Review: WordPress Theme Design
I have designed plenty of sites around a content management system like WordPress, but I have never yet put together a theme for distribution or resale. Hot on the heels of the opening of ThemeForest, I thought it would be a good time to delve into the world of WordPress theme design and packaging. For that reason I picked up Tessa Blakely Silver’s book – WordPress Theme Design: A complete guide to creating professional WordPress themes.
Who is the book written for?
The book explains the basic steps of creating a WordPress theme. While you are not going to find detailed descriptions of WordPress features and capabilities, you will find information on the development, creation, and enhancement of WordPress themes. It would be helpful if you have some experience with WordPress even if it’s just a few hours of ‘mucking about’, because the book assumes you somewhat familiar with the program.
What’s inside?
The book covers plenty of material in just over 200 pages. You will find chapters dealing with Getting Started, Coding, Troubleshooting, and Packaging your theme. There are so many topics discussed that you may sometimes feel that the book is trying to be all things to all people, at the expense of giving detailed information on any one topic. For example, the Reference Section is a nice idea but it is so limited, I don’t think you would end up using it.
Shaka, when the walls fell
Without sounding like too much of a geek, there is a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Captain Picard finds himself stranded on a planet where he has to learn an alien’s metaphorical language before they are overwhelmed by a horrible beast. Learning WordPress can be a little like learning a new language and it helps when the instructions stay focused and on topic.
In the case of this book, it does neither.
Tessa seems to talk at length about her views on design and development. For this reason I think the book gets off track. For example, there are several pages dedicated to how to make rounded corners and how to incorporate other design trends. I’m sorry but I didn’t buy this book to learn how to introduce the latest trends into my designs. Even Darmok and Jalad could not save me from the beast of this book.
My wife is continually frustrated by my need to watch to the end of even a very bad movie, I call it my “Starship Trooper condition”. I am the same way with books; I’ll keep reading a Ludlum book even though I know from page 20 how the book is going to end. It’s pretty rare that I will skim over large portions of text in a book, but in WordPress Themes I found myself doing exactly that.
I suppose you cannot lay the entire blame on the author as the editor has a responsibility to trim the fat, but overall the book just doesn’t deliver enough useful information to justify the $40 price tag.
Highlights
- The book can be used to hold down loose papers on your desk
Lowlights
- Tries to cover too much material in too little space
- Not much here that you won’t find with a Google search
Travis King is a freelance web designer with Green Tea Design. If you have a product or service you think Freelance Switch readers might be interested in, please email Travis at travis@greenteadesign.ca
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Good post. Do you know of books or blogs or any resource on how to monetize a wordpress blog. I’m trying to develop my blog as a small side project and learn how to make a liitle bit of income. I know advertising and asking for contributions is an option. But what are some others?
ZM
Wow, when I saw “when the walls fell”, I knew exactly what it was referring to.
I’ve had it on my Amazon wish list for a little while now. Almost put it in the shopping basket of my last order.
Glad I didn’t.
I was given this by a friend as an e-book resource when I started out learning wordpress and I agree with your review. There just isn’t enough detailed information.
I had more luck searching online for free tutorials and reading dedicated wordpress blogs with up-to-date techniques and plugins.
Not worth buying
Thanks for the honest review. It seems like writing a really good book on WordPress theming would be difficult since WP releases so many updates that sometimes change coding techniques, such as WP 2.7. Without a lot of concrete examples that can lead you through doing something specific with a theme I’m not sure I would find much value in any book on WordPress.
I am not agree.. with this book I learn a lot, actually I bought it after I downloaded it from the web.
here it is, give it a try before you buy it as I did. Its true that the book tries to cover too much material in too little space but there are a few things that you wont find in a google search, at least it wont be a quickly search if you find it.
cheers
here is the link, i almost forgot
http://www.freebooksportal.com/wordpress-theme-design-a-complete-guide-to-creating-professional-wordpress-themes/
Isn’t collis coming out with a WordPress book?
Hmm…
@Web Major – Yes he is
But this review was planned long before I knew about his book.
Thank you for sharing! I won’t buy this book!
Not only are some of the most important generalities skipped over in favour of currently-trendy specifics, this book suffers terribly from not having been proofread or copyedited. What information there is inside would have been more useful if delivered more coherently, and if I drop £15 on a book I expect it not to be riddled with grammatical errors and bad punctuation. As you say, I’d have been better spending the same money printing out a bunch of web articles. Still, you live and learn, I guess… at least I can write it off against my tax.
Thanks Travis,
After some experience modifying and customizing existing themes for clients I got curious about building my own theme from scratch and the title of the book really grabbed my attention. Sometimes I wonder if I’m ever going to buy another programming/design book retail since there is so much information out there on the web. (My 5th grade essay teacher was right though, make sure you use at least 3 reference sources!) WordPress is so flexible and changes so much that most books I’ve seen are obsolete by the time they hit the stores.
JennTip: You can learn a lot about building themes by installing a test blog on a subdomain of a site and trying different themes on for size.
Thanks everso for reviewing that book for us. I was actually on the look out for a book on WordPress Theme Design and this post popped up in my RSS that very day! So I’m glad I didn’t buy it.
Is there a book on WordPress theme design that you WOULD recommend? I’d like to make my own theme for the blog that i’ve got. I think it will give it a lot more character.
@dmk: here is a http://themetation.com/2008/07/14/how-to-create-wordpress-themes-from-scratch-part-1/ that will show you how to build a wordpress theme
Every little thing helps when finding information on WordPress. Most can be found on the web, but for many newbies or those that feel most comfortable with a sit down and read…with “more” legit information,..a book is a good way to go.
“The book can be used to hold down loose papers on your desk.”
and yesterday there was a post about freelanceswitch not being funny. that’s pretty funny.
With these types of books, my first question is usually: can I find the same or better information on a good blog? I haven’t looked yet, but I’m guessing it’s a yes.
Thanks for the review, Kevin. I almost bought this book yesterday, but now I’ll save my money for a better option. Anyone know when Collis’ book is due out? Any other recommendations on learning to create WordPress themes?
Great post – greatly appreciated!!
I appreciate this review. I am currently working on a few side projects that I will be utilizing WordPress for. I am in the initial stages of creating the designs/layouts and was hoping to find a good WordPress book that covers theming and the other aspects of WordPress, but at a more advanced level. I was thinking about picking up this book, however, plan to save my money. I agree that having a book that stays focused and goes into a bit more detail rather than staying high-level would be a really good resource to have.
Good thing I didn’t buy this book then. I was thinking about it for some time, but found the codex on wordpress.org more usefull.
@serj: thanks for that. is EXACTLY what i want. i’ll play w/ the WP i’ve installed serverside on the Mac.
Oh, I have this book too. The sponsor just sent me this book and they ask for a review. It is a nice book!
I turn the review into a contest to giveaway 2 copy of the book in PDF.
@serj: Thanks for recommending my tutorial
Teleporting is a balancing act for us. ,
thisis great theme, thanks for theme.