From Mockup to Code

  • Alas, dear friends, my blog is ugly. I started working on my design skills to remedy the situation, and have finally managed to design a…uhm, less ugly replacement. Of course, you know where this goes next:

    My coding skills suck also. Do any of you have any resources you can direct me to so that I can learn how to take my mockup and code it out to a fully functional wordpress theme?

    I know there are people who can do it for me, but that kinda ruins the fun and kills the shoestring (read as nonexistent) budget. Cheers!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Cathy Mitchell

    (@multitalentedmommy)

    I’ve been spending <b>months</b> doing the same thing. My advice is to find a wp theme that functions they way you’d like and change the design. Learn css (design and placement language)- it is easy. And you can re-arrange your functions (wp theme) into whatever prettiness suits you! I’ve learned html, css, and now I even have to figure out javascript because I did NOT follow this advice! I coded my own, and now I have to learn how to get it to function like i’d like – which is a ton of different things to different browsers. My best advice – stick with css! I had that figured out months ago!

    When I was learning CSS, I found the WestCiv online tutorials really useful. The free stuff was sufficient to ground me in the basics.

    Most of the redesign you’ll do with a theme is CSS related. That’s where you should focus on if your CSS skills are not strong. But you will probably also want to learn about WordPress templates eventually as well…

    Thread Starter jongreene

    (@jongreene)

    Yeah…I should mention that I’m pretty well versed on how to carve up the CSS to get it to do what I want. The problem that I have is that I want to move beyond that and begin to create templates from scratch. I have a solid graphical mockup. What I need to learn is how to chop it up and code it to end up looking like the mockup on the live site.

    Ah. Well, I always begin with the default Kubrick theme because it’s well-vetted, and alter it until I get what I want. I’ve never developed a theme from scratch, although I’ve often altered Kubrick so completely that it’s not the same theme at all anymore.

    Cathy Mitchell

    (@multitalentedmommy)

    Yep, I started into html and js to do the same thing, jongreene. WordPress themes seem to me to be a combo of html, and php template tags – so that you don’t have to learn php. Start with the template heirarchy instructions to begin altering your templates. A list of individual template tags is here. Here are theme development resources. It’s helpful if we have a specific question to answer when you come to the forums.

    good luck! ??

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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