Favorite WP Themes and Plugins

Agentpress child theme by Studiopress

Until June 2009 I had never touched (or even heard of wordpress), now I almost exclusively design my clients sites (and my own) using WordPress. My favorite themes for the WordPress platform are made and supported by Studiopress. I have found that Studiopress develops the best of the best in customizable themes, which is great for someone who still considers herself a “newbie”. Now the only reason I call myself a newbie is because I don’t have years and years of coding experience and until recently didn’t even know what PHP was or how it relates to webdesign. I knew the basics of Dreamweaver, thats it.

The first theme I ever touched in WP was the Arial Flexx Theme – everything was already set up and all I had to do was create new posts, but when the site went down and we lost everything I convinced the company to start using Studiopress’ Streamline theme – partly because I couldn’t figure out how to set the page back up the way it was originally. What a difference, the theme and the files were so incredibly easy to work with and it made sense to someone who didn’t know ANYTHING about css and modifications, not-to-mention the Studiopress support forum is the absolute best of the best. I use it constantly.

Since then, I bit the bullet and finally decided to go with the ProPlus (all themes) membership ($249); that includes

1 parent theme (genesis)
24 child themes
- Agency
- AgentPress
- Amped
- Church
- Corporate
- Education
- Enterprise
- Executive
- Family Tree
- Freelance
- Going Green
- Landscape
- Lifestyle
- Magazine
- Outreach
- Pixel Happy
- Platinum
- Serenity
- Sleek
- Streamline
- **Delicious – soon to be released
Classic Themes
- Agent
- AgentPress
- Allure
- Black Canvas
- Chrome
- Church
- Corporate
- Education
- Executive
- Lifestyle
- Magazine
- Metro
- News
- Streamline
- Tubular
Not-to-mention, Studiopress recently merged with ModThemes and Studiopress has guaranteed that all ProPlus Members will be extended the priviledge of all those incredible themes as well (updated to Studiopress standards before release).
I understand there are 7 more child themes in the works (so if you haven’t bought the ProPlus Membership yet, I highly recommend that you do now before the price goes up.

What Does This Mean For Current ModThemes Users?

The themes available from ModThemes will be converted to the state-of-the-art, Genesis Theme Framework and all ModThemes members will receive free upgrades to Genesis and the resulting converted child theme or can continue to use the legacy version.

ModThemes Developer pack members will also become StudioPress Pro-Plus All-Theme members, giving them access to the entire suite of current and future StudioPress themes.

ModThemes members will be moved over to the StudioPress Support Forums in the coming weeks and will have continued support along with future legacy-theme support.

As you can see, this is a very ALL-INCLUSIVE membership, and their support forum is TOP-NOTCH. If I post a question, I usually get a response and solution within 30 minutes. (TOTALLY RECOMMENDED for ANYONE who builds websites using WordPress!!!

My clients tend to use the same themes, these seem to be the most popular

Agentpress (child theme)

As I am contractually hired to help build/modify/customize several Real Estate Sites, this definitely seems to be the most popular theme I use. The ease of configuration and modification of css makes using this theme very very easy. When coupled with the IDX plugin, real-time property search is amazing.

Lifestyle (child and classic themes)

When a client of mine plans to be a huge blogger, this is a common theme, with so many widgeted areas, it makes categories on the homepage incredibly extensible.

Executive (child theme)

This theme is typically used for higher end (more luxurious) clients that want the “elegant” look.

Serenity (child theme)

previously used for my own website, until the magazine child theme was released then I switched.

Amped (child theme)

used by a restaurant consultant client of mine and possibly a band that I am proposing a site for.

SEO and Plugins

Studiopress is one up on everyone, while WP already comes prepackaged with some amazing SEO, Studiopress has done one better and its included in all their genesis child themes. The most common plugins I tend to use are;