This is the first review in a series I will be writing based on my WP Theme Experiment.  Today I’ll be sharing my insight on Headway Themes created by the father and son team, Grant and Clay Griffiths.

Headway is unlike any other theme I have ever experienced and it is very simple to use. You can load it into WordPress and get an intuitive feel for it without reading any documentation.  The UI (User Interface) is graphically appealing and you can move your way around the visual editor with ease.  In the newest version you can even start out with the site builder that walks you step by step through several design options before customizing your theme – an extremely handy feature – but  this is only the beginning!

One of the things that I like best about the Headway Theme is the real-time, visual editor.  You can make and watch changes to your theme right before your eyes without having to leave the editor or visiting another page to see how it looks.  This is the closest concept I have found to SquareSpace, a platform I used a few years ago.  Customizing Headway allows you to change up your layout and design without touching any CSS and you can easily “call out” any of the sections you’re looking to work on.

Additional features that I found really beneficial and cool are:

• The ability to resize your content areas and widget containers within the visual editor
• The ability to change the width of your design (even rounded corners) from within the visual editor
• Your choice of fixed or fluid width options
• The Leaf Panel allows you to easily add featured posts, Twitter, photo gallery, or an image rotator
• Ability to customize CSS if you want to
• Search Engine Optimized

OK, now for the two things I didn’t like so far …

• I had to learn what the Leaf System was about.  If you’re a veteran WordPress user this may confuse you and it took me a little time to figure this out.  However it is a great feature of Headway.
• It seemed to be slow to work with at times.  To be totally fair this could be my Internet Service Provider and that I am impatient.

Two other downsides are that I have not jumped into the support forum yet to see how well you get help (haven’t needed it) and I haven’t had the opportunity to test the limits of what can be done creatively.  However, I’ve seen some great examples of what’s possible in their showcase at http://headwaythemes.com/showcase, and it looks like most sites I would want to design can be achieved.

My Conclusion:

Headway is a must have for designers or the DYI crowd who want to use WordPress as the foundation for building a website or blog. It is worth the investment ($87 for personal use/$164 for developers) and you can easily launch a simple site in 10 minutes if you are familiar with WP and get the basics down for using this theme.  I don’t expect all WP developers to embrace the system that Clay and Grant have created, but again, for those like me who want to have some creativity and the ability to offer web design services, this is an amazing tool.

I’ll definitely be working with Headway more next month as part of a new project and will provide additional thoughts then, but for now I am pleased with my experience and would not hesitate recommending it to creative types like myself.

Please Note: None of these links are affiliate links.  I am not receiving any compensation for my reviews on my WP Theme Experiment project or the reviews on themes that were kindly donated to me.