Gazette is one of many magazine style premium theme produced by Woothemes. The likes of CNN.com or even NewYorkTimes.com – Gazette can definitely turn you regular blog to a professional news website. Built in features such as the feature slideshow, banner rotators, video posts box…just about all the bells and whistles an online publisher can handle.

Feature Slide Show

The slide show sits above the rest of your posts. It swaps images every 2 seconds of all the posts you put in this specified category. Along with the image is the title of your post and the post excerpt; when clicked - goes to the permalink or the actual detail page of your post. 

Video Box

The video box can be placed right below the slide show or below the rest of the posts. It contains posts you specifically designate for videos. The Video Box displays the latest video post which you can stream right in the home page. It also contains links to older video posts on the right side.  

Header, Side Bar and Other Templates

The page navigation only go in one level deep – which is a problem with nested pages. The category menu however, supports multi-levels. The theme uses image logos – which is entered in admin options panel as well. One nice thing about the sidebar is the clean tabular container for your important post activity: Popular Posts, Latest, Comments, Tags and Subscription links. The blog roll and meta information sits just right above the footer to complete the sidebar. The image gallery template is also expertly designed. The thumbnails are big and spacing is very little – filling up the allotted space as shown below:

Other Theme Perks:

All theme options are conveniently controlled in the Gazette Options Menu inside your Wordpress Admin panel so you don’t have to touch the code ever. Additional options for this theme include:

1. 4 style-sheets – change design elements such as heading/navigation backgrounds and font colors 
2. Gravatar Support – User gravatars show in the comments section
3. Flickr plugin support – Automatically get your flickr image feeds as a widget in the theme sidebar
4. Tracking and RSS codes – Gazette has input fields where you plug in Google Analytics and Feedburner Ids
5. Ad Management and Rotator – Gazette offers many advertising banner options. All are placed strategically – in the sidebar, header or options to have none at all. Ad banners are controlled from the Theme Options menu. In addition, the banners rotate in position as you refresh the page

Websites that use Gazette:

Fuel Your Creativity

Kicks On Fire

South Africa Rocks

Demo, documentation and support is available at Woothemes. Gazette sells for $70 for single use and $150 multi-use. Woothemes also offer subscription model on all their themes for a recurring price. See their website for more information.