Anders Norén Releases Björk, a Free WordPress Block Theme for Blogs and Personal Websites

WordPress theme author Anders Norén is at it again with a new minimal block theme for blogs and personal websites. Björk is the 129th block theme to hit the directory and Norén’s 25th free WordPress theme. It follows the release of Poe, a portfolio style theme, less than two months ago.

Although Norén said he is a fan of the Icelandic singer, his new theme is named for his favorite tree. Björk is the Swedish name for birch.

“Birch trees are incredibly resilient, which is why you can find them closer to the tree line on the Swedish fjäll than any other type of tree,” Norén said. “They’re also very pretty to look at.”

The default style for the theme certainly has a birch-like appearance with its white background and use of Albert Sans, a Google font designed by Danish type designer Andreas Rasmussen who was inspired by the type-characteristics of Scandinavian architects and designers in the early 20th century.

Desktop viewers will see a sticky sidebar menu for quick navigation links. This disappears on smaller screen sizes in favor of a hamburger menu.

“Björk has a very classic blog theme structure, with a sidebar navigation to the left and the content to the right,” Norén said in a post introducing the new theme. “You’ve seen hundreds of these WordPress themes before – I’ve released like six of them myself – but with the advent of block themes, everything old is new again. There aren’t a lot of block themes with this structure on the theme directory yet.”

Björk includes seven different theme styles, in addition to the default, which can instantly change the look of the website.

Norén has also included more than 15 block patterns, which enable users to mix and match and quickly build their own layouts for the front page or other pages. Patterns include designs for featured items with an image, heading, paragraph and button, a testimonials section, multiple hero patterns, call-to-action patterns, and more.

When you install and activate the theme for the first time, you get all of the layouts in place, including the front page. This makes it easy for users to get started by simply replacing the content or rearranging it to suit their unique needs. Check out the demo to see approximately how it will look once installed.

Björk was built using Norén’s Davis Blocks theme as a foundation, the same framework used to build Poe, his last release. It’s a small package, with just 500 lines of CSS and no JavaScript.

Björk is available to download for free on WordPress.org or via the “Add New” themes screen in the admin.

“The Site Editor has really come a long way in a short amount of time,” Norén said. “The most noticeable difference is that I’m having a lot more fun building block themes now compared to when I released Tove, my first block theme, a year ago. With the features coming in WordPress 6.1 in October, it’s only up from here.”