Smashing Magazine has, once again, raised the bar on free WordPress themes with their newest release, Notepad Chaos. Personally, I’m not too fond of the theme. A bit too chaotic, too colorful, and too busy for my tastes–but I’m sure there are some of you who will find much joy in installing this theme. Design choices aside, what does this theme offer that goes above and beyond the competition?

Come to think of it, never mind. The theme is all about the design, and theme-ographer Evan Eckard makes that perfectly clear with massive, lush backgrounds and wild handwritten notes strewn about the page.

While Notepad Chaos isn’t breaking any new ground in a technical sense, it does wonders for those with a keen eye for design.

A few days ago, I posted about six sites you can use to help you find images for your blog posts in just a few seconds. But what if using photos from Flickr isn’t really your thing? What if you want to use a snazzy icon or two to go along with your text? A Flickr search engine certainly isn’t going to help you there.

That’s why I’m showing you some of the best icon search engines on the internet. Whether you like to include icons with your blog posts or you’re just looking for a little something to spice up your desktop, these web apps should be right up your alley. Check them out, see if they offer what you want, and move on down the list if they don’t. And, in case you’re wondering, they’re in no particular order.

[For each site, I looked up two icons, one for Safari and another of a Dog. Some could find an image for both, some could only find one, and others couldn't find any--but your mileage may vary.]

1. Iconlook On first glance, Iconlook seems to be the most professional of the icon search engines. Glossy logo, big search field, it’s a regular web 2.0 site. Even when you search, you have plenty of options to check. Do you want big icons, small icons, or something in between?

However, Iconlook only found one icon for Safari (and it looked amazingly similar to the default icon) and only one icon for a Dog. Both were usable, but for a site that looks so promising, I would have expected more.

If you’re willing to browse, though, Iconlook gives you the option to check out all of the popular icons in a handy grid.

2. Iconfinder Iconfinder’s appearance is surprisingly similar to that of Iconlook. Big logo, big search field, grid layout for found icons. However, it lacks the selection feature to choose a particular icon size you need and it is missing a page filled with popular icons.

Also, searching for both Safari and Dog rendered nothing. In their defense, though, searches for more general topics like Drive, Computer, or Internet all came back with a fairly large number of results.

3. Iconlet Iconlet strays from the gaudy, glossy look of the previous two sites and goes for a more minimalist approach. While this is all well and good, their search feature can be annoying when you find multiple sizes for a particular icon–each size gets its own listing instead of simply combining multiple sizes and showing the largest. Not particularly user friendly.

Iconlet’s database is rather large, however, as a single search returns a number of results in multiple sizes. All icons are free, open source, or creative commons licensed. But, it wasn’t able to find a Safari icon–though it did find a couple of Dog icons.

4. SearchIcon SearchIcon is supposedly listing over 60,000 icons as of this writing, and I can totally believe it. The search engine feels stronger and more robust than some of the other contenders, and it really shows with the quality of results it returns.

SearchIcon also includes a handy feature that I’d like to see all of the other search engines incorporate. A path button which takes you to a page filled with related icons from the same series.

Searching for Safari came up with quite a few attractive results while the search for Dog churned out a handful of others (though no true picture of a dog).

5. Icons Search To be honest, I wasn’t too fond of the way Icons Search looked before I entered any search terms. It seems almost amateurish–but then again, so does Google.

The search feature itself, however, is fast and accurate, coming up with quite a few results for both Safari and Dog. Icons Search is also the only site thus far that 256×256 size icons. Really the only drawback here is the way the icons are displayed after a search. Much like Iconlet, there are multiple pictures of each icon depending on what sizes they come in.

6. The Icon Browser The Icon Browser is easily the most hastily put together of all of the icon search engines we’ve seen. It resembles an early web app from a decade or so ago. In a lot of cases, appearance can be deceiving–but that’s not entirely true here.

The search for Safari returned nothing while the search for Dog returned quite a few results, all of which were low quality, pixelated GIF files that look like clipart from the days of the Windows 3.1.

