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As a leading platform for developing websites, WordPress is the first choice for many businesses or bloggers to build their sites. With a huge library of themes and plugins, it is a lovable choice for many developers.
One of the common features of WordPress is Blank WordPress themes, also known as ‘Starter’ or ‘Naked’ themes, which allow creating customized themes easily.
Technically, blank WP themes are the boilerplates that serve as a strong and simple starting point for developing customized web designs. By using these pre-built frameworks, developers can save a lot of time as they don’t have to write the same code again and again. Plus, it serves as a base for your overall site and comes with several built-in features that you do not need to develop from scratch.
Why choose a blank WordPress theme?
These themes come loaded with basic HTML, CSS and PHP code along with theme files already integrated to provide all the functionalities. This WordPress theme provides a starting point or primary template for website design which reduces the effort to create the design from scratch.
The blank WordPress themes are equipped with all the necessary materials to give you a head start. From the required fields to necessary styles and functions, everything is available with these themes to let you start building your web design. Apart from this, basic markups are available and developers only need to understand the code work to start developing the site. All in all, these blank WP themes provide a simple and quick way to develop your site without needing to work with the same code repeatedly.
You can find the list of top Blank WordPress themes below that hit the market.
1) Underscores
It is a free WordPress starter theme which was created by Automattic, the creator of WordPress. It offers ultra-minimal CSS and lesser stuff that might come in your way while designing your theme. Underscores provides five different templates that simplify and quicken the development of your theme. However, it does not have inbuilt responsive templates.
Important features
- Allows making changes to template functions.
- Provides optional features to implement custom header.
- Custom template tags can be utilized to avoid duplication.
- It offers a smart and elegant starter CSS style.
2) Bones
WordPress provided this blank theme with the mobile-first approach to the users that would work as a solid base for building WP themes. It’s not a framework but a proper theme, and you are not required to use a child theme to use Bones. It is built on top of HTML5 Boilerplate.
Important features
- It is a responsive blank theme due to the mobile-first approach.
- It is a proper theme.
- Bones is an awesome starter theme to build a mobile-friendly website design.
3) CyberChimps
It is quite easy to create your website theme with CyberChimps. This is a great starter theme for creating beautiful and responsive website themes quickly. CyberChimps is built upon Bootstrap and provides drag-and-drop option to build themes. It can also be customized using the touch screen.
Important features
- HTML5 theme.
- Fully responsive.
- More than 1,000 installs on WP.
- It provides visible edit links available in the customizer preview.
4) Sage
It is another feature-rich blank WP theme that features an elegant design and modern workflow. This amazing starter theme gives you the freedom to use modern theme designing technologies like Bower for integrating front-end packages. It is built on the latest version of Bootstrap and it has a single template file. It takes a few efforts as you don’t have to edit different files to integrate a web layout. Sage allows synchronizing browser testing, writing stylesheets with Sass, optimizes images, and checks any discrepancy with JavaScript code.
Important features
- Allows adding front-end packages with Bower.
- Minimal HTML5 templates used.
- ARIA roles and microformats.
- Provides theme wrapper that is used for template inheritance.
5) Responsive
It is a flexible theme which is built upon a strong grid system’s foundation. It is very adaptable and powerful and easily adjusts your site according to devices like mobiles, desktops, laptops, and tablets. This theme offers nine page templates, 11 widgets, six template layouts, and four menu positions. It provides full CMS control that allows powerful but simple theme development. It is a useful theme for developing top-notch website designs.
Important features
- It’s compatible with WooCommerce.
- Retina-ready with the fluid grid.
- RTL language support.
- It offers 6 template layouts, 11 widget areas, 9 page templates, and 4 menu locations.
6) JointsWP
JoinsWP is a free Blank WordPress theme which is built on top of the Foundation 5 framework, a leading front-end development framework. It allows you to utilize the Sass version or only plain CSS as per your requirements and preferences. Powered by WordPress, JointsWP provides complete flexibility of creating mobile-friendly and sophisticated websites. The key benefit of using this theme is that it provides a grid system which saves a lot of time and effort for creating websites.
