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Tumblr is an easy to use, fast-growing blogging platform with a strong emphasis on simple, no hassle content sharing. I would describe Tumblr as much more attractive and streamlined than Blogger and a lot simpler than WordPress (though not as powerful).

Like other blogging platforms, Tumblr makes it really easy to change themes on the fly without messing up previously posted content, and with over 275 themes to choose from, you get a lot of variety. However, sorting through hundreds of mediocre themes to find those few golden nuggets of design goodness can be quite the mundane task. That’s why we’ve done the work for you and created this collection of 30 beautifully designed Tumblr themes.

Looking for some more beautifully designed Tumblr themes? Check out our expanded roundup of 50 More Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes !

Fluid

In my opinion, Fluid is the most visually appealing theme in the gallery. Colorful, shiny, what’s not to love?

Redux

A simple, yet attractive theme with a nice color scheme.

Perfs

Rounded corners and a Mac-like metal background.

Strict

Minimalistic with nice typography.

TumbleDesk

It has an iPhone on it, ’nuff said.

Easy Reader 2

Lives up to its name. A nice, easy to read theme with attractive contrast provided by the heavy header.

Fold

Left aligned with a simple background pattern.

Mac Envy

I threw a few Mac themes in here so I figured I should toss in the Windows one as well. Just in case you dig the old “Playskool” Windows look.

Ultralite

For all those Helvetica junkies out there. I’m talking to you Graham Smith.

Silo

A cool grid layout laid over a photographic background.

for.screen

A beautiful dark theme with harsh shadows and big icons.

Dashed

Another Mac-like theme. This one inspired by Dashboard.

Penguin Classics Recycled

Really unique and colorful! A great, old-style design.

Transparent Theme

Nice, soft background with transparent frames.

PhotoBoard

Another great grid layout theme. This one simulates a bulletin board.

Futura

Futura is everywhere. From IKEA to House MD and now, Tumblr.

Dark Paper

Another really nice dark theme with an attractive letterpress effect on the frames.

Vintage Stripes

The theme Napoleon and Kip would use.

Adaptation

The blood red background is excellent and quite hard to divert your eyes from.

Paper Walls

Make Al Gore proud with a theme made of completely recyclable material.

Dream Theme

The obligatory floral burst theme. Very well done.

Dark Lights

Minimalistic with a nice gray color palette.

Wood Revisited

This one could use some refining but I like the background.

Strange Little Town

A Burton-esque theme with a starry sky at the top and a spooky town at the bottom.

Blue Oasis

Minimal transparent frames with 1px strokes. It’s the small stuff that counts.

The Fisherman’s Friend

Bizarre and original. I love the artistic display and color palette used in this theme. Two thumbs up.

The Musician

If you like glowing guitars, this theme is for you.

TumblOSX

This theme looks plain but has a jQuery side scrolling effect that makes it fun to use.

Coffee Shop

A relaxed, warm theme featuring a coffee cup with animated steam.

iBlack

An iPhone like theme with rounded date icons and a rich black background.

Premium Themes

If you didn’t find anything that suits your needs in the free themes above, it might be time to start looking in the premium arena. Premium Tumblr themes are quite affordable and tend to offer a lot more in both aesthetics and features.

Tumbl News – Tumblr Theme Template

This ThemeForest theme is modeled after the two column layout popularly seen in WordPress blogs. There’s even spaces for ads placement on the right.

Price: $20

Time Goes Back: A Tumblr Portfolio Theme

This is a gorgeous theme with a grid format to display your portfolio pieces and topped with an iPad visual. Everything from the type down to the hover effects is just perfect for a professional designer’s page.

Price: $20

Litefolio – portfolio theme for Tumblr

“Clean and minimalistic portfolio theme with jQuery slider for designers, photographers and illustrators.”

Price: $20

Vintage Sky

“Vintage sky theme supports all the Tumblr features and has two content rich sidebar, featuring your likes, latest tweets, description, search box, pages, avatar box and people your following.”

Price: $20

Cream – A Tumblr Theme

“Cream is a clean and simple Tumblr theme using subtle textures and colors for a light and playful feel. Main colors are creamy tones of beige and tan, accented with pinks for links and accent items.”

Price: $20

Crisps Tumblr Theme

“This is a clean, minimal and easily customisable theme for Tumblr with a jQuery sliding sidebar for showing who you follow and stuff you like.”

Price: $20

Fanfarron Theme

“Fanfarron theme its a elegant and very customizable theme for Tumblr, supports all tumblr features (text posts, photoset posts, quote posts, audio posts, video posts, answer posts, link posts, chat posts, day pages, tag pages, random button for posts, pages, twitter widget, search box, jump pagination, likes, etc) and other caracteristics like support for disqus comments, ad banners, Google Analytics or a Flickr widget.”

Price: $20

Meteoro 2028: A new Tumblr Portfolio

“Meteoro 2028 a minimal but robust Portfolio for Tumblr. This item, in particular offer support for Photo Post, Pohotsets an Video post (Youtube an Vimeo for now).”

Price: $20

MARS

A visually busy but attractive theme with a rock background, plenty of room for content and a really cool stacking effect with the post badges.

Price: $49

Contrast

A nice unified design with a frame that ties all of the various elements together. The three column format makes for plenty of room for content and social media integration is built right in.

Price: $49

Vintage Scrapbook

Scrapbook themes are easy to screw up and turn into something messy and/or ugly, this one looks great though and has a lot of attention to detail. There are plenty of nice touches, including page curls and little staples.

Price: $49

Carbon

This beautiful theme features a fixed sidebar and great use of texture. The sidebar features links for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and email and more.

Price: $49

Fluid 2

The original Fluid continues to be one of the most popular Tumblr themes around and this sequel attempts to relive that success. The background is a really attractive spectrum, the content area is super wide and the post icons are awesome.

Price: $49

Paris Nights

If you’re looking for a travel theme, Paris Nights is a beautiful option complete with a string of lights and various postcards scattered around and poking out from behind the content.

Price: $49

Marber

Marber is clean and professional with a sort of notepad feel without the cheesiness that normally comes with that idea.

Price: $49

Savory

Savory utilizes lots of texture and layering to create a rich theme with plenty of realism. The two columns are perfectly proportioned and contain plenty of useful features.

Price: $49

Conclusion

Well I’m all out of beautiful themes and adjectives to describe them. Use the comments below to tell us your favorites and be sure to leave a link to your own custom Tumblr themes.

Looking for some beautifully designed premium Tumblr themes? Check out our expanded roundup of 50 More Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes !