This is the Chapter II of the Complete WordPress Theme Guide series. This chapter will show you how to build a custom WordPress theme. Although the Codex site provides very good documentations on how to create a theme, but I find it too complicated for a beginner. In this tutorial, I will explain the basics of how WordPress theme works and show you how to convert a static HTML template into a theme. No PHP skill is required, but you need Photoshop and CSS skills to create your own design.

Before you start, let’s take a look at the WordPress default theme and see how it is structured. Take note of the elements (header, post title, search form, navigation, footer, etc.).

Based on the information gathered from the default theme, design a Photoshop mockup of your blog. Here I’m using GlossyBlue, one of my free WordPress themes, as an example. Download the demo.zip to see the Photoshop file.

After the PSD design is done, create a static HTML+CSS template of each page. You can use my GlossyBlue HTML files in the demo.zip to follow this tutorial. Extract the zip and take a look at the index.html, single.html, and page.html. Later in the tutorial, I will use these HTML files and convert them into a theme.