30 Beautifully Designed Tumblr Themes
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 !
In my opinion, Fluid is the most visually appealing theme in the gallery. Colorful, shiny, what’s not to love?
A simple, yet attractive theme with a nice color scheme.
Rounded corners and a Mac-like metal background.
Minimalistic with nice typography.
It has an iPhone on it, ’nuff said.
Lives up to its name. A nice, easy to read theme with attractive contrast provided by the heavy header.
Left aligned with a simple background pattern.
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.
For all those Helvetica junkies out there. I’m talking to you Graham Smith.
A cool grid layout laid over a photographic background.
A beautiful dark theme with harsh shadows and big icons.
Another Mac-like theme. This one inspired by Dashboard.
Really unique and colorful! A great, old-style design.
Nice, soft background with transparent frames.
Another great grid layout theme. This one simulates a bulletin board.
Futura is everywhere. From IKEA to House MD and now, Tumblr.
Another really nice dark theme with an attractive letterpress effect on the frames.
The theme Napoleon and Kip would use.
The blood red background is excellent and quite hard to divert your eyes from.
Make Al Gore proud with a theme made of completely recyclable material.
The obligatory floral burst theme. Very well done.
Minimalistic with a nice gray color palette.
Wood Revisited
This one could use some refining but I like the background.
A Burton-esque theme with a starry sky at the top and a spooky town at the bottom.
Minimal transparent frames with 1px strokes. It’s the small stuff that counts.
Bizarre and original. I love the artistic display and color palette used in this theme. Two thumbs up.
If you like glowing guitars, this theme is for you.
This theme looks plain but has a jQuery side scrolling effect that makes it fun to use.
A relaxed, warm theme featuring a coffee cup with animated steam.
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 !
Good collection of tumblr themes.
Nice collection. Esquire is the one I use and also one of the best I’ve seen: http://esquiretheme.tumblr.com/
WAT? Half of those were the default themes that the peeps at tumblr themselves did? There are WAY more beautiful themes out there (and yes, Esquires by Matthew B is rathergood.com)
I make it self.. check on http://chivalrous.tumblr.com
Not good enough.. but better see it using Safari.. :)
Nice collection. I like the pattern style.
Wow such an innovative post, did you spend about 10 minute scouring the top themes on the tumblr showcase to put this post together? wow really fantastic.
The moment I saw Redux (#2) in the list, I scrolled down to the bottom to read the comments. What a shitty list indeed.
more themes here –> http://tumblrhub.com – collection of great looking themes.
I would recommend another one, the Rock my World Theme, it is one o my favourites. You can take a look at and download it here -> http://keroteta.tumblr.com/
cool and cute themes found here http://facebook-tags.com – collection of great looking themes for you.
More Tumblr Layouts can be found on my website.
Beautifully designed??? WTF? Almost all of them is ugly as hell. There are a lot of well designed theme for tumblr, but these are just ugly. I think you have no idea what beautifully designed means.
I agree with the above comment.
whoever said beautifully designed has no idea about design. Ugly!
so amateur design… check this link for the best and hottest designs
http://facebook-tags.com ….
hmm, i thin this one is the best theme i found in the community. http://iplayatwork.co.cc/ It’s minimalist style combined with a large background
Check this newspaper tumblr theme out. Thanks.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agoodcompany/the-daily-tumble-a-theme-for-traditional-print-med
We’ve just released an elegant Tumblr theme based on Robert Bringhurst’s book, The Elements of Typographic Style.
http://bringhurst.tumblr.com/
You can also check out Sezeen by Funkytional – http://www.tumblr.com/theme/13497. Thanks for support :)
This theme is amazing and very easy to customize!
Themblr!
i really liked the strange little town theme, until i scrowled all the way down and saw the little black houses and ghosts. lol. i really do wish i could customize the background so that it may have a photo or something of my liking. other than that i love the layout and the pink and purple faded stars. (;
Thanks!
Fluid, my theme *-*
wow.. its great.. how did you do such themes?
these are cool…thanks
Nice list, thanks!
I’m collecting only the best themes over here on my blog http://themeson.tumblr.com/ in case that anyone needs more inspiration.
these themes are good :)
LOve IT.
I really enjoy the grid themes. Is there more i can find somewhere?
Thank you for good theme.
Good themes. Love ‘em.:)
thanks this is really help
I think these designs are beautiful compared to other themes I mean other themes have great background but the way they are organized is nothing like these themes:)
where’s the next / previous button on Dream Theme?
ur themes are so cuutte
All great themes, my choice would still be infinite by blink and it’s over….
http://www.twistr.co.uk/blinkanditsover/
WTF! It’s not beautiful =( It’s so EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
I only like the Dream Theme =) Put Lemur for all themes
your themes in tumbLr are so Good anD COOL :”D
http://efingridiculous.tumblr.com/ HAVE A LOOOOOOK! :D
http://idrinkstarbucks.tumblr.com <- LOOK AT MY TUMBLR! need more followers :(
Good post. I look forward to reading more. Thank for sharing.
this is a really nice set of tumblr themes. found the perfect one easily. thank you <3
are these themes free?
goody
these themes are so shit and gay, this is just embarrassing
max davis themes are good, look at his
Nice list, thanks!
Great share.Thank you for the great and beutiful Themes
hvalpaslan.tumblr.com this is the best Turkish blog ever.
Beautiful themes?! This is shit.
I guess a couple of those are ok, but the backgrounds aren’t so good like these tumblr themes
I need a customizable tumblr theme. help?
almanya.tumblr.com
This is accurate blog post for me. Today, I have compiled new blog post on my Tumblr blog. http://vistastores.tumblr.com/ But, I am not happy with my current theme. So, I was searching for great Tumblr theme which may give me elegant look over there. I have read your blog post but, have confusion to select theme which is associated to my subject. I am facing issue for make it live on my blog. Can you give me more idea about it? How can I make it live on my blog?