The weight of opinion seems to favour using custom post types instead of custom post formats.
I have several custom post types that I want to style in 4 different formats in a way that is not public ie not a category, tag or custom taxonomy.
Custom post formats would seem to provide an ideal solution for this – they’re built-in functionality, easily implemented, come with handy meta box, easily applied with conditional statements etc.
The major draw back being they are not readily customisable – I could rename them for the sake of clarity.
So given the prevailing thought, what would be a better approach to creating the same functionality.
You have several options here so I will clarify what you can do.
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Create a custom post type template page using something like single-customposttype.php and take advantage of the template hierarchy, http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy
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Use a conditional query for your styling in the loop ( or whatever you’re using), along the line of if (post type= your custom one) style it this way;. or use some other WordPress conditionals. http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query
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Use a taxonomy for back-end organization, custom taxonomies do not have to be public.
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Use post formats for your custom post type, CPT’s can support post-formats,
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/register_post_type
Most people go with option one, but it depends on what you’re trying to do.
