Custom WordPress Theme Design

When I “meet” prospective WordPress clients I often get asked the same questions, so I decided to do a little Q&A where I interview myself and post the answers in the hopes that they can get to know me a little better before they hire me to create their custom WordPress theme.

Q: Where are you located?
A: On Main Street in a small town in South Georgia - just North of the Florida border. The web development company that I co-founded in 2000 was sold a couple of years ago and we decided to move back to the old home town so that our children ( boy 6, girl 1.5 ) could get to know their extended family.

Q: Do you just do WordPress themes?
A: The short answer is yes, custom WordPress development is what I do day in and day out for a living. I also own a small store on the square here on Main Street but custom WordPress theme creation is what pays my bills and what I spend the vast majority of my professional time doing.

Q: What is your WordPress theme development process?
A: I’ll get some general info from the client such as suggested color schemes, colors to avoid, styles or sites that the client likes, number of columns, etc. I’ll do a mock up and the client tells me what he likes, doesn’t like, wants changed, etc. I don’t mind making changes, going back to the drawing board, whatever is needed within reason.

Eventually we get to a design that gets approved. I then cut it up and build a template on a staging site. Once we agree that the test site looks good we’ll settle up and I’ll zip up the theme and send it to the client so that he can install it on his installation of WordPress. If a client needs assistance setting up the theme I am happy to help with that as well.

All the WordPress themes that I create are valid xhtml with css layout assuring that my clients sites are created with the latest web standards, are highly accessible, and render correctly on the vast majority of platforms and browsers.

Q: Why WordPress?
A: WordPress is what you use when you want to create a dynamic website that is standards compliant, easy to use, and relatively simple to customize. While WordPress may not be the right solution for a huge enterprise, it is more than capable of managing the vast majority of web sites on the interweb. It seems to me that it is the right tool for the job most of the time.

Q: How long have you been doing this?
A: I have been creating custom WordPress themes for 3 years, I have been creating websites professionally, non-stop, for 14 years.

Q: What is the turn around time for a custom WordPress theme?
A: This fluctuates based on my workload, but the current timeframe is 14-17 days.

Q: Can you host my WordPress site for me?
A: Sure, and it will be hosted on the same machine that I host my own sites on so you can be assured that if there is a problem I will address it asap. I do hosting for WordPress clients for $45/year.

If you have any additional questions feel free to use the comments form below and I’ll answer and ad them to this Q&A.