Buy used:
$9.99
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
to get FREE delivery Tuesday, November 5. Order within 29 mins
Or Non members get FREE delivery Friday, November 8 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Used: Acceptable | Details
Sold by -OnTimeBooks-
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comment: Shipped fast and reliably through the Amazon Prime program! Book may contain some writing, highlighting, and or cover damage.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Tessa Blakeley Silver
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Wordpress Theme Design: A Complete Guide to Creating Professional Wordpress Themes Paperback – May 31, 2008

by Tessa Blakeley Silver (Author)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 34 ratings
See all formats and editions

In Detail

This title will take you through the ins and outs of creating sophisticated professional themes for the WordPress personal publishing platform. It will walk you through clear, step-by-step instructions to build a custom WordPress theme. From development tools and setting up your WordPress sandbox, through design tips and suggestions, to setting up your theme's template structure, coding markup, testing and debugging, to taking it live it reviews the best practices. The last three chapters are dedicated to additional tips, tricks and various cookbook recipes for adding popular site enhancements to your WordPress theme designs using third-party plugins.

Whether you're working with a pre-existing theme or creating a new one from the ground up, WordPress Theme Design will give you the know-how to understand how themes work within the WordPress blog system, enabling you to take full control over your site's design and branding.

What you will learn from this book?

  • Set up a basic workflow and development environment for WordPress theme design
  • Create detailed designs and code them up
  • Enhance your sites by choosing the right color schemes and graphics
  • Debug and validate your theme using W3C's XHTML and CSS validation tools
  • Customize and tweak your theme's layout
  • Set up dynamic drop-down menus, AJAX/dynamic and interactive forms
  • Download and install useful plug-ins and widgetize your theme
  • Improve post and page content using jQuery and ThickBox
  • Add interactivity to your themes using Flash
  • Includes a reference guide to WordPress 2.0's template hierarchy, markup, styles and template tags, as well as include and loop functions

Approach

Theme design can be approached from two angles. The first is simplicity; sometimes it suits the client and/or the site to go as bare-bones as possible. In that case, it's quick and easy to take a very basic, pre-made theme and modify it.

The second is "Unique and Beautiful". Occasionally, the site's theme needs to be created from scratch so that everything displayed caters to the specific kind of content the site offers. This book is going to take you through the Unique and Beautiful route with the idea that once you know how to create a theme from scratch, you'll be more apt at understanding what to look for in other WordPress themes.

Who this book is written for?

This book can be used by WordPress users or visual designers (with no server-side scripting or programming experience) who are used to working with the common industry-standard tools like PhotoShop and Dreamweaver or other popular graphic, HTML, and text editors.

Regardless of your web development skill-set or level, you'll be walked through the clear, step-by-step instructions, but familiarity with a broad range of web development skills and WordPress know-how will allow you to gain maximum benefit from this book.

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    211 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Packt Pub Ltd
  4. Publication date
    May 31, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    7.5 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1847193099
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1847193094
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tessa Blakeley Silver

Tessa Blakeley Silver's background is in print design and traditional illustration. She evolved over the years into web and multi-media development, where she focuses on usability and interface design. Prior to starting her consulting and development company hyper3media (pronounced hyper-cube media) hyper3media.com, Tessa was the VP of Interactive Technologies at eHigherEducation, an online learning and technology company developing compelling multimedia simulations, interactions, and games that met online educational requirements like 508, AICC, and SCORM. She has also worked as a consultant and freelancer for J. Walter Thompson and The Diamond Trading Company (formerly known as DeBeers) and was a Design Specialist and Senior Associate for PricewaterhouseCoopers' East Region Marketing department. Tessa authors several design and web technology blogs. Joomla! Template Design is her first book.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Packt Pub Ltd (May 31, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 211 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1847193099
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1847193094
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 34 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Tessa Blakeley Silver

Tessa Blakeley Silver

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
34 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Gen of North Coast Gardening
5.0 out of 5 stars Not for the abject beginner, but a fantastic reference as I learn
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2008
Verified Purchase
I bought a premium Wordpress Theme and just wanted to learn how to tweak it a bit. I also wanted some basic familiarity with some of the language used and techniques in theme design.

From my total beginner stance, it seems like this is meant for people who are really great at coding and want to make themes from scratch, and it looks very thorough to me.

But I'm finding it a great occasional reference for when I want to do something and the internet is failing at teaching me. I have to sit down and really concentrate, and look up a lot of words, but it's simple enough that anyone truly motivated could learn to customize their theme nicely, and get a lot of background info at the same time.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
The Dude
5.0 out of 5 stars I Was Able to create a theme using this book
Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 2009
Verified Purchase
Very good tutorials on wordpress theme design. I was able to create my own WP theme for a client by reading this book. Very informative. Good screen shots and code samples for beginners.
Helpful
 Report
James Sterling
2.0 out of 5 stars All the information with too much chat
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2008
Verified Purchase
*WordPress: Theme Design* has a lot of very useful information, but you have to wade through an awful lot of the Tessa Blakely Silver's opinions and her obvious irritation with her clients in order to get to it. It would benefit from a layout in which her side comments were kept on the sidelines (so you could skip them).

