That site was built with WP, but I can’t figure out what theme they based it on. I’ve found many that feature those six category boxes at the bottom of the page…but having trouble finding something that mirrors the top half of this layout. Most options I’ve seen have a full-page featured content slider, and we don’t want that. Just looking for something clean and simple, preferably that generates interactive thumbnails for various pages/categories on the front page. Anyone have any ideas?
To design your own theme, start from a bare bones theme that already exists. that way you can work by modifying an existing working theme rather than making one from scratch.
Any free theme that customizable can be made to look like this and even reference theme is also customized from some theme. Header with background and featured gallery is there and lower part is div blogs with read more.
Look for “magazine-style” themes. Studiopress (Genesis) has some nice child themes that help but they cost money. You can also use Suffusion or Atahualpa to configure them to look like this by removing many of the built-in design elements until you achieve this look. Both of those suggestions are free and require no programming knowledge.
