In Inspiration, Tips, Tutorials Nov 10, 2008139

How I Learned To Build WordPress Themes

Picture your finished custom wordpress theme live on your server, completely unique and fresh. By the time you have finished reading the resources in this post that scenario will be a reality. People love custom themes, they make a blog come to life with a personality of its own. It’s no secret that they’ll reward it you for it through links, subscriptions and bookmarks.

Theme Design Lessons

How To Create A WordPress Theme From Scratch

Good walk through in detail on creation of themes.

The 5 Minute Theme

Fast way of making simple a simple wp theme.

Turn Any Web Template Into a Theme

This flash tutorial shows how to turn any web page into a wordpress theme. The flash movie is pretty distorted but gives a good idea of what can be achieved.

Mocking Up a Theme In Photoshop

A bit of self promotion! This tutorial shows how to mock up a modern theme in photoshop.

16 Lessons On Theme Creation

Covers all bases in detail, really comprehensive lessons on all aspects of WordPress theme creation from header to footer!

4 Step Theme Design Guide

Part 1 – Pulling it apart; Part 2 – Complete design, header, and footer; Part 3 – The sidebar; Part 4 – The content.

Basic Intoduction To Themes

Good post breaking down how the themes work for those new to WordPress.

Offical WordPress Documentation

The WordPress.org Codex with theme design documentation.

WordPress Templates For Redesign

Premium Theme Design with Thesis

Want a head start in your new theme design? Thesis will cost you $87 but it been typeset extremely well and is simple to customise the design for stunning results quickly. You’ll save the purchase price in design time with Thesis. (disclosure: URL contains our affiliate tracker)

Create Flexible Themes

Free to use selection of WordPress themes, good for customization.

100 Free Templates

Helpful Software and Cheats

Theme Editor For Dreamweaver

Now when you open a wordpress theme in Dreamweaver the whole thing is visable – legend.

Inspiration

We Love WP!

Showcase of WordPress powered websites.

Ready Made Swatches

Great selection of swatch and color scheme ready to choose from.

CSS Galleries

Go to the bottom of this post for links to lots of CSS galleries for design inspiration.

Freebies

Free Stock Images

381k free images, an awesome free collection.

Creative Commons Images at Flickr

50 million plus creative commons images for use, make sure to check the iicences for usage permissions.

Basic Theme Creator

Basic online theme design tool, change the element color in real time then save your theme.

More Theme Resouces

40 more resource links for WordPress theme design.

Free Social Icons

Free social icons to use on your blog.

Validation and Testing

w3c Validation Service

Well know and classic, but worth a mention.

Cross Browser Checking

View screenshots of your finished theme in all the browsers.

139 Comments

  • Max
    Nov 10, 2008
    Some extremly useful stuff here, wonder what theme dreamer is like! , thesis is defiantly a cool theme.
  • Dainis Graveris
    Nov 10, 2008
    oh, I am so glad to see this list – I wanted to do this work for myself, but You saved me time :) )

    bookmarked! :)

  • Renkai
    Nov 10, 2008
    Thanks this is really a great list.
  • Celebx
    Nov 10, 2008
    This is the best “how to make a wordpress theme?” list ever!

    Thanks!

    And we are still waiting for your “Premium WordPress Theme Design Part 2″ post.
    :)

