Another day, another Siteturner round-up. In this one, we look at the best masonry, grid and Pinterest-Style WordPress themes. Want your blog, magazine or portfolio to have the same cool, shuffling ‘pin’ look of sites like Pinterest, Behance, Dribble, and FoodGawker? You need one of these themes.
The common thread here is layout and infinite scrolling. In terms of layout, that signature Pinterest-like design revolves around something called masonry, in which posts are laid out in columns like bricks, and shuffle when information is added, removed, or when the browser is resized. The shuffling is usually accompanied by a slick, satisfying animation as the blocks move into their new positions.
The other key feature of Pinterest and Behance-style sites is infinite scrolling. The user doesn’t have to click to load more posts; they’re automatically loaded as the user scrolls. All the themes on this list work in that way (although several can be set to manual loading).
The themes on this list were selected by hand by an experienced designer.
Social Portfolio
Although this list covers a variety of masonry/grid-based designs, our favorite is Social Portfolio, a Behance-like WordPress theme from one of our favorite developers, BuddyBoss. For sheer depth of functionality and design clarity, this one can’t be beat. Its contemporary, carefully crafted aesthetic perfectly compliments its features.
The theme is powered by WordPress & BuddyPress, along with a custom portfolio solution developed in-house. It’s appropriate for a variety of industries: photography, architecture, graphic design–any creative, visual medium, really.
Users can create and manage their portfolios, show off projects, assemble collections, and even share works in progress with the larger to community to receive instant feedback. The AJAX-based, intelligent search lifts usability up another notch, and site owners can tweak and customize almost ever element from a comprehensive back-end admin panel.
Of course, Social Portfolio is SEO friendly, translation-ready, and fully responsive for display on smartphones, tablets, laptops and more. Everything’s well documented, and the support staff is speedy and helpful. Highly recommended.
More Info/DownloadPinboard
Next we’ve got Pinboard by the team of WordPress experts at Themify. It’s fairly obvious that Pinterest was the inspiration for this theme, and users looking for masonry, grid-based layout and infinte scrolling will find what they’re looking for here.
The Pinboard theme is fully responsive, providing a consistent user experience across a range of mobile and desktop devices, and all WordPress post formats are well supported. Each post displays the top five comments and the post author.
Pinboard is powered by Themify’s own framework, which includes an excellent drag & drop builder, custom widgets, and a number of useful shortcodes. The theme is translation ready, SEO optimizes and supports the popular WooCommerce plugin.
More Info/DownloadKickcube
Now let’s look at Kickcube, a theme that impressed us enough to warrant inclusion in another roundup: our list of the best content sharing themes for WordPress. This is an awesome product, expertly conceived and executed from the ground up, and the experience and skill of the developers are evident throughout.
It’s one of the newest Pinterest style WordPress themes on the ThemeForest marketplace, and we think it deserves a lot more attention than it’s been receiving since his released in September. In addition to the excellent design and intuitive UX (not to mention speedy performance), a number of useful secondary features are also included. Infinite scrolling and social login functionality add to the user experience.
Users can add content via the front-end form, and webmasters can even take advantage of supported membership features to sell premium content to visitors. (This functionality does, however, require an optional paid plugin.)
There’s lots of room for customization, with six demos to choose from, and plenty of options to tweak through the WordPress admin. Of course, the theme is fully responsive, high-resolution, and translation ready. Highly recommended.
More Info/DownloadPin
Released in February, 2015, the simply-titled Pin is a feature packed theme that has a lot to offer even beyond its modern, grid-based design. Optimized to provide the best user experience possible, Pin features fly-out mobile menus, live, AJAX-based searching, infinite scrolling, and even support for Google snippets.
An advanced options panel on the back-end gives users lots of settings to play with, and integrates over 600 Google fonts and the Font Awesome icon archive. 11 custom widgets add even more versatility, and the Taqyeem Ratings & Review plugin is bundled free.
Fast, responsive, and translation ready.
More Info/DownloadRinjani
Rinjani is a simple, grid based theme for WordPress targeted toward bloggers and writers. The developers didn’t try to recreate the experience and social features of sites like Pinterest, but for lone content creators Rinjani is a great match. It’s straight-forward and lightweight, embracing the best minimalist, flat design trends. Performance is swift as a result, and its familiar UX, focus on content, and high-readability makes this one of the most user-friendly and pleasant masonry themes on our list.
The theme is SEO friendly, easy to install (with a 1-click option and demo content), and includes a selection of useful options on the back-end to help with branding and give it your own personal touch. Recommended for users looking for a simple blogging solution in the grid layout style. And, as you’d expect, it’s fully responsive and provides a consistent, great-looking user experience on devices big & small.
More Info/Download
Daze
Daze is a masonry blog theme with some cool features that are available in few other themes, most notably, the ability to add animated GIFs as feature images, and support for pop out pages. Advertising functionality is included, with ads displayed amidst the regular posts in a masonry grid, and the “special boxes” feature provides a way to include sidebar widgets in the main content grid, too.
Design is clean and modern, and performance is responsive and fast. Daze is mobile ready and retina ready, so it looks great and works perfectly across the spectrum of mobile devices and high-resolution displays. Translation ready and well documented.
More Info/DownloadFoot
Foot is a content-sharing theme by An-Themes, developers of the Pin theme, above. Though similar to its sibling in many ways, one standout feature of Foot is support for front-end submissions, increasing it’s usefulness as a true content sharing theme.
User-friendly features like fly-out mobile navigation, live search, and a tag & category map are provided here, too. And, like Pin, this responsive, HTML5 theme comes with an excellent admin panel for tweaking and customizing colors, fonts, and more. Site owners can also upload their own logos and favicons.
