Alex King's WordPress 1.5 Theme competition and lots of WordPress templates

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Well I finally installed WordPress 1.5 and am pleased to report that it is just as much of a piece of cake to install as previous versions were.  The new dashboard is more pleasing, and the concept of Themes (more elaborate than templates) has been introduced.

This is a great change, but one might worry that there aren't enough themes available for WordPress 1.5.  Well that ain't the case - and the list of existing themes keeps growing, much thanks to Alex King's blog hosting a WordPress 1.5 Theme Competition.

There are various different prizes being offered from different organizations, each with its own criteria.  For example, one random lucky person will win a $150 Prize just for submitting a theme to the competition and also checking it in to the themes repository at wp-themes.org.  There's a $25 amazon gift certificate for "the best theme that looks like a real paper diary", a $40 starbucks giftcard for the Wordpress theme with the "most versatile design", $55 to the best overall design, etc.

Alex's site uses the theme switcher so you can easily switch from one theme to the next and experience how they'd look on your blog.  All themes submitted to the competition are available for download and use by WordPress 1.5 bloggers.

While I haven't gone through all of the themes yet, some are rather basic, others quite elegant.  So far my favorites include Devenir En Gris (which sports a three column layout) and Gespaa Theme Two Columns.

When I last checked, there were 80+ WordPress 1.5 templates to choose from.   Nice.  Thanks Alex!

update: I've compiled a comprehensive list of over 130+ WordPress 1.5 themes that I found by hunting around the blogosphere, so if you're looking for a new theme for your wordpress 1.5 site, be sure to check out that post, which I'll be updating as new themes become available.