Upstart Blogger, a site dedicated to helping new bloggers succeed, recently added a brand new theme to their roster or strikingly minimalist designs. This time around, the new Moleskine theme comes across as a bit more mainstream, lacking most of the stark and cold design elements featured in their other designs like the famous Futurosity.

The idea behind the theme was to come up with a design that looked like a Moleskine notebook. You know, those famous black notebooks made famous by such literary geniuses as Hemingway. And the theme accomplishes this feat well. As a subtle gradient takes you from top to bottom, the typography is elegant and well placed–harkening back to the days when people actually wrote instead of typed.

But all is not without its problems. While the theme works flawlessly for most cases, there are issues with the Tag Cloud. Namely, sometimes the font can get a little too large–oozing out beyond its boundaries and infringing on other widgets’ space.

Nonetheless, the simplistic design of Moleskine more than makes up for this truly minor flaw. And, like everything else at Upstart Blogger, the theme is completely free.

Check out the demo. Or go ahead and give it a download.