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Tumblr is increasingly growing in popularity, and as it does so too does the number of designers creating and sharing cool new themes. This post brings together 20 examples of the best themes available, perfect examples of the class and style that can be brought to a Tumblr account. Many of the themes below come ready-made to be both visually beautiful and totally functional, but can also be customised to meet users’ requirements and taste.

1. Nigredo

Nigredo is a simply stylish theme designed by Redfield. White text on a black background with a left-aligned sidebar offers an elegant blogging platform. The theme is customisable, with the option of switching to black text on a white ground.

2. Fluid

Fluid is currently one of the most popular Tumblr themes around. It’s easy to see why it has so much appeal, with the sparkling soft focus light touches, nice coloration and great use of transparency achieving just the right contrast between text and background.

3. Mac Envy

Mac Envy takes its design inspiration straight from the iPhone interface, a perfect Tumblr theme for Mac fanatics.

4. Vertigo

Saul Bass was one of the most important American graphic designers of the 20th Century, famed for his work on film titles and movie posters. This theme is based around the stunning title sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with typography and graphical touches inspired by Bass’s iconic animation work.

5. Terminal Flashback

This theme employs the cool retro chic of late 1980s and early 1990s computer terminal interfaces, with single-column acid green text on a black background.

6. Futura

This theme focuses on Paul Renner’s Futura typeface; the crisp design has a modern, airy aesthetic.

7. Munich

The Munich theme is reminiscent of the German Modernist design of the early 20th Century, with attractively balanced typography, composition, and colour scheme against a dark page.

8. Penguin Classics Recycled

In 1935, publisher Allen Lane was at Exeter railway station with nothing to read during his journey to London. The collection of paperbacks the station shop had on offer proved such a severe disappointment that Lane resolved to start his own series of quality titles with distinctive covers, and Penguin Books was born. This theme is styled on the classic paperback books, adhering to Lanes mantra that ‘good design is no more expensive than bad‘.

9. Strict

Strict is a light minimalist theme with clean typographical design.

10. Paper Walls

This theme has a refined vintage feel with subtly striped background, torn paper page layout and ink drawing detailing creating an old-fashioned intimacy.

11. Dark Lights

This is a dark theme with great use of light grey text on a muted background, the typography offering a cool contemporary aesthetic.

12. Transparent Theme

A sense of depth, blurred dark colours and measured use of transparency make this a particularly good-looking theme.

13. I Am Sofa King

I Am Sofa King has very strongly designed layout with content laid out in a single column. The default setting is simple but effective with white text, black boxes and white background, but the colours are customisable, as is the coding.

14. Ultralite

Sharp minimalist typographical design makes Ultralite a perfect theme for personal text and photo blogs.

15. Esquire Theme

This theme is styled around the design and art direction of the US edition of Esquire magazine.

16. iBlack

iBlack is a sleek theme taking its inspiration directly from Apple’s characteristic branding and applications.

17. Cheerful Girl!!

Cheerful Girl!! Is a crisp theme with a refreshingly juicy pink and white colour scheme.

18. PhotoBoard

PhotoBoard is a theme that offers a beautiful way of presenting photographs. The images can be arranged with two or four per row, and the design creates the effect of pictures attached to a cork pin board. The images’ information is revealed with mouse rollovers.

19. Helvetica

This is another theme designed around a classic font, in this case Helvetica, the beautiful typeface created by Swiss designer Max Miedinger in 1957. It’s a nice and bright design with the focus on readability and accessibility.

20. Adaptation

This theme has a strikingly bold design with great text layout in black and white, against a truly eye-catching deep red background. Adaptation is a great choice for users who want a bright, modernist blogging platform that oozes confidence and style.

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