Perfectly Petersen

I’m quickly approaching my one year anniversary of working with Cory Miller on iThemes jobs, and I’ve been reflecting on what themes I keep recommending most often. Since the question comes so often, I’m putting this together as a sort of guide, complete with screenshots, descriptions, links to the demos, and links to your shopping cart.

#1 FlexxTheme – 15 Versions to choose from, or get all 15 for $199.95

This is far and away the most versatile theme for a beginner or someone who wants to put together a site without digging into the code to change the sidebar layout. I used to spend most of my time looking for free themes that had the sidebars and content areas “just so.” If Flexx had been around back then, I’d have saved several full days looking at theme repositories and just paid the $80 for one theme that I can change or $200 for 15 themes that I could use for my freelancing. Well, it’s here now, and it’s my top pick due to its 1,056 possible site layouts, 10 widgetized areas, and the powerful header and background manipulators in the dashboard.

#2 Essence – 6 colors to choose from, or get all 6 for $199.95

This was the theme that attracted me to iThemes in the first place. It was actually their only theme at the time, but I absolutely HAD to have that shadow effect on the home page. I was totally enthralled with the presentation it created, and I’d never seen so many page templates before. Essence was my first introduction into the world of premium themes, and I’ve never looked back, as far as business sites go. I always tell people looking for a premium CMS theme, “You can’t go wrong with Essence.”

#3 Architect – Make this the cornerstone of your business or use it for development for $149.95

As our first theme release of 2009, I’m surprised at myself how quickly I took to liking Architect so close on the heels of our smash hit and our legacy bread and butter themes above. I suppose the reason I’m so surprised is how simple it is, yet how powerful its dashboard features are because it benefits from a lot of the technology we put into FlexxTheme. With a bit of know-how with images and CSS, you can modify the widget areas on the home page in some incredibly eye-catching ways and draw attention wherever you want on the page.

Of course, the best deals are the Combo Packs, which end up being under $30.00 per theme for the Multi-use versions that run $149.95-$199.95 per theme. There is the Website Combo #1 – 11 themes, including Essence for $299.95, the Flexx Combo #1 – 15 versions of FlexxTheme for $199.95, and the Media Site Combo #1 – 8 social media and photo themes for $299.95. The grand-daddy of them all is the Mega Combo of all 3 Combo Packs for $499.95 – over 30 themes with multi-use licenses.

That is how we split up last year’s 2008 Theme Club purchase, so this year’s 2009 Club is under way, which includes all themes we will produce this calendar year, pre-paid, with access to the 2009 Club site to download your themes at your leisure. At only $399.95, it is bound to be a better deal than waiting until 2010 to get the themes after they have been out and run around the block, as you can see by the Mega Combo price.