25+ free WordPress themes fresh for May

Spring is in full bloom and WordPress designers are busy as ever. The market is filled with tons of new themes and the overarching theme is responsiveness. Not many developers are releasing themes that are not usable across multiple devices. This makes it a little easier for you to choose a theme that will work in multiple environments and look great at the same time.

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

Advertica Lite

Advertica Lite just looks cool. This self-proclaimed “uber-clean” theme is fully responsive, optimized for search engines and packed with features, including multi-level navigation, threaded commenting and unlimited color skin options.

Bricks

Bricks is a simple brick-style blog design with a feminine look and feel. The theme includes sticky posts, text markup, multiple image formats with featured images and is idea for bloggers. The styles from colors to fonts are light and open.

Bunny

While there aren’t that many themes out there with a look that would suit children, Bunny is the exception. This cute little theme is responsive and features an animated bunny, custom menu, widget area and sticky posts. The big fun in this theme is that a single click can turn the bunny animation into an Easter bunny. Great fun for a website aimed at kids.

Count Down

Almost ready to launch a new page? Count Down is the theme for you. The simple single-page theme features standard code and a launch page countdown clock. This theme allows you to change the color, images, sidebar and other theme options. Count Down also comes with a robust set of social media sharing links and tools.

Elmax

This two-column theme is a blogger’s dream with a clean style and responsive layout. Elmax allows for the customization of menus, is translation-ready and includes nice post thumbnails.

FAQ

Sometimes all your site needs to do is answer a few questions. That’s where FAQ comes in. FAQ, which stands for frequently answered questions, is a theme that has a simple question and answer format. Add custom color options and a logo or background and this theme could help users understand more about you or your company. The theme includes a built-in category tree for consistent navigation, sticky posts and integrated search.

Fifteen

With more than 19,000 downloads to date, users love the design and functionality of Fifteen. The blog theme features a grid-style layout, that is perfect for showcasing images. The fully-responsive theme is also retina-ready (another bonus when it comes to images) and includes parallax scrolling. Fifteen is a super trendy theme with tons of modern features and a great overall aesthetic.

Hardpressed

Hardpressed is another theme that takes advantage of the trendy flat design style with bright colors and simple typography. The blogging theme has simple customization tools (no coding knowledge needed) and custom widget areas and social media tools. The theme also includes author bio tools so you can highlight multiple authors on a single blog.

Ignite

This responsive theme features a modular design and works great for a blog. The design features a large image area, sidebar widgets and a modern flat-style look. But the theme is simple enough to make the main focus text, a real bonus for bloggers and content providers.

iTek

This theme is designed for business and e-commerce websites. With an included shop, WooCommerce plugin and blog pages, the theme is ready to get you selling in no time. The iTek theme also includes a large parallax header and plenty of open space for a light feel to the design.

Looki Lite

Looki Lite is a responsive theme has a fun masonry-style layout that features both images and text in an easy-to-read format. The sidebar is widget-ready and the theme includes six different post formats – aside, gallery, quote, video, audio and link. The powerful options panel also allows for plenty of theme customization.

Marketer

This business theme makes customization easy. Marketer features a responsive design that is optimized for retina displays and comes with 16 skin options for a site that is all yours. The design is optimized to coordinate with marketing goals and includes Google Fonts and more than 350 Font Awesome Icons that are ready to use.

MN Flow

MN Flow is a simple card-style theme that features a full-screen custom background and smaller images for featured posts. The theme features sticky posts in a fluid layout with multiple post formats and light code.

Padhang

This responsive theme features a simple style that more than 5,000 users have downloaded this month. Padhang has a minimalist style with the availability to include a custom background and header, custom theme colors and menu, two widget areas and is translation-ready.

PaperCuts

PaperCuts is a simple fully responsive theme with an open design. The theme includes three color customization options and the option to use a one- or two-column layout. The theme includes widget areas, breadcrumb navigation and more than 200 Google Font options. It also supports multiple languages.

Pisces

This simple black and white theme has a stylish and modern feel in a fully responsive framework. The trendy design features cards with colored type on a black and white background. Pisces includes two widget areas, supports custom backgrounds and smart social navigation.

Radiant

This starter theme is great from someone just getting familiar with WordPress. The drag and drop style interface is easy to use with this theme that has a modern look. Radiant is fully responsive and includes a touch-friendly design for mobile devices.

Resolution

This responsive magazine-style theme is packed with features in the free version (with even more in the full release). Resolution has a functional card-style design with freedom to use as many sidebars as you like, a featured post slider, social sharing tools, custom shortcodes and multiple layout options. The theme also includes multiple category styles.

Rewind

This simple small business theme features a nice slideshow and feature posts styles. Rewind is a responsive theme with two widget-ready areas, integrated blog pagination and threaded commenting. The theme is easy to install and set up and the design is ready to use right “out of the box.”

SKT Full Width

This theme is built for a site that is image-heavy with a full-screen background rotating image. The responsive theme supports images and video and includes SEO-friendly coding. The menu bar can also be customized or moved from one side of the screen to the other.

Sparkling

Sparkling is a highly visual theme designed in the still-trendy flat design style. The responsive theme includes a bright color scheme, simple fonts and has extras such as SEO tools and a fun slider. Sparkling is retina-ready and includes infinite scrolling—another super trend feature. The theme is a powerful free option with lots of color and font customization options available as well.

StairWay

StairWay is a simple minimalistic-style theme with a featured image slider and widget areas. The fully-responsive theme includes 220 Google Fonts for customization and three different color schemes. The subtle look of this theme is great for a site that is not trying to be in the face of the user. The theme also supports breadcrumb navigation, a custom header and ability to create custom CSS.

Stork

This simple flat-style blogging theme features large images and simple typography for writers who want impact. While Stork is not packed with some of the features of other themes it is enough for a simple personal blog.

Story

Inspired by Designmodo’s Flat UI, the Story theme features a simple design in the flat style. The theme has a trendy look and would work for a variety of purposes. The theme offers customization options for color and includes social icons using the Simple Social Icons Plugin. The design supports large images, video and includes super-clean typography styles.

Tonal

Tonal is a simple blogging theme that changes based on the color of the background. The theme uses large featured images, full-width video and post formats that work on a variety of devices. The theme also features a flexible header, sticky posts and multiple post formats.

Vision

Vision is for bloggers who love typography. The responsive theme includes a great palette of typefaces that mesh perfectly. The theme was designed with mobile-first thinking and will look perfect on any device. Vision includes multiple widgets, a slider, custom background and flexible configuration.

VRYN Restaurant

This child theme for Sixteen is a fun option for a restaurant. The card-style design makes it easy to display menu options in a color scheme that is appealing. The responsive theme also features sticky posts, threaded comments and featured images.

Why Hello There

This theme with the fun name is just as much fun to look at. The flat design features Flexslider integration for flagging content with ease, plenty of color customization and a great fixed header style. The two-column design works great for featuring multiple items and includes a large photo area. Why Hello There includes four great plugins as well – Font Awesome, prettyPhoto, Modernizr and Basline.

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.