I’ve been using some very nice (I think) themes from very creative developers in the WordPress community.  They all have had some design component that I really like, maybe the full use of space on one, the clean uncluttered look of another, the graphics on a third, the font/type/CSS creativity of a fourth, and so on.

However, I’ve not found that one theme that I can be happy with and just leave alone.  Sure, I could hire a professional designer to create a real professional theme just for my site, but I can’t justify paying a couple thousand for a good design.  Not that they are not worth the money, I just am too cheap to do it.

The nice thing about all these different themes that I’ve tried or tested, is that I’ve learned a lot about CSS and a little about PHP.  Each one has taught me a little more about how to manipulate each section, where to place an add, how to wrap objects in the proper tags, and much more.

So with that said, I’m going to start work on my first custom WordPress theme, complete with custom graphics designed by yours-truly.  Though, the graphic part is probably the only area that anyone should be worried about – I’m not a graphical designer, nor played one on TV – :).  It might look really bad – guess we’ll find out.

So, in short, there may be a few posts focusing on the trials and tribulations of theme development as I blow off steam.  Or there may be cryptically giddy posts about something working.  Either way, I would really enjoy feedback about what your likes/dislikes about the sites you visit, or the themes/layouts that you use yourself and, of course, your opinion of how the new theme is turning out.

I’ll be developing the theme on a separate development blog that I’ll post about later, so it won’t effect the day-to-day usage of my main site.  Maybe from there I can work on a few others for another site or two I work with.

Thanks for stopping by today!