Magazine style blog themes seem to be all the rage right now – with sites like TechCrunch moving to more of a magazine/newspaper style approach for their main blog pages.
Even Chris Pearson has a new magazine style theme coming out soon to complement his successful Thesis Theme.
So when is the right time to use a Magazine style blog theme?
Smashing Magazine took a look earlier this week and offered some advice along with some key descriptors of what makes up a Magazine-style theme:
1. Magazine themes only use excerpts or headlines on the front page, while standard blogs will use either full posts or excerpts.
2. A magazine theme functions more as a portal to content on the rest of the site. The magazine theme will give visitors a glimpse at what is available and it will direct them to go in whatever direction they like.
3. Magazine themes make more effort to organize the content of the blog and present what is most important, whereas traditional blog layouts will order front page content based on what is most recent.
The post goes on to outline several pros and cons – along with a ton of resources to help you design your own magazine style theme, find premium wordpress themes in this style, and other great resources.
