25 Retina-Ready WordPress Themes for a Visually Stunning UX

The whole concept of “retina-ready” themes has been around for a while now. But that doesn’t mean it’s an assumption.

Many themes are still not retina-ready and that means if you choose the wrong theme your photo-centric blog might not look good on newer and higher-end devices.

Thankfully, there are plenty of themes out there that have been built for retina displays and, at the very least, enable you to include retina-ready logos and header graphics.

Still, sussing out what theme with this feature is best can be a challenge if you’re not up to your ears in themes on the daily like yours truly, so I’ve put together a handy little list of over 25 themes that bring retina-readiness to the table while emphasizing an all-around gorgeous user experience for your visitors.

You’re certain to find a suitable theme in the bunch here.

What Does Retina-Ready Mean?

Before we delve into the list of themes, let’s first pause for a brief moment to talk about what retina-ready means. It’s likely a phrase you’ve seen tossed around quite a lot these days but unless you have a retina display yourself, it might be a concept you’re a bit sketchy on.

The term “retina-ready” was actually created by Apple when the iPhone 4 was released. It refers to devices that are capable of displaying more pixels per square inch. The result is sharper images with pixels that aren’t discernible by the human eye. So, for a WordPress theme to be retina-ready, it must allow for graphics and images that present at a higher resolution with a greater number of pixels per square inch.

Retina-Ready WordPress Themes

Without further adieu, here’s our collection of eye-catching and visually impressive retina-ready WordPress themes:

• Diamond Photography WordPress Theme

  

  If you’re a photographer or anticipate needing to feature a lot of high quality photos, the Diamond Photography WordPress Theme is a great choice. It’s loaded with features that photographers want and need. It supports a fullscreen layout with retina-ready images, of course, plus a drag-and-drop page builder plugin for the quick creation of custom pages using modules and shortcodes.

  The layout is responsive and this theme comes with custom page templates, demo content, documentation, and support. It includes over 600 Google Fonts, SEO readiness, translation readiness, speed optimization, advanced theme settings, widget support, and plenty of customization options for colors and layout details. For instance, it comes with a fullscreen slider, video & image backgrounds, grid portfolio, masonry portfolio, and a Kenburns slider. It includes unlimited custom fields for portfolio items, auto load on scroll, one to four columns for the portfolio, multiple gallery types, password-protected galleries, a fullscreen blog, Contact Form 7 support, MailChimp support, a before and after module, PSD files, and more.

  Diamond Photography WordPress Theme is a full-featured theme available now for $49.

• Finale

  

  Need something a bit more corporate? Finale is a great option and better yet, it’s free. This theme is simple, elegant, and ideal for creating the layout your site needs. It can be used for portfolio, business, and service-based sites and includes a number of customization options.

  This theme can be used for just about any kind of business site or portfolio and offers an unlimited number of styles. Add a custom header image to each page, add your social icons, and basically create precisely the kind of site you want to create without having to spend a penny. Nice!

• Purpose

  

  With Purpose, you can create a site that’s driven and focused; one that supports any type of modern business without being boring. This theme is easy to set up and utilizes the built in customizer for making changes. It includes a header and navigation menu with auto resizing and changes color when you scroll.

  It also includes a featured slider and uses all post formats while relying on the Seed Framework to support responsive layouts, retina-readiness, page templates, shortcodes, WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, and featured videos. Other features include a portfolio and slideshow template, WPML support, Google Fonts, social media buttons, custom menus, headers, and backgrounds, custom colors, pagination, multiple sidebars, multiple column layouts, and more.

  You can get Purpose from Organic Themes for $69 per year or get all their themes for $249 per year.

• Stellar Theme

  

  The Stellar theme truly lives up to its name, offering a clean design that’s elegant and perfect for use for any kind of portfolio or visually-oriented website. It supports a responsive design that you can deactivated if need be, retina-ready graphics, vertical and horizontal navigation, and off-canvas navigation.

