/Graphics/ Wordpress themes for designers
17/03/2009 | Filed under Develop > Graphics
It’s never been easier to power your website with WordPress. Elliot Jay Stocks explains how themes work, the simple way to edit them, and how to incorporate some basic plug-ins
In the last few years WordPress has grown from a simple blogging engine to one of the web’s favourite publishing tools. With its growing feature set and the recent improvements found in version 2.5, it’s now commonly used as a full-blown CMS. With the wealth of themes available for free on the internet (plus the growing popularity of paid-for ‘premium’ themes that include advanced, CMS-like functionality), it’s never been easier to use WordPress to power your website.
For many designers (including me), the idea of fiddling around with PHP isn’t in the least bit appealing. But don’t be put off! In this tutorial, aimed specifically at designers, I’ll be covering some basics and explaining why it’s not that scary to look under the hood. You’ll learn about the basic structure of a WordPress theme, how to manipulate the files to add your own customisation, how to incorporate some basic plug-ins, and where to take your skills next in order to create your own theme. We’ll even touch on how to use WordPress as a CMS while keeping the PHP to an absolute minimum.
About the author:
Name: Elliot Jay Stocks
Site: elliotjaystocks.com
Areas of expertise: Design, CSS, web standards, Photoshop
Clients: Blue Flavor, WordPress, The Beatles
What makes you angry? Unquestioning ignorance
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Comments
Peter / 08/04/2009 / 11:12 / http://hypotheeklenen.net
Elliot, great tutorial on Wordpress. I wanted to let you know revolutiontheme changes to studiopress not so long ago.
Rob / 26/05/2009 / 23:00 / http://www.onlinebingoclub.co.uk/
Its quite a steep learning curve still in my opinion, but as you say playing with already made templates teaches you a lot.
Lisa / 11/08/2009 / 09:10 / http://thebingofinder.co.uk
One of the most frustrating things is changing someone else's theme. Sheer frustration, i think it's best to get a designer on board if you're unsure...
Andy / 21/11/2009 / 00:29 / http://madaboutbingo.co.uk/
I have just moved over from a static html site which we had for 3 years to a wordpress theme and i agree with rob it has been a steep learning curve for us. However we brought in a web designer in and worked with him to build our site how we wanted.
