I have officially started but can I just say designing your own Wordpress theme is actually pretty hard. I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy or anything but it takes a lot of work. There are a few major steps and I’m not even close to being done with the first part – the design portion of it.
Last week I asked you guys, Do You Prefer One, Two, Three or Four Column Blog Templates? I was asking because I kind of wanted you guys’ opinions on what I should do with my first Wordpress theme that I’m designing. After looking through the comments, it seems as though the majority favors three column templates with two columns coming in at a close second.
A few liked one column and someone (or a couple) mentioned a four column template. Well, I went with the majority and started my first design as a three column template.
Right now, it doesn’t look like anything special. You can check out the screenshot below on the beginning portion of my first Wordpress design. (Click on the image to see the full size)
Like I said, it doesn’t look like anything special right now. Matter of fact, the final design probably won’t look anything like what you see from the screenshot. I’m just going over some tutorials just to get the feel on how a typical Wordpress theme design is supposed to be like. Once I get all of that down, I’m going to change things to get it how I want it to be.
As you can see from the screenshot, I’m using Photoshop to design my Wordpress theme. This is probably the best program to use to design just about anything. This is the same program I use to design my banner designs. And if you ask any designer (no matter if they design websites, blog templates, logos, mascots, whatever), I bet you they will tell you Photoshop is the main program they use.
You know what the sad part is? The design portion is supposed to be the easy part of creating your own Wordpress theme. The next few steps after you finish designing the layout is to slice it all up so you can have all the pieces to put together when you code it. The coding is the final step and I believe its going to be the hardest for me because I’m an amateur when it comes to CSS.
I know a lot of HTML already and see a lot of similarities but its different. I mean, if it was the same, then one wouldn’t be called “CSS” and the other “HTML”.
For the record, “CSS” stands for “Cascading Style Sheets” and “HTML” stands for “Hyper Text Markup Language”. Or at least that’s what I think it means. 
So, this is just a quick update on designing my own Wordpress theme from scratch. And can I just say that it’s very time consuming!
Jay, I’m not a designer as you well know and I haven’t actually used the them section of the following website, but there are some blank templates listed on it which may you out. Regardless there are some great other resources on it not just the them sources.
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/300-resources-to-help-you-become-a-wordpress-expert/
Bruce´s last blog ..Improving Efficiency
Oh yes, I would imagine that designing a Wordpress theme is not easy. But hey, if you come up with something really good that people are more than willing to pay for then you have got yourself another revenue stream. All the best with your design and I hope it works out well for you. Please do update us with your progress.
Gerri – Ninety Nine Ways´s last blog ..The Ninety Nine Ways Relaunch Contest – More Than $900 in Prizes to be Won!
Designing Wordpress theme’s from scratch, yes it would be a hell of a ride and I hope you enjoy the experience.
I’ve been using thematic theme as the base and creating child themes from my original designs. Done it for quite a few clients and would soon implement on Archon Digital.
archondigital´s last blog ..Dazed and Confused
Bruce – That is a very helpful post for me. I never even heard of that site until now and yes, I should be checking out all of those resources. Thanks man!
Gerri – More than likely my first theme that I come out with will be free for download. I’m not going to charge for the first few until I get the hang of it. Once I get the real feel for it then I’ll try to create some premium themes and charge a cheap fee or whatever.
We’ll see what happens though.
Archondigital – So, you just customize the thematic theme or something to fit your needs and stuff?
I just wanted to start from scratch because I’m a hands on person and I learn better doing it on my own. We’ll see what happens when I get to the cutting and coding lol.
Jay
Why you want to design from scratch..You can take any open source theme and modify its css only with php tags. That would be a lot faster
sachi´s last blog ..Hunter Douglas Blinds
Jay, yes, it will take time to design a wordpress theme, or UDB will have no business to deal with. I will keep learning some CSS and PHP in order to improve my blog design.
Young´s last blog ..Top 10 Websites to Download Music for Free (No BT)
Hi Jay!
I am not programmer tell you anything on that. But all I can say is that, though it might take time, but just do it once & you will become much more superior & faster than that. All the best!
Chris Peterson´s last blog ..How To Become A Better Entrepreneur?
I have never use word press theme but i have seen word press screen which look so difficult to design, I appreciate who designed them.
Wow this seems like a ton of work!
yeah dude, i know how it is
I am still developing a wordpress theme! months now!!
vishalhd´s last blog ..HavocDynamics Is Fixed.
Yes its true, designing your own wordpress theme is hard. When I first coded my own wordpress theme, I didn’t really have any php experience, but my experience in programing from high school in java and C++ helped me alot and I was able to look at other themes, and code from there as examples. The hardest part for me was the photoshop and design areas.
Till then,
Jean
I think designing blog theme is time consuming. I am just using free template from eblogtemplate. I think the template that I am using is very nice.
Well thank you for sharing your information.
Legitimate work at home jobs´s last blog ..Increase instant backlink of your work at home blog
I think this is easy for me hehehe. Whats that tool? i have been working with designs and codes for quite a while now and this is very interesting.
Thematic is more like a theme framework and can help you get up to speed production wise. Child themes can be made from your own CSS and graphic design and that would still make it original.
Making a Wordpress theme from scratch would take you up another level and I do suggest you learn it and have a great time doing so.
archondigital´s last blog ..A Dozen Drafts But Still Nothing Posted
@Jewelry …. It is photoshop, just click on the image and enlarge it and you will see it more clearly!
Till then,
Jean
It seems a lot of hard work really but it is worth investing time for it. Because once you learn it you can enjoy later – you can really better yourself and become an Wordpress designing expert. Later you can give out free templates and collect some valuable links too. Please keep on posting updates to this issue so that I can also learn with you.
Get a flat stomach´s last blog ..3 STEPS TO GETTING A FLAT TONED STOMACH
I agree with you that not easy to create your own Wordpress template. Even if creating a template is as easy as ABC, I will not spending my time to create one. My reason as below:
1.There are so many free professional template available.
2.Too much time wasted and possibly losing focus on our main objective ‘blogging’
Anyway, good luck with your own template. Cann’t wait for your new template to be live.
Online Money´s last blog ..Work at home money