  This theme also includes 11 different gallery layouts, filterable portfolios, a fullscreen slideshow, and supports music files, and password protected galleries. This theme is all about the images, with gallery comments support, fullscreen video, multiple image uploads, unlimited portfolio and gallery pages, and so much more. Stellar also includes Google Fonts, page columns, shortcodes, a shortcode generator, custom post type support, custom menus, social media profile support, unlimited sidebars, documentation, customer support, and updates.

  Stellar is available for $59.

• Collective

  

  If you need a theme that’s ideal for collaborating with others while supporting high resolution images, Collective by Organic Themes is an awesome choice. This theme is beautiful and offers a wide layout and custom post types. It supports team member bios, position highlights, social media links, and individual Twitter feeds. It’s also highly customizable.

  Collective supports custom background patterns, features a responsive design and retina optimization, and includes shortcodes, page templates, featured videos, and more. It also supports WooCommerce and Gravity Forms. Other features include a portfolio template, custom colors, Google Fonts, social media buttons, multiple sidebars, pagination, and it includes a PSD file.

  Collective costs $69 per year or $249 with the full themes package.

• Parallax One

  

  If you’re looking for a retina-ready theme that sports a one page design and parallax scrolling, you should check out Parallax One. This theme is responsive and perfect for displaying a creative portfolio in an interesting way.

  Developed by ThemeIsle, Parallax One is built on clean and validated code, is checked for cross browser compatibility, and includes a super easy to use theme options panel that’s chock full of features like custom logo, custom colors, layouts, and social links. It’s also localization ready.

  Parallax One is free.

• Zerif Lite

  

  Another selection from ThemeIsle is Zerif Lite. This theme is responsive and offers a one page layout that supports individuals and agencies across the spectrum of creative fields. It’s built on clean and validated code, is cross-browser compatible, and supports a theme options panel that allows for a variety of customizations.

  With this theme, you can add a custom logo, custom colors, choose from a variety of layout options, and add your own custom social media links. The theme is localization-ready and includes WooCommerce support and a variety of other features to build a custom site that looks great.

  And the best part? Zerif Lite is totally free.

• Profile

  

  Profile is another theme from Organic Themes that has this whole retina-ready thing down to a science. It’s the perfect theme for displaying you as a professional entity on the web. Whether you’re a photographer, designer, or model, this theme will serve you quite well. It supports prominently featured social media icons and you can easily display your Twitter feed beneath your profile picture, too.

  This theme is built on the Seed Framework so includes a responsive grid and retina optimization, page templates, featured videos, shortcodes, and compatibility with WooCommerce and Gravity Forms. It also includes a portfolio template, numerous customization options, compatibility with the WPML plugin, a slideshow page template, pagination, a PSD file, and more.

  Profile costs $69 per year or $249 per year as a part of the full themes package.

• Vega Theme

  

  If you’re looking for something a bit more minimal, the Vega theme is a great option. It’s clean and offers a framework for your best photography, artwork, or other creative work thanks to a responsive layout and retina-ready graphics. You can use it to display a portfolio or standard site depending on your needs.

  The included content builder, allows for multi gallery layouts using a drag-and-drop interface. It also comes with off-canvas navigation, 11 gallery layouts, a filterable portfolio, a fullscreen slideshow, Google Fonts, music support, a password protected gallery, gallery comments, social media profiles, and more. It’s even translation-ready with WPML support and includes shortcodes, column menu support, documentation, updates, and customer support.

  Vega is available for $59.

• Optimizer

  

  Optimizer is touted as a multi-purpose theme but it really shines as a means of displaying photography or graphics. This theme is easy to customize and comes loaded with features like 2 site layouts, an image slider, custom logo, and over 600 fonts.

  This theme is totally responsive, retina-ready, and built with SEO in mind. It’s also optimized for MailChimp, Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, and bbPress and is translation-ready, too. It’s been speed optimized, includes secure code, and includes a custom CSS field and plenty of custom color options to ensure the look of your site is uniquely yours.

  Optimizer is available from the WordPress Theme Directory for free.

