Chapter 28: Best WordPress Artists Themes

Turning your passion into a living requires determination and proper marketing. You can start the journey with an excellent website that pulls potential clients in and shows them what you have to offer. Finding the best artists themes for your WordPress website can take a lot of trial and error. To save you time, we’ve gathered a handful of favorites that will work for almost any type of art-based product.

You might be a graphic designer offering digital products. The theme you’d use won’t be much different than the painter selling her physical goods, but the shopping process will vary. We do have themes specifically geared to graphic design work, so the majority of this article will focus on the needs of a traditional artist that creates arts and crafts. 

Artists bring something special to the world. They look at ordinary things in extraordinary ways and show us there is more to life than what’s right in front of us. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are around 87,000 openings for artists, with a growth rate equal to other occupations through 2033. 

The median wage was $51,660. However, salaries vary by the type of art conducted. For example, art directors make an average of $106,500, while craft and fine artists make around $52,910.

Artists Should Focus on These Things for the Best WordPress Themes

Although some parts of excellent web design remain the same no matter what industry the site is for, artists are going to lean more heavily toward aesthetic considerations. Is the site visually appealing to users? 

You’ll have to force yourself to consider other elements and give them equal weight to the look of the site. 

• Pay attention to how quickly the theme loads. Stay away from designs with heavy scripts or complex images that haven’t been compressed. 
• You’ll want options for color customization and adding your own graphics to truly showcase your talent.
• Those who sell a digital or physical product will want a theme that’s compatible with WooCommerce or other online shopping cart plugins. 
• Choose a theme with excellent navigational hierarchy. Moving around the site should be intuitive for users.

You’ll also want a way to engage users by sending them to social media and adding content. Since art patrons often like to feel a connection with the artist, this will be particularly important for those selling works of art. 

How We Narrowed The Selection to Five Top Artists Themes

Figuring out which WordPress themes worked best for artists took quite a bit of time. Obviously, galleries can showcase all your beautiful work–digital and physical pieces. However, many artists also need a shopping component to sell prints or downloads. 

We started by throwing out any themes that hadn’t been updated recently. WordPress is a popular target for hackers. With around 478 million websites using the software, it is a rich breeding ground for cybercriminals to test your security. Since out-of-date themes and plugins can lead to security risks, we wanted to stick with themes that are more current.

We then looked at typical good design elements such as:

• Load times
• Navigation
• Layout
• Customization options
• Compatibility with third-party shopping plugins

If the theme met all these requirements, we then stepped back and considered whether the options were good for artists in general. Then, we looked at the aesthetic and if the theme looked like something an artist might utilize. Meeting user expectations for artist websites is a crucial part of attracting and keeping new customers. 

Our Top Choices for Artists Themes for Your WordPress Site

After sorting through the options and considering which finalists worked best to meet artists’ needs, we finally got the selection down to five, with one of them being a clear winner. 

Portfolio WP

Portfolio WP offers a free and pro version. The free option comes with a library of start blocks and 23 patterns. You’ll also get some demo content and simple support. Pay $89.99 per year for the pro version. You’ll upgrade to 60 patterns, added blocks, dark styles, WooCommerce patterns and premium support, which includes feedback on your portfolio. 

The theme features a lot of things that will make your site user-friendly, such as mobile optimization and a portfolio. 

Hares

Hares has a vintage look that would work well for masculine art, furniture or retro anything. The style is darker but still minimalistic. You’ll find a ton of templates set up for tattoo artists, bike detailers and barbershops. You can use any of the templates and tweak it to your products, even if you sell prints of your paintings. The style is the key to drawing in users because it offers a unique, almost grunge look.  

For $79, you get six months of support, 15 home page options, built-in plugins such as Slider Revolution and WPBakery Page Builder, demo content and integration with a number of popular plugins. The theme is an excellent out-of-the-box solution for artists who need a website up and running quickly. 

Artist

Artist features bright colors that pull the user into the content and keep them there. It’s an excellent theme if you want your patrons to get to know you while they peruse your art. Those who over commissioned projects may find this blog-like theme works particularly well to build name recognition. 

The theme has a free and pro version. It comes with a theme customizer, widgets and the ability to share on social media. Upgrading to Premium is a mere $39 and adds additional customization, more header images, 100 font families, a slider with unlimited slides and additional ways to show your products. 

Artist

No, you aren’t seeing a typo. There are two themes titled “Artist” in our lineup. Normally, we’d probably try to choose something different to avoid confusion but they were both such excellent options we just had to include them. This one offers a product gallery, blog and list of services. It is the perfect WordPress theme for the multi-faceted artists offering multiple options to clients. 

The free version of Artist comes with SEO optimization, a variety of page layouts, mobile responsiveness and four slides. You’ll also get a few template pages and full documentation. Upgrade to the Premium version for $40 and you’ll gain additional templates, unlimited slides, a contact us page templated, blog layouts and the ability to show or hide sections. 

Our Top Choice: Red Art

We kept looking for a flaw in the theme Red Art and couldn’t find one, so we selected it as our top choice instead. We adore everything about this artistic representation that lets you showcase your work. Note the small details, such as the paintbrush icon where the user can select their own color scheme. It just makes sense to integrate that into an artsy design.

Other features the theme provides include:

• Gallery where you can list your artwork
• Blog so you can share content to draw users into your world
• Comes with six potential demos so you can customize and make the site unique enough to fit your needs
• Both dark and light modes 
• Eight different headers from which to choose 
• WooCommerce compatible 
• Comes with Visual Composer and Revolution Slider

Play around with the online demo and you can see the many variations and why we felt this theme is an excellent choice for almost any type of art. You can add paintings to your gallery or showcase your latest handmade item. 

Some of the other features of this theme include: 

• Retina ready 
• Over 600 Google fonts 
• Mega Menu option 
• Portfolio 
• Event calendar

The theme has a highly quality appearance that will give your art a professional edge over the competition. The theme runs $59 and comes with support. 

Finding the Right Style

Part of creating a captivating website as an artist is finding the style that matches your art. All of the themes listed above can be customized to suit your personality. Pay attention to the bones of the design and imagine it with your images and details. With a little love, you’ll have a website that drives new clients your way and showcases your unique talent.