Important features
- Built on top of Foundation 5.
- Allows creating mobile-friendly websites.
- It has a grid system.
7) BlankSlate
BlankSlate is the most simple and minimalist boilerplate blank WordPress theme that can be used to build any website from scratch. It can be used as a starter theme such as Underscores or Roots to create wonderful websites easily and quickly. You need to create less coding and invest less efforts to build any website.
Important features
- It provides CSS reset to put cross-browser compatibility code.
- Valid code, simplified and unformatted.
- No programmer comments.
8) Naked WordPress
This blank WP theme is a great option for those who want to learn to create themes. This blank WordPress theme is commented inline which enables you to understand everything easily while you create a theme. It is a smart WordPress tutorial-cum-starter theme package which can be used to build website themes easily and quickly.
Important features
- Responsive style format.
- It provides a complete blog section with essential components like comments, tags, and categories.
- Custom sidebars, widgets and menus.
9) HTML5 Boilerplate for WordPress
It is an open source project wherein HTML5 boilerplate is converted to a blank WP theme. In this theme, modern HTML5 tags are used for building the whole structure of a theme.
Important features
- It uses modern HTML5 tags.
- A blank theme is created from HTML5 boilerplate.
- It is simple and contains recommended structural markup for blogs.
10) Bootstrap Four
Bootstrap Four theme is built on top of the Bootstrap 4 framework. It has a clean and simple base which is quite easy to understand and modify. This theme provides a better environment with the required functionalities and features to create a beautiful theme.
Important features
- It is based on Alpha Twitter Bootstrap 4.
- It has 500+ active installs.
What are the benefits of using blank WordPress themes?
One of the key benefits of using a blank WP theme is that you can take a considerable leap in your project in which, in many cases, it may take a very long time and the task is also least enjoyable. Not only you can save a lot of time while creating your WP theme, but you can also start from the basics and shape the structure by removing or adding elements as per your requirements. You don’t need to strip the features of an exiting theme or start creating necessary files from scratch, you get a good template to start your work.
Whether you want to create a site for the client or your own site or developing it for public consumption, you can always rely on a blank WP theme as a starting point for your work. It enhances your efficiency and simplifies the whole site development process as you don’t have to spend time in performing some critical part of the process. With required tweaks and adjustments, you can form a solid structure for the site in least time and effort.
Conclusion
WordPress being a popular platform for creating websites is a prime choice for many developers. Due to different features and tools that are available with WordPress, developers can build outstanding websites with this CMS.
Website development can be accelerated with this content management system by using a blank WP theme which is also known as a starter or naked WP theme. A starter WP theme provides a basic structure that can be used as a starting point for developing a website. These templates provide all basic functions and features that are required to create full-fledged website themes.
Besides serving as a foundation for your theme, these blank WP themes also save you a lot of time as you do not need to start from scratch. As a result, you can create websites quickly and work efficiently to produce quality results. By using blank WP themes, you can avoid indulging yourself into complex code structures and creating the same code again and again.
It is very easy to create your site with a starter WP theme as it offers you all the basic structure to begin with and build your code upon it. You may want to use any of the above blank WP themes for your next project and build an astounding website for your client.
Author Bio:
[thrive_testimonial name=”” company=”” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/David-Meyer.jpg”]David Meyer is a senior Web developer at CSSChopper (a leading front end and custom web development company). He holds a good experience in designing many projects that are based on multiple technologies including WordPress, HTML, and CSS. He owns a great knowledge of digital marketing strategies. He offers the best front end and web development services to customers. With a great position in the web industry, he is acknowledged for his quality work. Besides web development, he also holds an interest in writing instructive and educational blogs in his area of expertise. He produces well-researched and comprehensive write-ups for the audience.[/thrive_testimonial]
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