When I first started teaching myself how to use WordPress, I was in love with the Thematic theme. Thematic was simple enough to customize and seemed to work with most every plugin I installed. Thematic is a great starting point for creating your own themes.

After a while, I desired a different look, but I didn’t have much of my own time to dedicat on extending thematic to work they way that I wanted. So I started looking at different WordPress themes at Themeforest. I probably spent a good 5 days investigating all the different features each of the WordPress themes included and how easy they were to manipulate with my own custom CSS.

I finally found versatile feature rich theme that would work best for my personal website. The Striking Theme by Kaptinlin.

Striking WordPress Theme uses Valid HTML5 and is cross browser compatible. Here are a list of features that caught my attention.

• 4 different slider options that can be used on as many pages or posts you desire
• Over 100 Shortcodes  for various functions.  I try not to use plugins if I don’t have to. So if a theme provides me with most of the essential elements, I’m very happy.
• 13 Custom Widgets designed for the Striking Theme
• Unlimited Sidebars with Header, Footer and Sub-Footer Widget Areas
• 2 Custom Menus
• Auto Upgrading, Thank God!
• 5 pre-generated page templates and 3 homepage layouts
• Author Box
• Sort-able and Paginated Portfolio
• Breadcrumbs
• Translation Ready
• JS and CSS optimizer
• Copy and Paste shortcode examples on the demo page making setup a breeze

The customer support is superb. I have always gotten a fast response and am always treated with respect no matter how stupid my questions may be sometimes. I believe there are just 3 guys who have worked together to build and improve the striking theme on top of handeling support forums and keeping up with thier other projects and personal lives.

I highly recommend using the Striking WordPress Theme as your worpdress framework. Its a small investment for an incredible WordPress theme.