A review system and support for the popular Contact Form 7 plugin are included.
More Info/DownloadLiquidFolio
In terms of design alone, LiquidFolio might be our favorite masonry theme for WordPress. The color coded post formats add just the right amount of visual flare to an already well thought-out design and layout.
The theme is both responsive and retina-ready, guaranteeing an excellent user experience on all devices, and an extensive options panel provides a lot of room for tweaks and customizations. Site admins have unlimited colors, unlimited sidebars, and plenty of typography options to work with (including 500+ Google Fonts).
Extensive documentation is provided, and included dummy data makes setup fast & easy.
More Info/DownloadPintores
This straight-forward masonry theme makes its mark with bright, eye-popping color. It’s a fairly minimalistic take on Pinterest-style themes, and it’s a good choice if you want a no-fuss solution that gives you the slick, animated ‘pin’ look.
The theme is responsive, of course, and supports all the WordPress post formats: Music, videos, images, galleries, quotes, and links. Visitors to your site can also mark their favorite posts with a built-in ‘like’ feature.
The theme is versatile, and includes an extensive set of theme options on the backend for color and font variation.
More Info/DownloadPinThis
PinThis is an extremely flexible, masonry-based, multipurpose theme with a clean, flat design inspired by sites like Behance and Pinterest. The theme comes with five lovely skins and supports all of WordPress’s post formats.
PinThis is fully responsive and optimized for speed. The options panel in the admin gives you the power to brand and customize the theme: upload your own logo, favicon, and more.
More Info/Download1Page
1Page is a grid-based theme for WordPress best suited for use as a magazine or blog. It’s got all the must-haves: slick, masonry layout and animations, infinite scrolling, and responsiveness.
One notable feature that isn’t available to some of the other themes on this list is the live, AJAX search. Visitors can search for content without experience page reloads, making for a better user experience overall. Other nice features include a review system and Contact Form 7 support.
1Page is SEO optimized, and comes with extensive theme options for uploading custom logos, changing colors, and all that good stuff.
More Info/DownloadSupergrid
Super Grid is an easy to use, minimal grid theme for WordPress that works great for both portfolios and blogs. It’s got that masonry, shuffling layout that you’re (probably) looking for, and supports all the WordPress post formats (with subtle styling for each).
Super Grid is retina-ready, meaning it’s going to look sharp on the highest-resolution devices (like MacBook Pro’s and iPads) and an option panel in the admin lets you change the background colors, upload your logo, insert Google Analytics code and more.
More Info/DownloadPluto
Pluto: not a planet, not a cartoon dog, but a sweet-looking WordPress theme that was designed for blogs and magazines. We like Pluto enough that it also appears in our article for the Best WordPress Food Blog and Recipe Themes.
It’s easy to use, fully responsive and retina-ready. The developer also bundles in over $70 worth of premium plugins for free. Visual Composer, Mega Menu, User Pro (for building a membership site) and Private Messages for User Pro are all included.
If you’re not happy with one of the included skins, you can change things around with the admin options panel. This one comes with a variety of built-in ad locations too, which are often overlooked. Want to build a masonry style blog and monetize it? Pluto’s a good choice.
More Info/DownloadPinable
Next up, for your consideration, we’ve got Pinable. Though the last few selections on our list moved away from Pinterest-style WordPress themes toward grid-based blogs, this one brings it back with a familiar layout and aesthetic.
All WordPress post formats are supported, and infinite scrolling is baked in along with the shuffling/masonry layout. SEO optimization, theme options, and custom widgets are all part of the package. And Pinable is another theme with Ad Management helpfully built-in. The theme is translation-ready and regularly updated.
More Info/DownloadStreak
Streak is a masonry theme that shuns the ubiquitous white-on-white (or white-on-grey) design of most grid-based themes for a more dynamic, high-contrast design. This simple, content-focused theme is best matched to blogs, magazines and portfolios.
It’s super easy to use, and surprisingly flexible – five homepage layouts, two blog layouts, two single page layouts and lots of options in the back give you plenty of choice. You can even add custom backgrounds to each page, which is a nice touch.
More Info/DownloadBayside
It’s not really accurate to describe Bayside as a Pinterest-style WordPress theme, because despite the similarities in layout and the infinite scrolling, it’s very clearly intended for use as a news or magazine theme. In fact, we think the design was directly inspired by another site – but we can’t put our finger on it. If some can tell us, let us know in the comments.
Anyway, Bayside has some pretty good things going on – it’s responsive, of course, and retina-ready. Colors are easy to customize in the admin, and video documentation is provided (as well as dummy content) to help you get things rolling quickly. The features are pretty standard, but the design is definitely up there with the best.
More Info/DownloadExpressivo
This fullscreen, responsive theme can be configured to display 1, 2, 3 or 4 columns. Each post format has its own unqiue template, and the settings in the admin provide control over the header (3 variations), sidebars, fonts, colors and more. Built on Bootstrap! We think this one is great for personal blogs and aspiring writers.
More Info/DownloadAnd that’s it for the best masonry, grid, and Pinterest-style WordPress themes for now. Did we miss one? Do you have a suggestion? Leave it in the comments and we might add it! We might not, too.
i am never ever ever, buying anything from envato again, they are the bane of the internet….. you have about as much chance of a theme working the way you want it to as you do getting off your wordpress backend, AND YET, they don’t offer no questions asked refunds, you have to fight super hard and go thru hell to get a refund
curiator.com is another nice one.
Expressivo is interesting, the rest are just Pinterest clones.
But it seems like it’s not beeing updated anymore…