Sadish Bala’s WordPress themes have a formula that works – professional and clean layout, good typography, and awe-inspiring header images of nature and man-made wonders.

Paalam is a free theme used on:

• The Spittoon, biotechnology start-up 23andMe’s corporate blog.

He has many themes with a similar look-and-feel.  However, navigating his web of a dozen sites each with a partly overlapping subset of his themes feels like getting stuck inside a zoo.

Over a year ago, I searched the Web looking for a WordPress theme, either free or premium, that would emulate the professional appearance of major news media Web sites such The New York Times, Business Week, and Time magazine.  I found the Thesis WordPress theme which has a similar appearance to The New York Times.  Coincidence or rip-off?

The first thing I noticed was the beautiful typography which makes the Thesis theme look professional, unlike 99% of other themes out there which fall short on typography.  In addition to beautiful typography, Thesis has some of the most aesthetically pleasing white-space proportions between elements throughout the layout.

The Thesis theme has 6 layout options (3 three-column, 2 two-column, and 1 single-column), design customization options accessible through the WordPress administration panel user interface, and hooks in the code for developers.

Thesis is used on:

• Virology Blog – About viruses and disease, by a professor of microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center.

Since I have software engineering skills, I have been able to make use of the Thesis theme hooks to customize it as I like.  In a few cases, the hooks were sufficient only with some not particularly elegant solutions.  There is really no staff support in the Thesis support forum.  As far as I have experienced, mainly one person who is not staff replies to any questions in the forum and half the time just to say he doesn’t know.

Several good alternative premium themes have recently come on the market since I first bought Thesis.

Disclosure: I receive commission for purchases made through my Thesis theme affiliate link.  I donate 50% of proceeds to charity, mainly medical research.

The Neoclassical WordPress theme is, surprisingly, one of the only available standard 3-column WordPress themes with tasteful typography and layout. If you are looking for a free version of the Thesis WordPress theme, the Neoclassical theme by the same designer appears to be a precursor of Thesis and a fair approximation of its 3-column layout option.

Here is an example of a site using the Neoclassical WordPress theme:

• Unofficial Vienna Teng fan site