• Boika

  

  Another multi-purpose theme worth checking out is called Boika. Its responsive design works across all devices and is perfect for creative people, freelancers, and agencies, looking to show off their best work to potential clients and/or an adoring public. It’s been speed optimized, and includes a light and a dark menu, a sticky menu, and two header variations (left and top).

  It also comes with four menus, a widgetized slide panel, a hero section, child theme support, Revolution Slider, 2000 vector icons, Google Fonts, multiple layout options, Google Map integration, footer columns and widgets, and demo files.

  You can get Boika now for $49.

• Photo Architecture WordPress Theme

  

  Whether you’re a photographer, architect, or simply someone who values imagery on websites, you ought to enjoy the Photo Architecture WordPress Theme. It includes two portfolio views, CSS3 animations, a responsive design, retina-ready images, and full-width slideshows for dramatic effect.

  It also comes with a gallery layout that creates a stylish project list with overlaid titles, dates, and authors. It also makes use of custom post fields, contact pages, and a full range of customizer settings for modifying site colors, layouts, animations, transitions, and typography.

  Photo Architecture WordPress Theme is available for about $42.

• Barrow

  

  Another retina-ready theme worth looking at is called Barrow. It features a grid layout and is touch optimized, so will look and function well on mobile devices as well. It’s responsive, too, of course, and offers three different background skins, a shortcode generator, and supports one page and multiple page sites.

  It’s built on the REDUX Option Framework and is cross-browser compatible. It also comes with XML demo data, documentation, and support. Barrow is now available for $49.

• Engrave Lite

  

  Another theme option is called Engrave Lite. This theme is multi-purpose and totally professional, offers a clean layout for businesses or even creative bloggers. The design is responsive and supports retina-ready images. It also makes use of the theme options panel, giving you the flexibility you need to modify colors, fonts, and graphics.

  Plus, it comes with a full-width slider and you can customize the site’s logo and homepage.

  Engrave Lite is free.

• Moesia

  

  Moesia is a great theme for businesses that allows you to create an online presence without having to hand code anything. It comes with several predefined content blocks that you can choose from to build a custom-looking homepage. Every block can be configured to feature custom colors, images, and even a parallax background if you want.

  The theme comes with Google Fonts, two blog layouts, animations, a parallax header, and a full theme options panel that lets you set the theme’s colors and more. It also comes with custom widgets, a custom header, social icons, and the theme is translation-ready.

  Moesia is free.

• Frame

  

  Need a theme for displaying photography that doesn’t get in the way? Try the Frame theme on for size. It’s minimalistic design is completely modern and includes dark and light skins to suit every kind of site. It’s responsive, retina-ready, and built with SEO in mind. It also includes numerous page templates so you’re certain to get precisely the look you want for the kind of content you want to create.

  Frame make it easy to customize site colors, fonts, menus, and to build fullscreen galleries in a variety of styles including grid, masonry, and Kenburns. It also has robust portfolio capability with grid and masonry layouts. It includes a fullscreen blog, custom shortcodes, advanced theme settings, an Ajax contact form, documentation, support, and PSD files.

  Frame is available now for $49.

• Discovery

  

  If you’ve been on the lookout for a responsive and retina-ready theme that’s beautiful to look at and offers just enough customization options to give your site a unique appearance, you could do worse than Discovery. This theme can be customized in a number of ways but you don’t have to delve deep to make modifications. It’s all right there for you to use with just a couple of clicks.

  For instance, you can easily add a custom logo, custom header, establish featured areas, and configure social media profile links with minimal effort. It’s designed to look and feel like a premium theme, only it’s free.

• Tripod

  

  Tripod is another responsive theme that’s retina-ready and includes a drag-and-drop layout builder for creating a professional-looking site centered around images. With this theme, you can display any kind of content you want on any page including categories, tags, widgets, teams, and testimonials. You also have a choice of displaying content in a carousel, filter, or via a load more button or with pagination.

  You also have control over page layouts. It comes with three page layouts prebuilt and it includes support for custom post types, logos, menus, and widgets. It also comes with a built-in “like” system, tooltips, Facebook comments, multiple sidebars and widgets, along with full social media integration, breadcrumbs, dropdown menus, shortcodes, and more. This theme is translation-ready, and includes full support and documentation.

