Signify Theme Review

General Design

I really love the sweet and sleek design of this free WordPress theme. From the use of straight and slim elements like lines, boxes, fonts, ... to the pastel colors, all perform an ethereal and delicate design. Furthermore, Signify controls the use of space so good that there is no redundant blank space at all.

Other Elements

Color and Fonts

The background is painted with white and light grey, combined with Playfair Display family font, giving a cool and classic sense. Even the coral pink highlight color is really harmonious with this design. Moreover, this kind of effect will give you a little surprise.

You can't change the color and font of this free WordPress theme, but I think the default is the best of the best!

Header and Footer

The header is simple and airy but I can't deny that this straightforward design is so effective. It helps me focus on this attractive full-width hero image:

However, when I use video instead of an image for the header media, the frame changes like this:

I guess that it's not because of my video size because I've tried different videos and all have the same result. Actually, I personally prefer the header image because it's more prominent and symmetrical with other parts of my site.

Scrolling down, you will see a simple footer, which follows the spirit of this free WordPress theme Signify. But looking at the smaller social icons here, don't you find them fitted with the classic and delicate design of this them? I bet that you do!

Home Page and Archive Page

On the homepage, the author puts 3 featured images in 3 columns in a very balanced and symmetrical way. However, when your featured images have different sizes and your featured posts have different length, there will be some differences like this:

Therefore, be careful when choosing posts and images for this position to keep the balance.

Similarly, choose the featured images and excerpt for your posts appropriately so that no empty place exists here as I did below:

And Other Features That are Not in the Demo

In the demo, you just can find the hero image, featured images section, and blog posts, right? But in fact, there are many features like portfolio, service, and testimonials that are not displayed in the Signify demo. Let me show you how they are:

The slider, in my opinion, has no special design. It's just full-screen, has no navigation, and even sticks with the hero image above.

The portfolio section is divided into 3 columns and will display the images with the original frame like this, so it somewhat looks quite messy:

I prefer the testimonials design, from the minor decoration to the design of the round frame get along so well with the whole theme.

Responsive

Signify performs well on all devices. It still looks good on even mobile devices. However, the hero image will be cropped in cellphones like this:

Your site after setting up will nearly look like the demo (you don't even need to set up a static homepage), so awesome, right?:

But you still need to set up the featured images by hand using the Customizer. Don't worry, it's also very simple.

In case you want to save your time more, you can try the one-click demo import feature. That's a bit complicated because this free WordPress theme requires you to install Catch Themes Demo Import, and then download the dummy data, unzip the files, ... Hmm, a lot of things to do, but it's not so difficult so I can handle it quickly.

I just wait a couple of minutes and all is done! My site now is another version of Signify demo except for the featured images section:

But that's okay for me. I can set up it later.

 

Signify is a feature-rich and powerful theme itself because you don't need to install any plugin to have the portfolio, testimonial, featured slider, and service sections, or any features for a corporate or blog theme. They will help your website suit any niche, from blog, portfolio, to business.

You just need to use the Live Customizer to customize this free WordPress theme in an easy manner.

It contains a lot of options, both the "big" and the minor features. So, just talk about the general options first.

General Options

Signify doesn't have many color options. On the other hand, you can choose any color among unlimited colors and they can be applied properly.

In the Header Media section, it's not difficult to upload or just simply insert a Youtube URL and it will show up right away!

Signify Theme Options

Choosing items to display for the special areas like Portfolio, Service, Testimonial, ... is so easy. From the drop-down menu, I can choose any page I want. But I think that's also a weakness of this free theme because I can't choose posts, custom images, or links to display. On the other hand, the author is quite generous when allowing us to choose a lot of items here (up to 20 items, for example).

The gallery look good even when the images inside are not similar in terms of size.

Move to the Cover block, although I set the full-width style for it, the real display is different.

Unfortunately, it also happens with Image or Video blocks.

I checked the speed of this free WordPress theme with PageSpeed Insights and you can also try it. The result is passable in desktop, but the score in mobile is much lower so I think the author should improve it.

SEO optimization is an important factor but Signify hasn't done it effectively. I found out that after using some special method. You can install some SEO plugin to improve your SEO.

The documentation is quite sufficient and easy to understand. Besides, I love the menu on the sidebar that helps me to navigate to the corresponding part easily.

Signify supports its free users via the free support forum of Theme Palace. And similar to other themes from Theme Palace I've reviewed, you can receive help from the forum with no fee.