Not being an expert web designer or coder myself, I often use a free wordpress theme to start a project and then just tweak codes to get the look or design I want. Recently I did some research into gridded, minimal wordpress themes in the swiss graphic design mould, so wanted to share with you all. Hope you enjoy and perhaps find something you might use.
Baic Maths is a theme from subtraction.com. It actually costs $45 I think, but is absolutely lovely. It also has plenty of user function. It has a toggle key which allows you to see the 11 column grid. Also has colour options to change all the text colours easily. Its minimal, organised and really gridded. The only arguable con I can see is that it is completely static. Although not everyone thinks this is that important I guess. Also you have to pay for it.
Grid focus consists of a 4 column grid divided into 3, the main, and 2 sidebars. Again really nice and simple gridded with lots of white space. Perfect for a website which wants the emphasis to be on the images. Both sidebars are customisable with widget options. Personally I am not a fan of the grey tints for the header or footer but this is easily removed. I would also like a larger header, but again this will be easily amendable.
This is the one freddesign is based upon. Really minimal and gridded. I love the left column with the article details in. It also has a twitter feed, and imports photos from your flickr account directly onto the home page. This is fantastic as a designer as it automatically updates itself with every new photo in the flickr account. It also has several sidebar widgets you can add on. As you will see, I have included a calendar on mine. The codes are pretty simple and I have edited mine and included a background image. I also love the way the image can overlap into the left column.
Another minimal style, which comes in two formats. Swiss, starts off with a red background, and swiss mono is predictably white with all black text. Its gridded out nicely. Generally not my favourite as it doen not have the structure of some of the others but nice nevertheless.
Neutica
I have just added this at the suggestion of Josef Müller-Brockmann, who has used it fantistically on his site here. As you can see it comes in the classic and ever impactful black and yellow. The thick and thin uses of strokes to organise the site, give it a lovely clean and structured feel. On Josef’s site as you will see he has stripped away the yellow for a more monotone look.
The great thing about these themes is they are so minimal, they are yours to customise. Images can make the site, and as in my case a light background image is perfect for the black text to run over.
These are the only simple grid layouts I could find, and I think there is definitely room for further designs. Hope you found the post interesting. If you have any good themes to add, please leave a comment 
Hello.
Have you looked at Neutica+ by Allan Cole?
It is a nice grid design that I currently use on my Josef Müller-Brockmann web site.
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Really nice info… i´ll take a look about this themes with thinkable grids
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Thanks for the comments guys. Josef – neutica is beautiful. I shall add it to the post if you don’t mind. Gutted I missed that one
Aha, I thought you’d used Basic Maths for the latest redesign here.
nope – went with this one. Had the look I wanted and also more flexible with different browser sizes. Basic Maths is cool though.
You actually make it seem really easy along with your presentation however I in finding this topic to be actually one thing that I think I might never understand. It kind of feels too complicated and extremely extensive for me. I’m looking forward for your next post, I will attempt to get the dangle of it!