ensures the angular shapes display correctly across your site. |
Sankofa includes seven unique page templates and two theme-specific patterns, including an organization manifest, which is especially useful if you want to include a company page. |
With some customization, Sankofa offers all the tools you need to build a robust, visually striking website. To get the most out of this theme, you need to be comfortable with patterns, loops, and parent block functions. A word of caution: If you’re new to WordPress, this theme has a steeper learning curve than others. |
2. Memphoria: Best for fashion and design bloggers |
- Setup: Beginner
- Who should use it: Bloggers who want to show a lot of personality with a wild edge
Memphoria offers a quirky blog layout, with a feed that stacks posts like a layered collection of Polaroids. Together with its six candy-colored theme options, this WordPress theme has a wild, maximalist feel that’s hard to replicate. |
It comes with six-page templates and custom styling options for the feed, tags, and separators. |
I particularly liked the kooky separator options: wavy, dots, zig-zag, and wiggly, which add a playful vibe. |
Memphoria’s Polaroid-style homepage and additional page templates make it easy to build a distinctive, personality-driven blog with minimal setup. |
However, that strong aesthetic means this theme offers limited customization for websites that require greater design flexibility. |
3. Miko: Best for personal portfolios |
- Setup: Intermediate
- Who should use it: Personal websites, writers, and other non-visual portfolios
Miko offers a split-page site design with a bold color palette and an unconventional approach to navigation — instead of a traditional header, the sticky panel on the right side of the screen keeps your primary photo and title visible on every page. |
This layout is great for personal websites and portfolios centered on one strong image because it keeps your brand closely anchored to your content on the left. |
Miko is a good option if you need a personal site with just a single strong image, such as a headshot or brand photo. It’s a great fit for resumes, project links, or writing samples. |
4. Kawaii-Chan: Best for beauty and style influencers |
- Setup: Beginner
- Who should use it: Influencers, creators, and bloggers
Kawaii-Chan lives up to its name and inspiration: lively, sweet, and available in multiple pastel colors. |
The rounded headers and footers and bubble-style image frames create a cozy and playful atmosphere, and the built-in kawaii background pattern immediately sets the tone for the site’s aesthetic. |
Kawaii-Chan is a fun theme if you want your lifestyle blog to express a cartoonish, childlike charm. |
If you feel the background pattern is a little too much, you can easily swap it out under Theme Design → Background — a handy option if you want a cleaner look while keeping the kawaii aesthetic. |
5. Feelin’Good: Best for nostalgic creators and bloggers |
- Setup: Beginner/intermediate
- Who should use it: Creators looking for a theme with a nostalgic, retro internet aesthetic
Feelin’Good opens to a colorful homepage image with a semitransparent blog feed. The default look is pure vaporwave, but you can easily swap the site imagery to create different moods. |
The header lets you add a logo or a headshot to the right corner, while the footer includes a finger icon that fits the retro style. |
If you want to add ’80s or ’90s stylings to your site, this theme works perfectly. You can also tailor the visual style with a different background image or color scheme. |
6. Roblog: Best for gamers and streamers |
- Setup: Beginner
- Who should use it: Gamers, streamers, and playful bloggers
Roblog is a nod to the iconic Roblox platform, featuring rounded block styling and a “Playful” logo style that tilts your icon in a mischievous reference to Roblox’s own branding. |
It’s the only theme on this list with a two-column post layout. The sidebar gives you space for an About section, related categories, and a subscription block — making it easy to build your email list right alongside your content. |
Roblog is a fun theme with useful functionality, such as sidebar subscriptions. The two-column layout is also a big advantage for blogging, but it might feel limiting if you plan to feature other types of content. |
7. Parr: Best for artists, gallerists, and visual portfolios |
- Setup: Beginner
- Who should use it: Photographers, artists, or anyone needing an image-driven website
Parr is a curatorial theme that puts bold imagery front and center. The sideways text elements free up visual space, while the individual blog pages resemble spreads from an art magazine. |
The “previous” and “next” buttons on each edge create the feel of turning the page. |
Parr’s layout doesn’t offer any variation, but you can still modify the fonts and colors to create your own distinct look. |
If you’ve got a visual site and want your images to shine, Parr is the perfect backdrop. It’s a great option for portfolios and photo journals. |
You can play around with the theme’s style options to match your brand, but make sure that Parr’s bold, defined layout is a good fit for your vision. |
8. Punk: Best for musicians and bands |
- Setup: Intermediate
- Who should use it: Alternative music bloggers, bands, and musicians
Punk leans hard into the zine aesthetic and commits to it fully. The halftone effect automatically converts your images into one of six two-tone color schemes for a raw, DIY feel. |
It’s one of the most customization-rich themes on this list. Beyond the homepage, individual posts and pages keep the aesthetic alive with doodles and other lo-fi design elements. |
If you like the punk or zine aesthetic, this theme delivers a ton of character throughout your site from the start. |
However, if you have lots of content and site imagery, prepare yourself to spend some time making sure everything looks good in halftone. |
9. Psychedeli: Best for groovy bloggers |
- Setup: Beginner
- Who should use it: Bloggers who love a psychedelic, counterculture feel
Psychedeli channels the ’60s with neon tones, exaggerated fonts, and psychedelic patterns. |
The style variations are more than just color palette tweaks. The backgrounds and fonts also change, so each variation feels like its own distinct site. |
Like Punk, Psychedeli automatically adjusts your images to match the theme’s color palette for a cohesive site-wide look. |
Psychedeli is a bold, vibrant theme that plays nicely with your blog content right out of the box. The color effects are part of the style. However, if you have high-quality images and want to preserve their original style, this might not be the right fit. |
10. The Jazzers: Best for music bloggers |
- Setup: Intermediate
- Who should use it: Music bloggers and reviewers
The Jazzers theme aims to recreate the feeling of browsing through a vinyl collection. |
The large-scale title text and background images evoke classic album sleeves — a perfect aesthetic for music lovers. |
This theme makes it easy to curate an attractive blog feed and has enough character for a vibrant music blog. |
If you want your pages to feel like a much-loved vinyl collection, this theme is right up your alley. It does take work to manage the visual tweaks and lengthy titles, though, so make sure you’re willing to put in the effort every time you post. |
Build something great with WordPress.com |
I’ve given you my take on the top 10 creative WordPress themes, but you know your work better than any list does. The right theme will click the moment you see it. |
Ready to find the right look for your website? |
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