New Themes: Ecto and Coherent

Meet the two newest free themes: Ecto and Coherent, perfect for blogs of all kinds.

April 23, 2015

David A. Kennedy

Today, we’d like you to meet the two newest themes added to the WordPress.com collection: Ecto and Coherent.

Ecto

Ecto Site Demo

With a light color scheme, bold typography, and full-width images that draw readers straight to your content, Ecto is perfect for blogs of all kinds.

Inspired by the Casper theme, Ecto lets you add a personal touch to posts and pages with large featured images in the header area. Ecto also includes these features:

Read more about Ecto on the Theme Showcase, or activate it on your site from Appearance → Themes!

Coherent

coherent

Meet Coherent, a simple theme with a robust structure. An optional full-screen featured image lets you give posts visual impact; without one, the theme is more subtle and keeps the focus on your words. An elegant sliding panel houses navigation, social links, and widgets, keeping things streamlined.

Coherent supports:

Read more about Coherent on the Theme Showcase, or activate it on your site from Appearance → Themes!

 

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27 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. nicolemolders Apr 23rd at 4:43 pm

    would any of them work for a fashion blog? I like the layout of Twenty Tweleve and look for something similar, but newer. Any suggestions?

    Liked by 2 people

    • David A. Kennedy Apr 23rd at 4:57 pm

      I think both these themes would work well for fashion blogs because of their minimal style and bold typography. It depends how badly you need a sidebar. These themes have widget areas, but they are less prominent than Twenty Twelve.

      Happy fashion blogging!

      Liked by 4 people

  2. Michael Meiser Apr 23rd at 6:08 pm

    Ecto has an elegant typography, but I’m still happy with TwentyFifteen.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. ismailimail Apr 23rd at 7:29 pm

    Hi, featured images are missing from Coherent. They’re not showing up in my preview.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. ismailimail Apr 23rd at 7:31 pm

    I would use Ecto if it were to split the post with the default More tag.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Jean Apr 23rd at 9:30 pm

    I guess I’m trying figure the main differences between these 2 themes– looks like 1 has the menu widget on different side vs. the other.

    I would love a rotating header slider for feature photos ..not sure why the most recent 5-8 wordpress.com themes don’t offer this feature anymore.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. Liz Apr 23rd at 9:35 pm

    i’m really liking the coherent theme, it’s showcasing my two favorite wedding photos really well. There are two minor issues I’m having, and its mostly cosmetic, but I thought I would ask anyways. The first is the list of tags at the end of every post, it seems to stretch out much farther to the right than the rest of the text and it just looks kind of choppy. Is there a way to fix that on my end, and if so, how? The second question I have has to do with navigation. Whenever I click on an actual post, there’s no way to get back to the front page of my blog without clicking the back button on my browser. In other themes I’ve used, there is usually a link at the top of the post to be taken back to my blog. Am I just missing something, or do I need to configure it?

    Liked by 3 people

    • David A. Kennedy Apr 23rd at 10:09 pm

      The first is the list of tags at the end of every post, it seems to stretch out much farther to the right than the rest of the text and it just looks kind of choppy.

      This is the way the theme is designed. The look may not work for everyone.

      Whenever I click on an actual post, there’s no way to get back to the front page of my blog without clicking the back button on my browser. In other themes I’ve used, there is usually a link at the top of the post to be taken back to my blog.

      Looks like you’ve got this. Coherent requires a Custom Header to show your site title, description and/or logo. You could also add a home link to the Custom Menu:

      https://wordpress.com/support/menus/

      Liked by 2 people

    • Tammie Lister Apr 24th at 8:41 am

      Hi, I just added an update to Coherent to bring in two things I think you’ll find useful. I have added the site title to the footer (so you can easily get back). Along with this, there is now a fixed width on the heading titles and also on the entry meta. This brings things back inline.

      Liked by 3 people

      • Liz Apr 24th at 1:30 pm

        Thank you!!!

        Liked by 2 people

      • indianmacgyver Apr 26th at 9:39 pm

        i’m testing out Coherent and the site title in the footer is really great. it took me a little while to see it but once i did the simplicity and clean look of it really fits well with the overall theme.

        i’m using Celsius right now but this may finally get me to switch – the fixed position menu toggle is big with me.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Aura Conte Apr 24th at 1:16 pm

    I agree with the fashion blogger above, could you please release some free themes more magazine friendly with classic footer and sidebar for widgets? I like these two but now there are too many themes like these and with one column kind.

    Liked by 3 people

  8. wildtuscanybushcraft Apr 24th at 1:27 pm

    Nice look! Fresh And light with a big header!

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Joanna Apr 26th at 3:38 pm

    I just switched to Ecto. I love it, thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Liz Apr 27th at 11:33 pm

    I commented earlier and someone by the name of Tammie replied to my comment that she had changed a couple of things in Coherent that I thought could use some attention. Now one of those changes is no longer there. Was it removed or is something wrong with my blog?

    Liked by 1 person

  11. jonoji Apr 30th at 10:17 am

    Hi David,

    I love Ecto Theme and would like to use it for my travel-journal blog. However, the slider bar menu for mobile view seems not working. Is this intentional or a bug?

    Liked by 1 person

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