7. deviantART Last, but certainly not least, we have DeviantArt. Yes, I know it’s not a true icon search engine, though they do have a massive supply of amazing artwork that really blows the rest of the sites out of the water. Just type what icon you’re looking for then click on Customization followed by Icons on the left side of your screen.

Obviously, given the huge amount of art hosted on DeviantArt, finding a Safari icon and a Dog icon was a piece of cake.

So which of these search engines was the best? Search Icon is the clear winner as it totally outshines the rest of the true icon search engines. However, if you really want the highest quality content, you’re going to have to pay DeviantArt a visit.

Alright, so these icons aren’t exactly new, but they are free and attractive–and therefore worth a download. Right? Good.

If you need some sexy little icons for your site and you don’t want to blast your readers with over the top colors and wild designs, these are the icons for you. Simple, grey, and understated. They’re completely free and come in GIF format–so no browser issues to keep you down.

Go pick them up here.

A few days ago, I posted on an awesome way to bring unique fonts to your website using just the tools at your disposal (PHP and JavaScript) and a handy tool called FLIR. The drawback was you had to do all of the installation yourself, which can be a real drag if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.

WordPress users rejoice. There’s a brand new plugin that gives you all of the power of FLIR without all of the do it yourself work. If you can install any other plugins, you can install and configure this one in a snap.

It’s not totally complete, but it is functional. So give it a download, see how you like it, and keep a look out for some updates in the very near future.

Theme designers must be strapped for inspiration. After talking about WP CODA, which was based off of the impressive Coda site, just a couple of days ago, we now have a theme that is based off of the look and feel of the most popular Linux OS, Ubuntu. Aptly named Ubuntu WP (are we seeing a similarity here?), the theme does a nice job of bringing the now classic Ubuntu color scheme to blogs everywhere.

To be quite honest, I was getting rather tired of seeing many Linux blogs all use the same default WordPress theme or a similarly unattractive design, so its nice to see a breath of fresh air in the Linux world–and hopefully Ubuntu WP will deliver it.

While the design won’t be winning any awards any time soon, it is certainly utilitarian, and focuses mostly on the content over wowing the visitors with snazzy effects and chic color choices. Nonetheless, if your readers are like any of the Linux users I know, you’ll have no problem getting them to read your blog so long as you provide them with plenty of function, or content in this case, over form.

And, to top it all off, Ubuntu WP packs in all the things that will make Ubuntu users rejoice. Stable, Widget Ready, HTML and CSS Valid, and totally Free.

Far too many WordPress themes focus on being hip, modern, minimalist, or on the other extreme, downright gaudy and over the top. It’s a rare theme indeed that actually focuses on something other than being slick and sophisticated while still maintaining an attractive appearance. Floral Day from SimplyWP does just that.

I can honestly say I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a free WordPress theme that is specifically designed for the arts and crafts group. No, I’m not talking about the architectural movement nearly a century ago, but scrapbooking, sewing, and other such activities from the heartland. Floral Day comes across as a bit country, a bit shabby chic, a bit feminine–making it the perfect theme for those who blog about crafts, sewing, or any other similar hobby.

Good portfolio/gallery themes are surprisingly hard to come by in the WordPress theme world. Sure, there are a few that are downright awesome–but they cost money. In the free arena, finding a site for you to display your (or someone else’s) works of art can be a real drag. If you’re already a web designer, sure, you can just build your own WordPress theme. But if you’re a photographer or a graphic artist, or a t-shirt designer, or something else along those lines, you’re stuck with ready made themes or finding a developer to create one for you for a hefty price.

As far as free themes go, you’re limited just to those which display one massive picture at a time–or something similar.

Now, however, you have a chance to display multiple pictures all at once in true gallery style. Inspired by the countless CSS galleries we see floating through the web, CSSEY is a theme designed for people who: 1. like free themes 2. like minimalist themes 3. want to show off their wares. And that’s it. If you can’t fit yourself into all three of these categories, CSSEY is not the theme for you.

Thanks to Best WordPress Themes for bringing this theme to the limelight.