  • tim
    Nov 10, 2008
    @ Celebx – don’t worry part 2 will be coming soon!
  • r0bin
    Nov 10, 2008
    Nice post, you showed me definitely some useful resources I didn’t know about.
  • Susan
    Nov 10, 2008
    This is an awesome list. I’m surprised that on the “free list” that new-wordpress-themes.net isn’t listed!
  • David Hellmann
    Nov 10, 2008
    great post :)
  • Tanya
    Nov 10, 2008
    inspiring – i can hardly wait until I can design something unique for my blog, thank you!
  • uokesita
    Nov 10, 2008
    Hi all…
    i wanna recomend the screencast of css-tricks
  • Farid Hadi
    Nov 11, 2008
    Thanks for a great list of resources.
    I personally learned how to build WP themes through WPDesigner (http://www.wpdesigner.com/). Some pretty decent tutorials over there for those new to WP.
  • Jorn
    Nov 11, 2008
    That is simply awesome. I found your blog through Digg and I love it. Added to RSS feed and can hardly wait on part 2. When I get home this part is going to be dealt with. Thanks again!
  • Ari Lestariono
    Nov 11, 2008
    I’ll bookmarked this site and learn more deeply of wordpress.good site
  • Mohsen
    Nov 11, 2008
    Also check table of content of wordpress tutorials
    http://acomment.net/table-of-contents-of-wordpress-tutorials-helps-tips-and-tricks/4
  • WP Junkie
    Nov 11, 2008
    WOW! This is a great list of resources! Thanks a lot as I know a lot of people will benefit from this including myself.
  • TV Guide
    Nov 11, 2008
    Thanks, I was just starting to take a look at creating my own WP theme so your article is very timely.
  • Mark
    Nov 11, 2008
    Thanks, Great post.
  • alex
    Nov 11, 2008
    Thanks this is really a great list.
  • Arjen
    Nov 11, 2008
    Nice list of some very good resources. I’m currently building my own wordpress theme, so it will really help me!
  • Joe | A New Band A Day.com
    Nov 11, 2008
    Great resource- thanks very much. I’m currently re-vamping my site (using Blogger) and am getting a bit frustrated with it! I’ll be changing to WordPress in the furture, no dout, and this is going to make it much easier – thans!
  • Alex s
    Nov 11, 2008
    my friend just now suggested me your website to learn WP customization ,Seems that i’m in the right place! you rock, congrats.
  • Matt
    Nov 11, 2008
    Incredible, who would know how many things you can show people, and encourage them to do unbelivable thing using Photoshop and Notepad :)

    Yeah, WP is cool :)

  • Leandro
    Nov 11, 2008
    Great tips! tks a lot!
  • WatchDoit
    Nov 11, 2008
    Great Post, we have a WordPress of our own, there some major things you talked about that we can use in our post. Great Jobs and Thanks!
  • Tom Ross
    Nov 11, 2008
    Amazing list! Quite a lot of reading to get through, but thanks so much for sharing :)
  • Pothi Kalimuthu
    Nov 11, 2008
    Thanks a lot for this wonderful list. I was about to start building a wp theme on my own. You saved a good amount of my time in searching the resources.
  • wordpress themes
    Nov 12, 2008
    Nice list of some very good resources. I’m currently building my own wordpress theme, so it will really help me!
  • erichansa
    Nov 12, 2008
    After making the theme, countering endless bug submissions from the users is a major challenge.
  • Mike
    Nov 12, 2008
    All around awesome and very comprehensive post. I’ve been checking for some new stuff here now and then and this is the best as of late.

    I also love WP and design all my sites in it; as a CMS or Blog it has such a wide scope of use.

    I’m not sure if I glossed over but by far the most helpful tutorial that got my WP skills moving was by Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks. He has a three part screencast that is fantastic – first one I actually committed and stuck with and I learned a ton.

  • Thomas
    Nov 13, 2008
    Thanks for this article
  • Keith
    Nov 13, 2008
    Brilliant piece of helpful article for a good headstart to create a WordPress theme. Of course other things such as CSS tricks and AJAX can come into play when users are more familiar with coding. Great!
  • Dicky
    Nov 13, 2008
    Great resources! I believe you had put a lot of effort to compile the list.

    Thanks.

  • DreamweaverSpot
    Nov 14, 2008
    Wow, great tutorial. I will be using these methods asap. Thank you.
  • Cel
    Nov 15, 2008
    This is amazingly helpful (especially as I’m trying to do this right now, and I feel a bit over my head). But I second (third?_ the screencasts at CSS-Tricks.

    And Thematic would be nice here too. ;D

  • Paddy
    Nov 16, 2008
    What a great list! I’ve been creating wordpress themes for a little while now and i’m always up for learning new tricks. Cheers!
  • Amy
    Nov 17, 2008
    Cool stuff!

    Amy

    http://www.wan2design.co.uk

  • Submit Wordpress Themes
    Nov 17, 2008
    very useful post, great to see some nice theme editing tutorials. thanx
  • Mel
    Nov 19, 2008
    Ah an amazing list of resources. If only I had the time. Do you ever wish there were about 10 more hours in a day? I get quite obsessive when I start learning and tweaking with this stuff. Anyone else have that trouble?
    “yes yes i’ll make dinner when i’ve got this sidebar code sorted darling..”
  • Bunny got Blog
    Nov 20, 2008
    This is a very helpful post.
    Thanks for writing it.
  • Freddy
    Nov 24, 2008
    Great Post! I can just imagine all the work that was put forth to write it.

