I've been building a news and magazine theme called Acta Cosmica, and it's now available in two versions: Astro and Ghost. Here's an overview of each, and where to get them.
The Idea Behind Acta Cosmica
Inspired by National Geographic, Acta Cosmica is designed for online publishers, independent journalists, niche digital newsrooms, and content-driven media brands who want to publish with the polish of a real newsroom and convert readers into loyal subscribers and members.
I started with the Astro version, then converted it into a native Ghost theme so subscriber conversion is built on Ghost's own memberships, comments, and newsletters instead of bolted on after the fact.
Acta Cosmica for Astro
The original build was made with Astro 7. It's a fully static, SEO-ready theme with a config-driven category system: you can swap the demo's science/nature sections for your own beats by editing a single data file, no template changes required. Each category automatically gets its own subcategory filter chips, and the homepage's spotlight rows can be reordered or reassigned the same way.
Photos get automatic WebP conversion and responsive srcset sizing, so there's no manual resizing as you publish. Articles are managed through Astro Content Collections with schema-validated Markdown, and the nav, footer, authors, categories, and About-page copy all live in editable TypeScript data files rather than component code.
Design-wise, it leans into an editorial broadsheet look: warm cream backgrounds against near-black ink, a single configurable accent color, Archivo for display type, and Newsreader (a literary serif) for body copy. It ships with a full page set, homepage, category pages, article pages, author profiles, a writers directory, About, Membership, Contact, Search (with weighted fuzzy matching and a ⌘K shortcut), saved stories, an account page, legal pages, and a custom 404.
Built on Astro 7, Tailwind CSS v4, TypeScript, and vanilla JS, with no client-side JS framework required.
Desktop screenshots for Acta Cosmica
View the Astro theme · Live demo
Be sure to select the “Astro Theme“ version before checkout.
Acta Cosmica for Ghost
The Ghost conversion keeps the same photo-forward storytelling and typographic design, but wires everything into Ghost 5.0.0+, so membership, comments, search, and newsletters all run natively instead of needing to be wired up separately.
What makes it stand out:
- Fully configurable category system — categories are Ghost tags; nav, footer, and homepage spotlight rows are driven by theme settings and Ghost's navigation, no template edits needed
- Native Ghost membership & paywall — free/members-only/paid post gating with a branded subscribe CTA; tier pricing pulls live from Settings > Membership
- Native comments, search, and newsletters — Ghost's built-in commenting, a custom weighted full-text search overlay (⌘K shortcut), and newsletter signup wired to Ghost's newsletter feature
- Full Koenig editor card support — bookmark, gallery, callout, toggle, button, header cards, plus a fully custom before/after image-comparison card
- Reader UX extras — a reading progress bar, a writers directory with live story counts, and a branded 404 page
Pages included: homepage (hero, latest-stories rail, category spotlight rows, photo-of-the-day, Editor's Pick/Most Read), article page with paywall CTA and related stories, membership page with live tier pricing, writers directory, category/tag archives, author profiles, branded 404, and legal pages.
Built on: Ghost 5.0.0+, Tailwind CSS v4, Google Fonts (Archivo + Newsreader), hand-tuned inline SVG icons, vanilla JS, and SEO via Ghost's own {{ghost_head}} output.
Be sure to select the “Ghost Theme’ version before checkout.
