Simplified Blogging: Themes Like Medium

Simplified Blogging: Themes Like Medium

With over 90 million monthly readers, Medium has become one of the most popular blogging platforms for writers and readers seeking engaging long-form content. If you want to emulate their clean, modern aesthetic for your own website, several great WordPress themes can help you achieve that sleek Medium look.

As a veteran blogger still using the old-school WordPress theme from my launch year (we’re talking web design circa 2013), I often find myself envying the polished Minimalist styling of Medium’s content. I mean, have you seen their homepage recently? It’s like a masterclass in elegant web design. No clutter or distracting elements—just that crisp, beautiful full-screen display of the latest thought-provoking stories.

After some unsuccessful attempts at tweaking my site’s appearance (and resisting the urge to start over from scratch), I finally decided to search for WordPress themes that mimic Medium’s magic. Lo and behold, there are some fantastic options out there for free and premium themes that embrace the stripped-down Modernist aesthetic I crave.

In this post, we’ll dive into the vital elements that make up Medium’s signature streamlined style and functionality. We’ll also explore some of the best themes that replicate aspects of the Medium look and feel. Whether you want an exact replica or just draw inspiration from their approach, you’ll find great themes to simplify your site. Let’s create something beautiful together—shall we?

Understanding the Medium Blogging Experience

With over 90 million monthly readers, Medium has quickly become one of the most popular online publishing platforms for both writers and readers seeking substantial long-form content. So what exactly is it about Medium’s minimalist design and streamlined functionality that has made it so successful?

At its core, Medium offers an immersive, full-screen reading experience that does away with the visual clutter and distractions found on most websites. Instead of flashy ads, widgets, and excessive menus crowding the page, Medium presents content in a clean, uniform layout with plenty of white space. This simplicity draws focus directly to the words on the page for more engaging and enjoyable reading.

Medium also utilizes subtle typographic details to improve readability, like slightly wider line lengths that allow readers to take in more words per line without straining their eyes. The font style and sizes contribute to clarity as well. There are no complicated menus or settings for writers to fuss over either – Medium handles all the design and formatting choices behind the scenes so authors can concentrate on creating compelling content.

With online readers suffering from information overload and shrinking attention spans, Medium’s refined approach strips away everything unnecessary so users can delve deeply into material that matters. The site curates content as well, spotlighting emerging voices and thoughtful commentary handpicked by editors. This gives readers confidence they will discover high-quality articles worth their time.

Ultimately, Medium’s phenomenal growth demonstrates the appeal of its less-is-more web design and intuitive tools that get out of the way, allowing great writing and ideas to shine. The stripped down aesthetic may seem simple on the surface, but it offers a vastly more focused and rewarding reading experience overall.

WordPress Themes That Resemble Medium

Astra

With over 17 free Medium-inspired WordPress themes available, bloggers can easily achieve a clean, modern look without any costs. These themes replicate vital elements of Medium’s minimalist style to enhance the reading experience.

One of the most popular free themes is Astra. Known as the fastest WordPress theme available, Astra offers a responsive layout and loads pages rapidly. Like Medium, it focuses content front and center through a streamlined design. Custom page layouts, multiple blog feed styles, and other key features help replicate Medium’s aesthetic.

Neve

Another top contender is Neve. This free theme was created specifically for blogs and magazines. The intuitive editor allows for drag and drop content additions, resembling Medium’s flexibility. Neve also incorporates dynamic content types like podcasts, videos, and more to boost engagement.

Mediumish

Mediumish takes direct inspiration from Medium with its name and layout. Built using Bootstrap 4, the code base is strong and versatile for customizations. As a Jekyll theme, it requires some tech know-how but delivers a distinctly Medium-style template for blogs.

Journalistic

Journalistic is aptly named for its news magazine feel. With a bold header font and prominent featured images, it matches recognizable elements of long-form publications. An engaging thumbnail slider and social media integration are perks.

ThemeMin

For those seeking a true blank canvas, ThemeMin allows full control over layout and elements. Being entirely customizable makes it possible to handcraft a Medium-esque site. A content-focused interface eliminates excess menus or widgets.

Additional Themes

Other worthwhile free themes include Readable, Ink, Literatum, and No Sidebar Pro. Each possesses modern and minimal components while still standing uniquely apart. Most offer premium upgrades but remain robust free options.

Before selecting any pre-made theme, study Medium’s core site functionality related to reading experience, ease of discovery, clean layout, and engagement. Then assess themes based on how closely they replicate these vital user experience factors. With the right theme, bloggers can come quite close to delivering Medium’s essence, even without coding skills.

The wide range of free Medium-style WordPress themes proves that cost need not be an obstacle to achieving a clean and contemporary site aesthetic. With a little research and customization, an immersive Medium-inspired reading and publishing platform can be built at no charge.

Customizing Your WordPress Site Like Medium

When setting up a WordPress site designed to emulate the clean look of Medium, one of the most important considerations is responsiveness. You want your content to look great regardless of whether visitors are accessing your site on a desktop computer, tablet, or mobile device. Choosing a theme built with responsive design ensures that your site’s layout automatically adjusts to fit different screen sizes.

