The Morning After - Magazine Style WordPress Theme
WordPress themes with a magazine like layout is always a rarity. That is exactly why I couldn’t resist writing a review when I encountered this magnificent theme today. “The Morning After” is a 3 column, widget ready WordPress theme, with an elegant magazine like layout. Created by Arun Kale, the theme was developed based on a user survey about the features needed in a magazine like WordPress theme. And thankfully Arun was able to implement them and gift us with a beautiful theme .
Before starting off, let me remind you something. This theme requires some work or rather creativity from your part too, to utilise it’s full potential. You need to create your own header image, latest post images etc…But let me tell you, for the amount of effort you are going to take, it is totally worth it. The theme also requires some plugins (not mandatory) to enable the extended functionalities. All the necessary plugins (Customizable Comment Listings, WP-Email, and WP-Print) are provided with the theme and therefore all you got to do is copy them to your plugins folder, activate them and done.
Okay, lets get on to the review. On top left we have the black and white header. You see, I have always felt a black and white layout provides a better magazine/newspaper like look than a color one. May be because it is due to the countless years of reading various black and white newspapers, these b&w colors definitely connect us to a print media. So straight off the header, we have a winner here.
But what really caught my attention was the search box on the top right corner. The way it is positioned, plus the links to the static pages given below the search box, the usage of green icons to highlight each static page, it is all perfect; an excellent utilization of available space. There can’t be a better way than this.
Coming down, we have the long header image and further down to the right we have the two line “Welcome” box. Nowadays these “Welcome” boxes can be seen in almost every good theme. So no big deal. But the light and dark blue contrasting color tone usage requires special mention.
Further down, we have the 3 column layout. The first column hosts the main content while the other two are sidebars. On the main content column, we have the “latest post” first like any other WP blog. There is a header image and underneath the post contents. Like I said in the beginning, you need to be creative here and place some header image there, otherwise the theme will loose it’s appeal.
Underneath the header image is the post content. It uses a plain black on white format without any special effects. But, the placement of the “More” (called “Continue Reading” here) and “Comments” button is fantastic. Not to forget the extra category name button which isn’t normally seen along with More and Comment buttons. But these unusual positionings are what that make this theme unique.
Below that there is the “Featured Post”. You see, no magazine can avoid a “featured post”. It could be a monthly feature, weekly feature or even a daily one. Therefore every magazine like theme is bound to have one and Arun doesn’t disappoint us. Based on a slight color tone variant of the “Welcome” box, “Featured Post” gets the highlight it is intended to have. Below that we have a great usage of Asides plugin.
On the 2nd column, we have the “Recent Posts” and an advertisement block. The “Recent Posts” show the title, date and the author, along with a grey filled box on left. I feel this is for some sort of a thumbnail picture (couldn’t verify as there was no live demo available). Anyway it perfectly syncs with the magazine layout and that is more important.
On the 3rd column, we have three components - Categories, Recent Comments and Most Emailed (requires plugin). “Most Emailed” is another feature associated with magazines as readers tend to email their favorite stories to friends and relatives. It is one thing that imparts an authentic feel to a magazine and here, Arun scores big time. Another aspect I would like to mention here is the theme’s ability to generate “Printer-Friendly” views for every story. Requires a plugin, but definitely worth it. You got a real magazine in your hands, blogger.
The footer is plain but who bothers about all that when you have a wonderful theme at hand. Besides, I believe Arun made it plain purposefully to preserve the authentic magazine layout.
Now for the final words - brilliant!!! Just brilliant!!! I believe “The Morning After” is the first Complete Magazine Like WordPress Theme. By complete I mean, every feature that is associated with a magazine has been successfully incorporated into a WordPress theme. Be it the Featured Post, Story Mailing, Printer-Friendly views, you name it, Arun has it. Incredible man, just incredible. All you wannabe Magazine Editors, horn your writing skills for you have a real magazine in your hands now.
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Submit your Vote :29 Responses to “The Morning After - Magazine Style WordPress Theme”
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Thanks for the more than generous review
I’m glad you like the theme.
Great review and great theme.
It is lovely and almost exactly what I’ve been looking for . . . but widgets are desperately needed. I will not invest the work it would need to customize the theme without them. Looks like Arun is going to add them due to the number of requests, though. That will make this an excellent and functional theme!
This is the perfect theme for every magazine. I’m thinking about using it on www.life2day.de
It’s very lovely. I like the combination between black and white a lot. Thanks for your info
This is the most perfect template I have come across, and glad to find it. Great review.
Great template! I’m using it at http://www.tubeguitar.com now!
Great! But I am having an error, maybe you can help:
WordPress database error: [Table ‘justinfrechette.wp_categories’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT cat_ID FROM wp_categories WHERE cat_name=’Asides’
WordPress database error: [Table ‘justinfrechette.wp_categories’ doesn’t exist]
SELECT cat_ID FROM wp_categories WHERE cat_name=’Featured’
Justin, check out the comments on masterplan main site. It is because of wordpress 2.3. You have to change those lines…
Mag, where can I find the comments to make the changes needed? Thanks!
You can find it here: http://themasterplan.in/discuss/topic/47?replies=17#post-449
[…] A detailed review of the Morning After theme can be found here. […]
I love this theme, great review for a great theme.
beautiful work… but it’s kinda strange it has not been widgetized. I mean, most skilled theme developers seem to do so these days. Also, it is tagget as ‘widgetized’ here - so far incorrect…
But great work!!!
Great review and what a unique and beautiful theme.
Adorei o tema, muito bom mesmo!!!
http://meuwindows.wordpress.com
This is a very cool theme! Probably the best I’ve come across besides the WordPress Revolution theme series. Any plans to review that?
~Dave
Excellent review for an excellent theme! Thanks for making it a lot easier for us to find quality themes. Keep it up!
You know what is better than the theme under review ?? it’s you review ! Great job dude ..
This is definitely one of best (if not THE BEST) themes I’ve seen. The design is very clean and professional, and the layout carefully thought of. I wish more designers would come up with great themes such as this!
Thanks for reviewing it for us!
Is there a way for this template to show the last 5 posts (or number of posts) on “LATEST POST” area of homepage?
Hope someone can help. Thanks
I cant believe it is free. I almost bought a template that was 1/2 as good off of monster templates.
[…] have always loved the morning after wordpress theme for my site but for bloggers like me who get easily bored with the look of their […]
[…] The theme we chose is the Morning After theme. A review of this theme can also be found here. […]
this theme is awesome and your review was tight Thanks for the info
nice theme for wordpress but have been download it and got error message for install it into server…
hi,
i’ve successfully installed it, its a gr8 gr8 theme and using wordpress to its best.
the author site is down now, don’t know why it seems they are shifting server. empty directory listing appears LOL
I’ve an issue if you or anyone out here can help.
i’m unable to view pages (about) the feed link displayed on top just below search. all those links are pointing to “#”
and links/blogroll are not displaying up.
thanks in advance
and thanks a lot Arun for such a wonderful and amazing morning
Great Work.
Hey your theme is fantastic….are u able to do the same for joomla?? thanks matteo