Live Wire – One of the original magazine styled themes from Woo. It’s best described in one word – CLEAN.  From the homepage, inner pages, comments area, sidebars – you won’t find a piece of dirt on Live Wire – it’s so clean – it squeaks. Excellent 960 grid positioning on all the elements. Vertical, as well as horizontal spacing is masterfully designed.  Use of fonts is consistent, icons are minimal and color schema is beautiful.

The Frame

Live Wire spans three columns in the index page – turns into a double column in the inner pages. This accommodates better handling of  various posts in the first page that is viewed by the reader. Having an additional column in home means you can cram bits and pieces of posts from different categories and present them right away. As shown in the image below – the middle column which is present only in the homepage – contain single posts from different working categories. On the top left corner of the first column – is the “breaking story” compartment which holds your single – breaking story – story. This is beautifully handled by a large background image (which is a custom field in your post) overlaid by the category name, post title and number of comments.

Live Wire’s navigation uses a sucker fish approach. Sucker fish navigation means the ability to present layers  for child and parent elements from a single menu. Sucker fish also utilize full CSS styling, with valid XHTML code.   Live Wire handles multi-levels for both pages and categories. Floating subscription links are located on the right side, as well as a large search form on the header that is static through out the site.

The inner pages as mentioned – is reduced by a single column. The outermost sidebar remain, but the middle bar disappears. This style is meant for broader spacing to accommodate search results, archives and single posts. The comments template has gravatar support, with styles consistent with the rest of the theme.

Flavors

And if clean is not enough, Woo’s decided to spruce it up with a variety of flavors. Though the frame stays intact – the flavors / editions / versions (whatever you want to call it) are driven by different style sheets that come with the package. This dictates small styling elements that transform the look of the pages. Live Wire has three major flavors:

• Web 2.0 – As the term “Web 2.0″, its got a bit of modern feel. From gradient backgrounds, rounded fonts – Web 2.0 will leave your mouth watering for that flash and pazazzz.
• Classic – A more “flat” and sharp look. This flavor focuses on the smaller details.
• Style # – I really don’t know what defines this flavor. It is more of a combination of both.

Note that the three main flavors come with “sub-flavors” within them.  The sub-flavors are differentiated mainly by color schema.  Other options include Built-in video panel, auto-image resizer, widgetized sidebars – and more. Head on to Woothemes and try this theme out. Live Wire sells for $70 single, $150 developers. Woo also offer themes club – where you can access all their themes for a monthly subscription fee.