Many of the most popular Medium-style WordPress themes like Astra and Neve come with responsive design baked in. But you can take customization even further by tweaking your theme settings. Most themes allow you to easily toggle different layout options to find the right balance of image size, text width, sidebar placement, etc. based on your specific content.

Customization Tips

Here are a few tips for customizing your Medium-inspired WordPress theme:

• Adjust column width: Medium has a smooth, full-width layout—to match this, set your theme’s container width to 100%.

• Format text: Use Medium’s default system font or choose clean sans-serifs like Roboto. Set line height between 1.5-1.7em for readability.

• Image placement: Allow full-width image embedding to mimic Medium’s aesthetic. Set galleries to display large thumbnails.

• Highlight pull quotes: Draw the eye with stylistic quotations. Many themes have built-in pull quote styling.

• Utilize white space: Balance text with negative space to prevent a cluttered feeling.

Keeping things clean and consistent is key to maintaining a Medium-style look and feel. Limit animations and flashy elements that could disrupt reader immersion. By fine-tuning theme settings and making subtle design tweaks over time, you can craft an engaging, magazine-style site.

The great thing about WordPress is the flexibility to not only choose a starting theme that resembles Medium, but to also fully customize things to your taste. With just a few plugin additions, you can replicate Medium’s functionality too. We’ll cover some of the best plugins to enhance reader experience in the next section.

Optimizing A Medium-Style WordPress Site

With over 60 million websites powered by WordPress, it has grown to be the most popular content management system on the internet, now running over 35% of all sites. So if you choose to build your Medium-inspired blog on WordPress, you’ll be in good company.

But with great power comes great responsibility. Having the flexibility to customize your site is fantastic, but it also means you need to take care to optimize it for the best user experience. Here are some top tips for refining your Medium-styled WordPress site:

Focus on Readability

While the minimalist Medium layout already enhances readability, you can take it a step further. Use brief paragraphs with plenty of white space between, as well as ample subheadings to break up walls of texts. Medium’s content is scannable and easy on the eyes – emulate this on your own site.

Choose Complementary Plugins

The functionality of WordPress can be expanded with plugins. For a Medium-style site, look for ones that improve readability like Read More Tags, or embed rich media seamlessly like Shortcodes Ultimate. And don’t go overboard – too many plugins can slow down your site.

Refine Site Speed

Sluggish load times are a big turn off for readers. Tweak settings in WordPress and your theme to enable caching, compress images, and reduce HTTP requests. Test site speed and aim for sub-3 second load times on desktop and mobile. Every fraction of a second counts.

Enhance Multimedia

The clean Medium layout lends itself well to multimedia content. Add engaging photos, graphics, videos and more to break up text and captivate readers. Ensure you have image optimization enabled in settings for faster loads.

Monitor Analytics

Use Google Analytics to uncover visitor trends and fine-tune your content strategy accordingly. Pay attention to bounce rates, time on site, popular posts and referral sources to glean insights. A data-driven approach is key to maximizing the impact of your Medium-style WordPress site.

With some thoughtful fine-tuning during and after set up, your Medium-inspired WordPress site will not only match the minimalist aesthetic, but also provide a stellar user experience worthy of Medium’s standards. Just don’t get intimidated by all the customization options – take it step by step!

Simplified Blogging: Wrapping Up Themes Like Medium

If you’ve made it this far, you now have a solid understanding of how Medium revolutionized the online publishing experience with its clean, minimalist aesthetic and immersive full-screen reading format. You also got an inside look at some of the top WordPress themes that emulate the core elements of Medium’s style and functionality.

Key Takeaways

The key takeaways around choosing a Medium-inspired theme for your own site include:

• Aim for simplicity – Declutter your blog by limiting menus, widgets and other visual distractions to enhance readability. Choose a theme with a full-width layout for that signature Medium look.

• Prioritize mobile responsiveness – With over 60% of web traffic coming from mobile devices, a responsive theme that adapts across screen sizes is vital. Test your site on phones and tablets.

• Customize thoughtfully – Tweak fonts, colors schemes and other design aspects to perfectly match your brand. But don’t overdo it. Maintain visual harmony.

• Optimize for search – Follow SEO best practices like meta descriptions, alt text, headings and quality content to get found by readers. Medium styling and high Google rankings aren’t mutually exclusive.

• Focus on engaging content – At the end of the day, a theme is just a template. Well-written, informative content presented in a scannable way is what keeps readers hooked. Take cues from Medium’s content style and formatting.

Further Guidance

Want more guidance on choosing a Medium-esque WordPress theme and customizing it to perfection? Check out our hand-picked collection of the 17 Best WordPress Themes Like Medium for 2021. We break down each one in detail, along with actionable tips to make your blog shine.

Let us know if you have any other questions! We’re always happy to help fellow bloggers simplify their website and achieve that polished Medium magic.

James Baxter

If it runs on WordPress, I can upgrade it with a dash of imagination! As a wizardly developer, I started wielding code precision from a young age purely fascinated by tech’s boundless potential. My speciality? Injecting innovation into problem-solving – seeing clunky puzzles as opportunities to pioneer platforms to new heights. I handle everything from streamlining workflows to integrating apps with finesse so functionality feels effortless on the user end.