21 free WordPress themes for March 2014

Simple. That’s the commonality this month as dozens of new WordPress themes became available and many had a common thread. Judging by this group of themes, minimalistic styling and simple design are definitely in.

Every month we’ll be bringing you our pick of the best free WordPress themes released in the previous month. Here are our favorites for March.

Bushwick

Bushwick is different in that this blogging theme features a vertical design, with images arranged beside text. The theme features a custom excerpt feature, widget areas, and custom menus and headers.

Arcade Basic

Arcade Basic is a bold theme with a large image display to grab the attention of users. In addition to a large image, this theme also features a large call to action area, which is great for generating clicks or writing SEO-friendly copy. The basic version of the Arcade theme is free but does not include customization options or support. It is fully responsive and works (and looks) great right “out of the box.”

Rambo Lite

This theme is designed with businesses in mind. The retina-ready theme is packed with fun tools such as a large display banner, widgets and social icons. The fully responsive design is built on the Twitter Bootstrap framework and allows for custom CSS tweaks. With three page styles—home, blog and single page—this theme is packed with features for starting a business webpage.

Blue Planet

This simply-designed theme is packed with goodies. The fully responsive theme can be switched between one- or two-column layouts, includes custom menus, a slider, tons of social media icons, customizable CSS, is translation ready and has multiple theme options.

Archy

Archy is a super-simple blogging theme that features a photo slider over a two-column design. The theme is optimized for viewing at 960 pixels wide and supports common WordPress widgets. The theme also includes threaded comments and customizable widgets. The color scheme of white, blue and gray is static.

BizKit

BizKit is a responsive theme designed for small business owners. The theme features specialized blocks for products and services as well as a section for customer testimonials. The theme features a flat design style and also includes three widget areas, two page layout options and social media icons.

Crates

Crates features a grid-style layout with a sidebar. This fun little theme supports photo, video and text posts as well as audio and status updates. The theme makes your blog look more like a collection of social posts than a straight blog, for a more interactive experience. This theme also includes a chat widget, something you don’t see in many free themes.

Formidable Restaurant

It’s not often that you get a theme that is made for the food industry, but Formidable Restaurant is packed with business specific tools – such as a menu card, custom logo upload capability and social links. This theme only comes in red, which some studies say stimulates the appetite, and also includes an integrated slider and some simple theme options.

PR Pin

If you are looking for a Pinterest-style theme that supports use of Google ads, PR Pin is the theme for you. This responsive theme works in a variety of sizes from 320 to 1,260 pixels wide and allows for the easy display of text and images. It includes a main area and sidebar, plus quite a few customization options.

Sorbet

Another simple theme in the flat design style, Sorbet features a subtle color scheme and nice extras. Each post type can be noted with a different color bar that works great for text or images. The responsive design also includes options for featured images, widgets, custom navigation and menus, social media icons and plenty of color customization options.

Parallax

This theme is right on trend with one of the hottest techniques in web design, parallax scrolling. The fully responsive theme is touch-friendly for mobile devices. It features drag and drop building tools based on the Twitter Bootstrap framework and plenty of customization options when it comes to color and post format.

Hephaestus

This simple theme broke this month’s list because of the neat image slider and card-style effects for photos. The theme also includes customization options for both color and the basic layout and framework. Hephaestus also includes the ability to add a custom logo, favicon and social sharing links.

Leather Diary

Leather Diary is one of the few skeuomorphic-styled themes out there right now. While the theme features more elaborate detailing than many sites are using right now, the overall look is refreshing. The fully responsive theme is customizable, comes with more than 200 Google fonts and features a nice slider, menu elements and sidebar.

Pantheon

This super-simple theme is fully responsive and can work for a variety of bloggers if you are into the minimal design style. The Pantheon theme includes a custom menu system with dropdowns, featured post images, a widget location and is compatible with all major browsers. The type styles used for this theme are also simple, clean and easy to read.

Progression

This simple theme features some nice buttons and a simple image slider to help add a little pizzazz to blog posts. The theme is built using a 960-pixel fixed-width design and allows for customization of the header.

Travel in Italy

This high-color theme features big, bold images and bright hues. The style is great for a personal photo gallery or travel blog that uses big images. The theme supports widgets and includes space for a 300 by 250 ad banner (something you don’t see with many free themes). Travel In Italy is also translation ready.

Unite

Unite is a super-clean theme built in the flat style and features unlimited color customization options. The responsive template is built on the Twitter Bootstrap framework and is designed with the wedding blog in mind, although it has other practical applications. The theme is retina ready, has a great slider and includes a handful of nice icons.

Book Inspiration

This simple theme is one of the few out there featuring plenty of serif typefaces. From the header to the main body text, Book Inspiration has a classic styling that looks like what you would expect reading the printed word. The simple theme has a nice color palette and the simple ribbon headers are a nice touch.

WP Crest

WP Crest is a responsive theme with a fluid layout that works on a variety of devices. The simple style works great for bloggers and supports images, video, audio and galleries. The theme is also fairly customizable and allows for changes to the overall color scheme and background images, plus it comes with a ton of social media linking tools.

Aquarius

This simple theme is designed for bloggers and focuses on the words rather than images. The responsive theme is retina ready, includes widget areas and really focuses on clean typography. The type is clean and very readable on devices of all sizes.

WP Advocate

This professional looking theme is fully responsive and comes with a nice bundle of background textures (or you can upload your own). The homepage slider is easy to use and you can customize the theme with brand images and logos. It also includes social media links and icons, including LinkedIn.

Carrie Cousins

Carrie Cousins is a freelance writer with more than 10 years of experience in the communications industry, including writing for print and online publications, and design and editing. You can connect with Carrie on Twitter @carriecousins.