[Lynne]

They are just using the 1x2 column setup, no widgets, and custom css for the background (sample below). There is no mod that I have seen, you would just need to play with the template/css.

.bg-vignette {
  background-image:url(http://destinyhub.net/images/destinyhub/articles/bg-vignette.png);
  background-size:100%;
  position:relative;
  width:100%;
}