Over the past couple of weeks I’ve tried out several new Wordpress themes for this blog including Thesis, Atahualpa (which is free) and several from WooThemes (where I have a developer’s club membership.)  But I think I have finally discovered one of the fastest and easiest themes available: Headway.

A little background: I’ve been publishing blogs and websites using Wordpress since 2005.  When I started I had no clue about CSS and PHP, and still really don’t know more than just to hack the code.  What I usually do is start with a theme and then modify it to get exactly what I want.  As I said, I’m not a programmer, so this usually takes a lot of trial and error.  Mostly error!

For example, Step by Step Fundraising is the primary site that I have been running since 2003.  In early 2008 I switched from a theme called Craving 4 Green to Livewire from WooThemes.  Both themes required me to modify code to get the look and functionality that I wanted.  That was fine, as once I got the basic layout like I wanted there were not too many changes needed later.

So anyway, my point being that I can do these hacks but this time around I really didn’t want to. Three reasons:

1. Time spent hacking code was time I could be writing content or promoting the blog.
2. I wanted to review themes for potential recommendations. For those who are coming to Cause Blogger to learn how to set up a blog I wanted to find the best themes that would make the process easiest for a beginner.
3. Hacking code can be downright frustrating!

I tried Thesis (and promise to give it a better look someday) but I had couple of major problems with it.  You still had to hack code to even change font colors.  Second, I read tutorials and such on “hooks” and was still confused.  Moving on…

So I remembered that David Risley had posted something on his blog about a Thesis competitor.  I watched the screen capture video he created and was pretty convinced that it would be a good fit.  And I was right.  It is so easy to change the layout, fonts, header, colors etc. using the plain English in the Wordpress administrator’s panel.  It’s a nice, clean design that is easy for the site visitor to read and navigate.  Nothing flashy to get in the way.  With a nice new header from my graphics pro Ven at Banner Junky, I’m all set.

Have you tried Headway or any of the other themes mentioned?  Would enjoy hearing your feedback in the comments below.