Darcy Paterson Blog Building a theme from scratch
Building a theme from scratch
By [email protected] on August 9th, 2020
I’m building a new theme. It’s a lot of work. Here’s the plan.
It begins by identifying who the theme is for. In this case, it’s for portfolio managers, investment advisors, wealth advisors, and/or accountants. The type of people who have small businesses handling money.
Knowing who this is for helps set a direction and tone for the design. These businesses need to communicate they’re trustworthy. A good reputation is mandatory. The color palette, the typography, the margin space, the written copy, the functionality and everything that goes into a website work to achieve that goal.
Here’s an early version of a blog post page. You can see how I’m beginning to work out what types of color to use, what kind of fonts, the spacing and more.
These drafts aren’t set in stone and evolve as I add more content and pages. Since different pages have different kinds of content, it’s normal to reconsider things like button colors. You can see how the button colors and font properties are different.
Buttons are just one of many components that make up a design. Like other components, button design is deceptively complicated. Here are two articles that explore what makes a good button. The first, at Invision and the second at UX planet.
If you’re not in design, then these are probably going to bore you. However, even by quickly scrolling through the articles, you’ll see just how much thought goes into something so simple.
I’ll have more to share as I continue to create this theme. Stay up to date by bookmarking my site. Just hit Control + D on your keyboard to bookmark.