A great book for wordpress theme design

Posted by Andy Bailey at 17 June, 2008, 10:40 am
629 views


I bought a book recently after seeing it mentioned in the WP dashboard news items, it’s called Wordpress Theme Design by Tessa Blakeley Silver and although a lot of the information regarding the functions of wordpress can be found at the codex, the book gives you so much more like the process gone through to design a theme from scratch.

I do quite a lot of sites in wordpress now and find it much easier to provide a client with a website that can be updated so easily, a few plugins here and there and you can provide a website that does all and more that’s needed.

Usually I get a standard theme and cut it up a bit and change the css to give me my site, or create in photoshop and send off for wordpressing but lately due to some more custom design requests I’ve received and the always dependable mistakes that freelancers can make I have wanted to do the whole thing myself from scratch..

I’ve downloaded a tutorial before about WP theme design from small potato before it was taken over and that was pretty darn useful but was made a little while ago so it wasn’t 2.5 specific.

That’s why I like what Tessa has put her book, it takes you step by step through the process of creating a non-blog wordpress blog, from sketch to WP core code. It’s made a big difference to my initial prototyping of concept sites and has really opened my eyes to what you can do with a bit of manipulation of the wordpress template tags. I’m even working on a magazine style front page for here so I can have a featured post for contests that stays up while it’s open for entries as well as excerpts to the regular posts..

You can buy the book printed or get it as pdf for a bit cheaper (I printed mine out from pdf on someone elses printer lol!) at packet publishing

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Category : Reviews | Wordpress | books

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  • Comments

    Nicole Price (5 comments.) June 17, 2008

    A very useful and well written post. Thank you. I think that I shall get it as a pdf.

    Nicole Prices last blog post..Fashion Industry: Who’s The Most Influential and Powerful

    wiifunfit (1 comments.) June 17, 2008

    This is fantastic, I must get a copy. I have been wanting to learn how to build wp themes from scratch so great tip!

    Bobby Revell (34 comments.) June 18, 2008

    I’m not really ready for that yet because I’m just learning php. I know html and xhtml fairly well so I decided that php was the next logical choice. I’ve messed around with a little python and java, but am still just a beginner! I want a free pdf version…haha!

    Andy Bailey June 18, 2008

    nicole: hope you enjoy it, I did

    wiifunfit: :-)

    bobby: actually, this book presents in a way so that you don’t need to know php. I think you’d enjoy it!

    CVOS the man (4 comments.) June 18, 2008

    You can never have enough wordpress books. WP is the typewriter of the 20th century.

    CVOS the man (4 comments.) June 18, 2008

    Correction: 21st century.

    CVOS the mans last blog post..Making A Run For President

    Dennis Edell (21 comments.) June 20, 2008

    Is this targeting technical newbies? That be me lol.

    Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Turbo Writing Tips

    Andy Bailey June 20, 2008

    Dennis: You don’t really need to know any php for this, it gives you all the code to use for the case study in the book so I’d give it a go if I were you!

    Dennis Edell (21 comments.) June 20, 2008

    Thanks Andy!

    Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Turbo Writing Tips

    Jesse (1 comments.) June 21, 2008

    Great, i think i buy this book to i used to build my sites from scratch till i discovered wordpress now im just trying and adjusting themes but they are never like you want them to be!

    Opal @ Vegan Momma (35 comments.) June 21, 2008

    Oh great, another book to add to my collection. Thanks for mentioning it. I’ve been looking for something like this. I’ll definitely purchase it thanks for the writeup. :-)
    Opal @ Vegan Mommas last blog post..Hanging with Aiyana; Carnival fun

    Women (1 comments.) June 21, 2008

    Thanks Andy for very useful article . i will get this copy
    i am looking for good tutorials for creating cool wordpress themes for my blogs
    it will be very helpful for me since with this book we don’t even need to know php

    Andy Bailey June 21, 2008

    I have read the book through once cover to cover and now I’m going through it in front of the pc, it’s pretty darn good!

    Louise (5 comments.) June 25, 2008

    Thanks for the book tip. I’ve been thinking about getting into WP theme development but haven’t taken the plunge up to now. I am currently using the Semiologic Pro theme/system so it’s not very easy to change themes but maybe this book will give me the tools to at least tweak the theme myself.

    Louises last blog post..Red Lobster Recipes: Shrimp Scampi

    gadis (1 comments.) June 25, 2008

    thanks Andy, I need wp theme desing for my new blog. it will be very helpful for me

    gadiss last blog post..Miss Indonesia Universe 2008

    Bobby (1 comments.) June 26, 2008

    i think i must have it. how the cost of that book? is it free? :)

    Rick NHS (4 comments.) June 27, 2008

    I too have been creating more and more websites as of late using the WordPress format. I have very little coding knowledge though… would a novice like myself be able to use this book? I’d like to try making my own WP themes…

    Belajar (2 comments.) June 28, 2008

    This is great to create our own wp theme as it can give backlink to our site from the wp layout. I will get this!

    Belajars last blog post..Belajar |Learn SEO

    People Search (1 comments.) June 30, 2008

    a great book… a big help for a wp beginner users. I should have one. nice post! Thanks!

    Adrian (2 comments.) July 31, 2008

    Oh man i remember the first time I tried to make a wordpress theme, it took me all day just to figure out that the wordpress loop header.php and footer.php arrangement could not be changed. I of course tried to cram it all into one php file (im a freakin noob) anyway that was a long time ago haha but only if I had this book…..

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