Believe it or not, there were actually some really great free themes released in 2009. You might not know it because a lot of theme roundup posts these days are riddled with affiliate links to paid themes.

This post will list some of the most creative themes I’ve seen produced in 2009. Note that I won’t be listing every single good looking theme, just ones that I’ve come across which I deem “creative” enough.

Photography / Gallery

AutoFocus – This theme is for photographers looking for a creative way to showcase their photos. There is a pretty unusual layout in which photos are displayed.

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Blogwave is a free WordPress blog theme that I just released over at Custom Theme. It has four different color options including blue (pictured below), red, orange, and green.

This is just a clean, simple blog theme with no fancy options or features. I know it bears a striking resemblance to Slick Red (a free theme available here) because of the similar header gradients, layout structure, and color switching ability.

There are a few additional features available in Blogwave including WP125 support for 125×125 ad management. Just install the WP125 plugin and place the widget wherever you want in your sidebar. There’s also a widgetized 404 template and styles built-in for the WP-PageNavi plugin as well.

Head on over to Blogwave WordPress theme page to download. If you have any feedback leave a comment here or on the release post.

It’s been a great year for Theme Lab, the community, and WordPress in general. We’ve seen a number of innovations, such as the Builder theme by iThemes. We’ve seen some cool new WordPress-related sites like WP Questions and WP Chat.

Being the end of the year, I thought I’d take this opportunity to highlight some of the best content here at Theme Lab this past year. Without further ado…

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