One of the things I love about what I do and the field I work in is that I can create things that make my job easier. I can save and reuse snippets or clips of code. I can create Photoshop, OmniGraffle, or Campaign Monitor templates. We (Interactive Creatives & Developers) are similar to primitive Humans: we create tools to make our lives easier – it’s exciting and it’s fun.
I use WordPress to build a lot of the websites I make. It’s a great platform and after years of working with it I feel at home with it. My work flow creating sites with WordPress usually consists of 2 steps:
1) Functionality/Development
2) Concept/Design
Some people suggest finding a WordPress theme that’s close to what you are trying to create and build off of it. I disagree and find that taking that route usually results in unseen issues due to an unfamiliarity with the code. So I prefer to start developing and writing mark up from my own blank theme. This theme is a modified Sandbox theme. I’ve stripped it down further, created PHP includes for common elements, cleared the stylesheet (and added browser resets), changed most of the ID’s to Classes, and enhanced the functions.php file.
By using this theme it increases my productivity and ensures that the code that is written is used and is necessary. No need to have a bunch of code that is never executed.
Feel free to use this starting theme for you own projects and if you have any feedback, recommendations or comments feel free to email me!
Download here: Way Too Good Blank Theme.