If you are looking for a beginning book on CSS, you would do better to look at *Stylin' for the Web*, by Charles Wyke-Smith and just skip the CSS section here. As for setting up the PHP code in your WordPress pages, I am no expert, but I am willing to bet that someone has done it better. The presentation of the material is not well organized.

This book would be improved if the text were pruned by at least 1/3, with all the chat eliminated and the text edited for logical flow. If you can get it cheap or from your public library, get it; but it's definitely not worth $40.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
SuzyQ
3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2009
Verified Purchase
I find this book a bit boasting of what the author did, not really helpful in designing my own theme. I was expecting more how to and less "look at what I did". The "follow along" instructions were a tutorial on how to design a website. I already know how to do that, I wanted something on the css and php of the WordPress application, without having to read the learn to be a website designer.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jeffrey A. White
1.0 out of 5 stars A Complete Guide? I think not
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2009
Verified Purchase
This is by no-means a complete guide to Theme Design for WordPress. It's a good book for beginners but most web designers have previous knowledge before they start designing themes for WordPress. What noob to web design is going to start by creating themes for WordPress? The whole "design approach" section is a complete waste of time. The book glances over a few core topics for creating themes, but doesn't go in-depth at all. I've found better tutorials on blogs or online forums. If you're looking for a more complete book for WordPress theme design I recommend "How to be a Rockstar WordPress Designer". [...] I found it to go further in depth and teach some unique functions that help create original themes.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Michael McKee
4.0 out of 5 stars An Extended WordPress Theme Tutorial
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2008
WordPress Theme Design is a short book, 204 pages and offers an experience very much like that given by the Peachpit Press' Visual QuickProject Series. This is not a definitive guide to WordPress theming. Tessa Silver walks us through the creation of a WordPress theme intended for a monthly magazine site. As much CMS/beyond-the-blog flexibility of WordPress needs to be implemented by creative theming, this project offers an insight into how to customize WordPress for sites other than plain vanilla blogs. WordPress core features like "the loop," are mentioned but we are referred to the WordPress Codex documentation for more information. That's pretty much the way the book works, features or concepts, such as the loop or drop down menus are discussed, but for expanded explanations we are pointed to external web documentation.

The writing is clear and conversational and is targeted towards someone with a reasonable grounding in HTML and CSS, I'd say advanced novice to early intermediate. Those without an understanding of HTML will find it over their heads. A very basic understand of PHP syntax is also helpful. Except for WordPress specific code, experienced, standards aware coders will find much of the material pretty basic. Ms. Silver does create her design with modern web standards best practices, which she describes in a standards based context. The theme we create by following the tutorial is functional and illustrates some of WordPress' advanced capabilities, which can be accessed only through clever theming. Basic SEO is mentioned, and some advanced WordPress plug-ins and capabilities are briefly covered.

Chapter 6 offers a short overview of WordPress functions and a nice template tag reference. In Chapter 2, Silver offers brief descriptions describing her design workflow process and some of the tools she uses. In chapters 3-5 we create the basic theme and are introduced to WordPress themeing conventions. Chapters 7-9 briefly discuss some advanced WordPress capabilities, mostly gained through the use of plug-ins and widgets.
60 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Mr. T. R. Saint
3.0 out of 5 stars High expectations
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 23, 2009
Verified Purchase
I purchased this book with high expectations. But gradually whilst skimming through the pages I found that a large portion of the book is showing you how to use css and xhtml, along with drop down menus etc.

I had hoped that more information was available about using wordpress rather than teaching you css and xhtml. There are a few tips that are useful, but I would not recommend this book to anyone with xhtml and css skills already looking to work with wordpress.

A book more focused towards teaching you wordpress functions for theme design etc might be more advisable.
Report
GS
4.0 out of 5 stars Handier than trying to google the answers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 10, 2012
Verified Purchase
I've been tinkering with Wordpress theme designs on and off for some time, my normal course of action was to look up a few hints and tips online then try to translate them into the project I was working on. But doing this you always miss out on a vital bit of information which can prove rather important in the end ;-) This book gives you all the info you need to create your own Wordpress theme from scratch. No flipping back and forth between tabs on the browser as you work, the book is right there telling you how to proceed. It's probably not a beginners book, as in you should really have an idea about design before you start, but if you are a beginner it will at least point you in the right direction ;-)
Report