I’m a fan of using WordPress to build custom websites. So I’ve decided to start a tutorial series and share how I go about building a theme from scratch. No frameworks or starter themes.

The Sketch

Sketch of the theme's design
The layout sketch

Before even setting up my development environment I sketch a very basic layout for my theme. In this series we’ll use a simple layout that includes the following areas.

  • Site header & a primary navigation menu
  • Content area
  • Footer with secondary sidebar menu and a dynamic sidebar for widgets

The Outline

At any point you can review download or clone the repository which will possibly be a step or two ahead of the most recent post in the series.

All content will be offered free as in free beer as well as free software. The theme template files for Scratch JD are licensed under GPL3 and all content in this tutorial series is provided under Creative Commons Zero / Public Domain.


CC0
To the extent possible under law, Joseph Dickson has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Building a WordPress Theme From Scratch. This work is published from: United States.