Like so many bloggers, I have had a do-it-yourself attitude for a long time. I slowly crunched through CSS / HTML and even—from time-to-time—PHP. If I went to school to be a programmer or a designer, this stuff would be easier for me. But I didn’t and the result is that I had to slog through a lot of unknowns. As I move from an amateur and personal blogger to a professional web and blog consultant and professional writer I needed to focus on my strengths and stop wasting time (or having fun) slogging.

I recognize that I am not a developer, programmer or a designer. I know what works well and what looks fantastic—often I can see it in my head—but I do not often have the skills to bring them to fruition or it takes too much time. Therefore, I started looking around at Premium or Commercial theme options for this WordPress site. When looking for a premium theme, I was already aware of all the WordPress heavy-hitters: Brian, Adii and Chris. I think, for good measure, I would throw Ian into the mix as well (though he’s not really a premium theme developer/designer).

I eliminated Brian from the running because I wasn’t interested or in need of a magazine theme. Chris’ Thesis theme is really nice, but there really isn’t a huge difference from his other themes (superficially at least). Ian is doing some brilliant things with Thematic, but his commercial themes were too minimal. I even emailed him and asked if he was planning to release another theme with a little more cowbell, but he told me not to hold my breath.

I just realized that I have used themes from each of those guys in the past and have found there stuff to be top notch. Frankly, I have rarely looked outside of their portfolios in the past. I am currently using Ian’s MNML them on my personal blog, Bailing Bucket. So I what did I do? I risked it all and I am giving Adii a try (which has got be pretty obvious at this point).

I chose WooThemes because of the variation and how complete the theme was. Obviously, a lot of people are much better DIY’ers than myself and so taking a minimal theme is easier for them. But I wanted something that felt original and complete. The great thing about Woo is that they have several designers and are always bringing more on board so I have never found myself in a situation where their themes started to all look the same.

So far everything has been incredibly smooth (except when the theme wouldn’t update, but then I realized WP-Cache was on… duh). The documentation was really helpful and when I did have a question I quickly found an answer in the forums. At this point, I would definitely recommend WooThemes, but this might be an opinion that needs to mature.

Have you ever bought a WooTheme or other premium theme? Who did you go with?