  Tripod is available for $59.

• Atrisa

  

  Both agencies and individuals can make use of the Atrisa theme. It’s perfect for displaying your best work in a dedicated showcase without being flashy or in your face about it. The clean design is flexible yet easy to implement, and includes plenty of settings to suit your site’s individual needs.

  Some of this theme’s more prominent features include a responsive and retina-ready design, CSS3 animations, two homepage layouts, 4 portfolio sliders, shortcodes, a timeline blog, an Ajax portfolio that’s also filterable, page speed and SEO optimization, video embedding, multiple post formats, a full-width gallery slider, social sharing buttons, unlimited colors, Revolution Slider and Royal Slider, Google Fonts, retina icons, localization, threaded comments, Icomoon icons, cross-browser compatibility, demo files, documentation, and support.

  You can get Atrisa for $49.

• BusinessId

  

  If your site needs to be business-oriented but you’re tired of the same old look, BusinessId might be perfect for you. This theme includes numerous elements you can customize with little effort, giving you control over your site without a real need to code.

  This theme is cross-browser compatible, sports a responsive design, and is retina-ready, of course. It’s also built on W3C validated code and has been optimized for speed and SEO. It comes with 36 page templates, uses dropdown menus, and relies on Visual Composer to give it drag-and-drop customization ability. It also comes with 5 custom widgets, 4 widgetized areas, unlimited sidebars, a portfolio post type, Revolution Slider and full Contact Form 7 integration.

  BusinessID costs $44.

• Crystal

  

  Give your words and images equal weight with the Crystal theme. This business theme is responsive and retina-ready and is built with HTML5 and CSS3 on W3C validated code making for a secure and stable site. It has been optimized for speed and SEO and supports multiple browsers for a delightful viewing experience.

  It can be customized in a myriad of ways thanks to the inclusion of Visual Composer. In fact, it comes with 21 custom elements, 8 custom widgets, 9 widgetized footer areas, unlimited sidebars, a portfolio custom post type, as well as integration with Revolution Slider and Contact Form 7. Full support and documentation are included and this theme is also translation-ready.

  Crystal is currently priced at $49

• Travelogue

  

  As its name might suggest, Travelogue is a theme designed with bloggers in mind. If you want to jot down daily notes, your epic journey across Europe, or photographs you take on your daily morning walk, this theme is a great choice. It’s perfect for the personal blog but can be used for a photographer’s portfolio, too.

  One thing I particularly like is the use of interesting transition effects for each page. Your site will certainly stand out, that’s for sure. This theme supports image or video headers and includes numerous customization options to ensure your site has the unique look you want.

  Travelogue costs $44.

• Invention

  

  Looking for a professional way to present your business, portfolio, or profile online? Invention is one way to do it. This theme is responsive, retina-ready, and can be used for a multitude of purposes. The included 9 theme demos show off how versatile this theme is. For instance, it’s shown as being used for a wedding site, a café site, and even a mobile app site.

  It uses Page Builder to allow for tons of customization, too, like multiple layouts, animation effects, 5 headers, customizable footers, Awesome Icons, unlimited colors, custom post types, 4 default homepages, 3 blog layouts, custom shortcodes, custom widgets, and over 500 Google Fonts. This theme also includes wide and boxed styles, localization support, WooCommerce support, 5 sidebars, a 404 page, an under construction page, documentation, and so much more.

  Invention will set you back $59.

• Bleecker

  

  The last theme we’ll talk about here today is called Bleecker. It’s retina-ready, responsive, and uses a grid system for presenting your content. It’s optimized for mobile touch and allows for easy customization using built-in WordPress admin tools.

  It comes with page templates for the home, portfolio, about, blog, and contact pages, and is configured for multiple and one page layouts as you see fit. It comes with demo content, a custom print CSS stylesheet, cross-browser compatibility, and full documentation.

  Bleecker costs $44.