Wordpress Local/National Directory Theme Templates?

[awfgal]

Hi there,
I want to know if anyone here does any theme hacking or knows any good themes for directories - something nice that doesn't scream "free theme used by 1,000 other people..".

Basically I want to create a couple of school directories and I need an seo-optimized, reasonably attractive template for this. Basically something I can rinse + repeat, minus the custom header which will be different for each site.

If anyone could assist or point me in the right direction that would be great. I also think (in the spirit of community + capitalism) if there was some themes to go along with this plug-in that would be great (i.e. "affiliate review site", "local directory theme", "national directory theme", etc).

I was at first a bit hesitant about the whole license thing but in retrospect I think it's a good idea because I have a feeling this plugin is really going to take off....

Tx

[nickmattern]

Hi there,
I want to know if anyone here does any theme hacking or knows any good themes for directories - something nice that doesn't scream "free theme used by 1,000 other people..".

Basically I want to create a couple of school directories and I need an seo-optimized, reasonably attractive template for this. Basically something I can rinse + repeat, minus the custom header which will be different for each site.

If anyone could assist or point me in the right direction that would be great. I also think (in the spirit of community + capitalism) if there was some themes to go along with this plug-in that would be great (i.e. "affiliate review site", "local directory theme", "national directory theme", etc).

I was at first a bit hesitant about the whole license thing but in retrospect I think it's a good idea because I have a feeling this plugin is really going to take off....

Tx


Good suggestions. The theme I like the most is Thesis. It's pretty robust and works quite well in any situation.

We are working with some designers on free themes, but since AMs in general are so particular with their sites, we didn't want to throw out some generic themes like our competition does. I think that creates hundreds of identical sites and with AM, lots of people are in teh same niche and that gets crowded.

For now, if you need help with a theme, please feel free to post here and we'll get you where you want to be.

[1nspire]

This is a theme I will be using for future sites. http://www.flexibilitytheme.com/ .

http://elegantthemes.com has some great themes also.


For what this plugin is designed for I would suggest the flexibility theme and they mean what they say by it being flexible.

You can literally create a new theme within the admin. Add adsense and analytics with ease. Has a built in color wheel to make color changes. Just get the theme and take a look for yourself.

[awfgal]

Thanks - I've been toying around with this theme and plugin tonight - http://articlesss.com/. You can use the plug in it seems to configure the links as they are - i.e. you can use a different theme if you want with the plugin

To tell you the truth, what I really want is a theme that has a space to fit a dropdown or some other kind of menu bar in the upper left hand corner, the spot that google's heatmap analysis says gets the most attention...

I did some testing on a directory I had, switching the dropdown menu from the right to the left and there was a material difference. Unfortunately, the theme I was using was ugly as hell.
Has anyone paid attention to this in their website development - http://inspiredimpressions.files.wordpress.com/2006/04/Google%20heat%20map.jpg

[trigatch4]

Start with a simple theme.
Add a kick ass logo.
Customize colors in CSS.

In my opinion that's the best route to go.