    I have just a simple approach. Design in Illustrator, code HTML in Dreamweaver, and then replace HTML with WordPress snippets using a Dreamweaver plugin.

    I will definitely be bookmarking this post.

  • Ben
    Dec 2, 2008
    Wow very informative thank you very much. They look very professional.
  • Nicole
    Dec 2, 2008
    Can’t wait til the 2nd part of the tutorial! Thank you for the great post!!
  • Paul
    Dec 3, 2008
    Ah, I wish I’d have seen this before embarking on designing our own WordPress based blog!
    Good work
  • Zach Dunn
    Dec 5, 2008
    I actually ended up using about 50% of these tutorial links when learning WordPress. Unfortunately as comprehensive the WordPress codex is, it didn’t really pull things together like the blogs.

    Great post!

  • dean nolan
    Dec 15, 2008
    I’m glad I came across this list. I am just about to start learning how to customise Wrdpress and so this is great.

    Thanks

    Dean Nolan

  • E-maniacs
    Dec 17, 2008
    Great list of resources.

    Thanks

  • tasarhane
    Jan 20, 2009
    very helpful post.. thanks..
  • Evan Skuthorpe Web Design
    Feb 12, 2009
    Not a bad article. Thanks.
  • dyoonet
    Feb 19, 2009
    Fantastic article. Thanks so much! :)
  • Shageevan
    Feb 21, 2009
    Thank you very much for your tutorials. I was searching tutorials like these AIO.
  • Mhane
    Feb 23, 2009
    Very useful!
    thanks for the tutorial!
    :)
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  • Ady Levy
    Mar 2, 2009
    Thanks so much for the post.
  • Ady Levy
    Mar 2, 2009
    10x,
    Just what i was looking for :)
  • SawHtoo
    Mar 10, 2009
    Thanks for your great effort. This is really a great list.
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    Apr 22, 2009
    Thanks. There are some very useful sites here. Great post for beginners!
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    Jun 5, 2009
    I loved it so much I bookmarked it, subscribed to it and emailed it! This is just a variety of information packed into one post.
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    Aug 11, 2009
    love the theme and finally a blog where the font is not burning into my eyes.
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    Sep 26, 2009
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    Oct 8, 2009
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    Oct 22, 2009
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    Dreamweaver has been my personal goto program for years. I really do not know what I would do without it. There were times when I first started off working with the program, and I thought it was way too complicated. Now I fly around it, and it has become an asset in my tool box. Anyway thank you for the post.
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    Mar 19, 2010
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    Mar 20, 2010
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    Apr 30, 2010
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    May 1, 2010
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    ???? ????????
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    Jun 8, 2010
    Dude, thank you so much. This is perfect for me. I’m getting into WordPress themes and this collection of links will come in use.

    Going into my bookmarks! =)

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  • Jamika Capan
    Jun 27, 2010
    like your site will visit again
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    Jun 28, 2010
    really helpful
  • Thai Amulet
    Jul 6, 2010
    Thanks this is really a great list.
    I’ll bookmarked this site and learn more deeply of wordpress.good site
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    Jul 20, 2010
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  • laiptai
    Aug 18, 2010
    Great themes! I’m going to test most of them on my wp blog.
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    Sep 2, 2010
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    Oct 30, 2010
    You you should edit the blog title How I Learned To Build WordPress Themes | Design Reviver to more specific for your content you write. I loved the blog post however.
  • John p. peter
    Nov 4, 2010
    helpful Post. thank for information.
  • John Kardner
    Nov 8, 2010
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  • Bigboy
    Nov 10, 2010
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  • priest
    Nov 21, 2010
    i still have problems ub designing my own wprdpress themes, even my newest site relies on a free own due to time issues.
  • Rachel Mckiernan
    Dec 3, 2010
    The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man”George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish playwright and critic”
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  • ilhan
    Jan 2, 2011
    i appreciate your works, even through i’m in Turkey=) i was going to ask some help from u, i lost my files of theme, i recovered style.css and images, but i need index.php , footer,php, header.php, and u know..can u help me rebuild my theme please..?
  • Amulets
    Jan 23, 2011
    Very good and informative article here. I bookmarked this page to read it again.
  • webdesigner
    May 28, 2011
    cool.thanks
  • The Printing Well
    Jun 22, 2011
    Hi ! Thanks for taking time to share this detailed information on how to build wordpress themes. Truly Impressing!

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