Commercial WordPress themes have to be ready to handle thousands of use-cases, but your custom theme doesn’t. Reducing a theme to its essential components – index.php, style.css, and functions.php (plus screenshot.png) – gets your design into the browser as quickly as possible and allows for rapid prototyping based on client feedback. It’s also an easy way for beginners to start developing with WordPress, without getting lost in dozens of files.
Prerequisites
We’ll be converting a HTML & CSS-based design into a WordPress theme, so basic knowledge of code can be helpful but is not required. No PHP knowledge necessary.