In my efforts to find just the right design for this site, I’ve spotted quite a few excellent sources of free WordPress themes. Here are 1100 of them. 

Well, actually 1103, but 1100 just sounds better.

A quick note before diving in: it’s always good practice to seek out the original developer of a theme and download from them, rather than a third-party site. Unscrupulous scumbags have been known to insert malicious code and repackage WordPress themes for download. Buyer (or in this case downloader) beware.

Developers:

• Upstart Blogger has a real love for minimalist design, and an admirable knack for blending experimentation with usability. The site also contains some great blogging tips and resources, especially with regards to increasing traffic. 7 great themes here.
• 5thirtyone.com presents two very modern, clean, spacious themes. Take a look at the bottom of the page and mouse-over “Select Project” for full info and live demos.
• Plaintxt.org has created Sandbox, which can function as a plain vanilla theme, but is more powerful as a framework on which other themes can be built. Its underlying code is built with a focus on semantic markup, making it truly adaptable if you know a bit of CSS. Their live demo of 6 Sandbox themes lives here. Last year’s Sandbox Designs Competition resulted in these 46 themes.
• Performancing gives us 10 themes it calls the “world’s best”. I don’t know that I’d go that far, but they are nice. Live preview with theme switcher available.
• Devlounge has created five clean, customizable themes with plenty of whitespace; very nice work.

Directories:

• WordPress Theme Directory, WordPress.org’s own repository of themes, launched in mid-2008. The site could use better categorization and search of their 532 free themes (and counting), but all provide live demos.
• Smashing Magazine presents four galleries, totaling 234 themes in all styles and categories. Under “all posts”, scroll down to “WordPress Themes 1, 2, 3, 4″. At the very least you should find some inspiration here, as well as great articles on design, CSS, Photoshop, fonts, and more.
• Speckyboy gives us this post of 43 “Advanced, Groundbreaking” themes, which he has helpfully categorized and labeled two-column, three-column, magazine, etc., with links to original developers.
• If you still haven’t what you need, stop by Top WP Themes for 210 more choices. This site is well organized and categorized, so if you know you need two-column, widget-ready, magazine style with left sidebar, you can jump right to it. Live previews are included.

Your turn: if you have any favorites of your own, either directories or developers (including yourself), please add links in the comments.